Power BI Professional and certification: doing the same, with badges

During the past 14 years I have been working mainly as a BI Developer / Analyst, although in the first five years or so I strangely enough did not even realize that I was heading that 'career path'. After all, working with Excel and Power Query was just a 'paid hobby'. At some point, the realization came that my passion for BI was not just something to do on the side, and I started my own company. In the 10 years after that, I have been working for three of the biggest companies in the Netherlands on a wide variety of projects using Excel and PowerBI. Although it is not in my modest Dutch nature: I think I can say i'm a (Power) BI Professional by now.

Now the big question these days is: why would you get Power BI PI-300 certified as a Power BI professional?

That's exactly what my colleague and I asked ourselves for a long time. Our take into the certification track for a long time was that we "didn't have time for it" and "it would not add much" to our development. But after having a nice conversation with Rick de Groot, related to another topic on self education, my sentiment towards taking the PL-300 changed a bit.

This article conveys my personal sentiment towards the certifcation, advocating about an obtained certificate, and my experience as a professional in the process to getting the certification. Also, I am discussing a cerification guide book and a set of udemy test exams.

These were my main thoughts behind getting certified

• Why not? If all is well, it should not take that much time.
• It would force me to look at Power BI from a helicopter view again, which could show some parts that might have been previously unexplored or underdeveloped.
• In case a higher up manager in a (future) company that I work for decides certifications are obligatory, at least I came prepared.
• You get a badge which you can use on LinkedIN! (Wait, what?)

Should you advocate you now have PL-300?

Once you are a certified PL-300 Power BI Data analyst, you are given options through Credly to place an official badge on your LinkedIN or other social media channels. But the question is if you even want to do so.

In my opinion, Power BI professionals are better off promoting themselves with their portfolio and work history first and foremost and not put the focus on the certification. This tells a lot more about acquired skillsets in my opinion. Especially after taking the exam myself this week, I fear there is only very little relation between being a skilled Power BI developer and having a PL-300 certification.

Even worse, putting the certification in the spotlight, might introduce the risk of becoming seen as a newbie. For example, I have been told once by a recruiter - word for word when discussing the topic of certification - that they would not take someone serious if they would promote themselves as certified BI developer too much, because: "great, can you tie your shoelaces as well?". The real question of course is here 'should you take this recruiter serious with this shallow reasoning', but its noteworthy nonetheless.

The process towards the PL-300 certification As a Power BI Professional

Let's start with the notion that below opinions are definately not applicable to new or not very experienced Power BI developers. Also, don't underestimate the exam, it's a waste of your 165 Euro. I would have even failed the test most likely if I would have attended without any preparation. But after some preparation, passing the PL-300 test wasn't that hard. Below are some do's and definately-skips

Don't spend hours and hours working through Microsoft Learn. I started here as a logical starting point, but very quickly realized it was not working for me. The movies, the labs, the long explanations: all very detailed and supported with great examples, but it started to feel like a waste of time. So I stopped this path.

Don't take the book "Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst Certification Guide" all too serious. Although you can read incredibly fast through the book (also because of the large amount of supporting images), it will leave you with a false sense of preparation. I think the book is complete regarding the high level discussion of functionalities, but it lacks depth on all fronts. But the worst is that the practice exams in the book are of a much, much lower level of complexity than the actual PL-300 exam, up to the point that i started to wonder 'will the next question ask if the right chart for the usecase is a pie chart, cake chart, chocolate chart or icecream chart?'.

There was something positive about the book as well though: the practice exam painfully pointed out to me the fact that I did not know at all (by heart) how all the power bi and power query menu sections and subsections were called. So when asked 'in which (sub) section can you find this-and-that functionality' I usually did not know at all. In real life, I simply click on the right buttons, and than it works. I prepared for it, but luckily I was not asked any question similar to this during the PL-300, but I cannot guarantee you will not be asked.

Please do take practice exams. My colleague and I took from Udemy the following set, for less than 20 Euros each: PL-300 Practice Tests (Microsoft Power BI Data Analyst), from author Ravikiran Srinivasulu. After taking the PL-300 exam, I know for sure that if you are able to pass the practice exams of Ravikiran, you will definately also pass the PL-300 exam. Ravikiran claims the test set is slightly more difficult than the PL-300 and I think he succeeded in that.

In my case, in all honesty, I failed the first test exam. And the second. Basically, I learned for the tests to read carefully. And that is also something you should do in the PL-300 exam. It is extremely easy to make a mistake if you underestimate the exam and do not read carefully.

The test exam forces you to think very well about all aspects touched in the PL-300, and it excels in giving you explanations about good and bad answers, which allows you to level up parts of your knowledge needed in the exam.

Please do take note of the time during the PL-300 exam. The questions are fairly elaborate and take time. Practice time management using the test exams.

In conclusion, I'm glad I decided to get the certification. In the end we spend per person around 20 hours on it, including the actual exam. Worth it? I dont know, time will tell. But the badge sure is shiny.

#powerbi #pl300 #certificate