Google vs IBM Data Analyst Certificate - BEST Certificate for Data Analysts

Key Takeaways

as google has moved forward with now accepting certificates as a degree equivalent for introductory level data analyst jobs many companies are following in suit to also do the same because of this future data analysts need to understand their options when it comes to obtaining these certificates what up dead nerds i'm luke a data analyst and my channel is all about tech and skills for data science and i recently came out with a video that did an overview of the google data analytics certificate and there was a lot of subscribers asking the question hey should i be going with the google data analytics certificate or should i be going with the ibm data analyst certificate and for good reason why they're comparing these two these are two of the most popular options on the market right now in this video today we're going to be looking at these two options specifically looking at a brief introduction to both of the different certificates from there the similarities of the course offerings what are the differences which there's surprisingly actually a lot of differences between the two and then finally we'll wrap it up all at the end with my recommendation on whether she'd go in with the google certificate or the ibm certificate so with that let's jump right in let's look at a brief overview of the google data analytics professional certificate for this this course is over 260 hours of course-based material primarily taught by data analysts at google the content provided in this focuses on data cleaning problem solving critical thinking and data visualization with the majority of video content being in the form of talking head videos so you can actually see the data analyst that's solving this problem during the course you get to use a multitude of different tools which we'll get into and you'll be able to apply what you've learned through application and a capstone project the thing that i really like about this google certificate is that the majority of time is actually spent on setting you up for success for looking for a job after you obtain the certificate so they give you help with job preparation interview tips and improving your online presence and then following completion you also get access to google's network of over 130 different employers that are looking for people with this certificate next let's look at the ibm data analyst professional certificate and for this this is about a 140 hour course and it's taught by those that work in data science so not just data analysts themselves and focusing on skills like wrangling mining and visualizing data along with soft skills such as storytelling similar to the google certificate it has video content along with practical exercises that allow you to practice and apply the skills that you've learned throughout the course and then also apply it in a capstone project the majority of the video content is text and picture base so this may be better for those that are more visual learners also this ibm certificate comes in multiple different languages where the google is only available in english although this ibm certificate is slightly older than the google certificate they are actively adding to this and they've even recently added a lot of different modules to this now let's look at some similarities between these two certificates overall they're both offered by coursera and so the cost of them is going to be the same coursera operates on a subscription-based model so you pay 39 u.s dollars per month if you're in another region in the world you need to log in via the link below in order to actually see what the cost is depending on what country you're located in one thing to note is there are a lot of different financial aid opportunities available so you need to make sure that you're looking into this for both of these certificates you get a earnable certificate that you can post to your social media after completion they're 100 online you can complete them as necessary with a flexible schedule they are aimed for those beginner levels so no degree or prior experience is required you have what it takes to go forward and take this certificate the ibm certificate is slightly shorter to complete than the google certificate and also the ibm one has more subtitles available in different languages these two options are very popular and they've even received pretty high ratings with both of them getting 4.7 stars all right now let's look at the differences between these two certificates for this i actually went into each of the certificates themselves went into audit mode and worked through some of the practice problems looked at the video content and looked at forward at some of the material that was going to be coming from it so this is how i gathered a lot of the differences between the two certificates the first major item to cover is the learning approach taken and i think you need to understand this because you may be more suited for a certain learning approach for google they have primarily data analysts teaching the course so those data analysts are showing you what they are experiencing in their problems and what problems they're solving on a daily basis for the ibm course it was very much more focused on the knowledge required to be a data analyst and although it wasn't taught by a lot of data analysts they had a lot of people experience in this field teaching and showcasing the knowledge necessary to succeed in this area now let's look at the career outcomes what's going to happen to your career after you get this certificate for google since this certificate was recently released they don't have many statistics around it but for the google professional certificates in general they're saying that about 82 percent of these certificate holders report a positive career outcome like a new job promotion or a raise within six months for ibm the certificate has been around longer but they don't have a similar statistic what they do have is this where it says that 38 percent started a new career after completing the specialization and 12 percent got a pay increase or promotion overall i think it's good to understand these two different or three different statistics but it's really hard to compare them as they're not necessarily comparable in what the values they give you are a number that you should be looking at though is how many people are actually enrolled in this certificate for google there have about 52 000 different people enrolled in it whereas ibm only has 9000 and it's been around longer now let's look at the time utilized for each of the different tools within the courses i put together this table that compares the different tools used in the certificates and also does a rough estimate of the hours used note this is a very rough estimate so don't take this for word it may be more or less depending on your skill level so just going through this for spreadsheets google is obviously going to use their proprietary tool google sheets whereas ibm's using microsoft excel i'm pretty much indifferent between the two i think either is fine for sql they're google once again is using their proprietary tool of bigquery whereas ibm's using theirs of ibm cloud for both of these similar you're using sql code and you're learning that so i don't really think there's a difference although i do like that google is spending more time on sql for programming google is going to be using r for this and also rstudio they're also going to set you up for success on how to use kaggle for ibm they're focusing on python and then also teaching you how to use jupyter notebooks one other thing is that i want to note with ibm is that the python is the majority of the content in this ibm course moving into visualization google uses one of the top popular options which is tableau and spends a good bit of time introducing you to this ibm uses cognos and as a data analyst i've never heard of it or even really used it so i can't really say anything about cognos moving on to the other category this is where google is spending a lot of time with setting you up for success after the certificate to make sure you're ready to search and get a job ibm doesn't have this much content available on that or as much introduction material overall looking at the total we're seeing that google has about 260 hours of course material where ibm has 140. and the last difference to call out is the capstone project for the google capstone project it one it hasn't been released yet it will be released in in the us and april of 2021 but for this project you're able to select your own data set and then build a capstone project that you find interesting to you for the ibm capstone project which i think is still good that ibm has it it makes you use a certain data set and then build a capstone project based on that finally let's look at what my top recommendation is between these two different certifications and i want to start with this both of these options are great options you can't go wrong with either but i'm going to just go with one and i'm going to call the reasons why the certification that i'm going to recommend is the google data analytics certificate and here's why the first one being is that it has a network established of employers that are already going to accept this certificate in place of a degree equivalent so that's number one number two it is taught by data analysts so you actually get to hear from data analysts and see what their problems are they're experiencing on a daily basis three it has and it's geared towards varying levels of data science so if you're not a beginner but you have some more experience it has the ability to do a fast track to test out of certain areas and to move on to the next section so you don't have to waste your time covering that and then finally as i covered before that capstone so the google certificate lets you pick your own data set and use that data set to build your capstone and then from there you can actually showcase it in your portfolio and use that to get your job i wouldn't completely discount the ibm data analyst certificate it's still a great option and it's really great for these options specifically for those that are those non-native english speakers it comes in a variety of languages and you have subtitles available in other languages if you're also primarily looking at to learn python this course is really geared towards python and developing your skills in this area so this is a great option for that and then finally if you're going to be working with the ibm cloud a lot of the tools used in this are focused towards learning that ibm cloud so as always if you got value out of this video smash that like button if you haven't seen my video before on the overview of the google data analytics certificate be sure to check that out and with that i'll see you in the next [Music] one [Music] you