SAS Certification: A Comprehensive 7 Step Guide

Introduction

SAS is an open-source data management tool that helps organizations analyze data and develop data results to provide accurate decisions. The Statistical Analysis System (SAS) has been immensely useful in industries like pharma, banking, and more, highlighting the value of SAS certification.

What’s the importance of SAS certification? A recent analysis by Indeed.com has highlighted the increase in demand for people with SAS certification, which has risen by 31% in 2020. 

If you want to know how to get SAS certification, this blog would be of immense help. We will highlight the following points that will focus on the scope of SAS certification. If you’re wondering what is SAS certification cost, keep reading. Let’s explore the Statistical Analysis System Certification (SAS certification full form) in detail.

In this article let us look at:

1. SAS Certification Program
2. Who Can do SAS Certification?
3. How much does the SAS Certification Cost?
4. How to Register for the SAS certification exam?
5. What are the Benefits of SAS certification?
6. What are the Career Opportunities after SAS certification?
7. Which Resources would be the best to go forward with?

1. SAS Certification Program

The SAS global certification program is a detailed certification course, and it includes the SAS certification test, which is categorized in the below-mentioned fields:

A) Foundation Tools Certification

The Base SAS certification is also known as ‘The SAS Certified Base Programmer for SAS 9 credential’ for beginners, and it requires the knowledge as well as experience for SAS version 9.3. The following skills are evaluated: Getting data in and out of SAS, manipulating and transforming data, creating summary reports using SAS procedures, combining SAS data sets, identifying and correcting data, syntax, and programming logic errors.

B) Advanced Analytics Certification

For this SAS certification, the programmer must be well aware of advanced DATA step programming statements, solving complex problems, writing SAS macros, and interpreting SAS SQL code. 

C) Business Intelligence and Analytics Certification

This SAS certification is suitable for programmers looking to gather, run, and manipulate data from various resources using SAS tools to make informed business decisions. The exams available in this are SAS Certified BI Content Developer for SAS 9, Visual Business Analyst, and Visual Modeling Specialist. 

D) Data Management Administration Certification 

This SAS certification is useful to programmers into the administrative field. It performs activities like managing accounts of users, performing a backup, monitoring systems, and completing other administrative tasks like setting up folders.

E) JMP Certification 

SAS JMP certification applies to programmers that will make use of visualization and analytics to provide results. Candidates would make use of messages, functions, and build a scripting framework for a thorough representation of data.

F) Partners Certification

The SAS certification exam validates your knowledge and grasp in the respective verticals, and only after getting qualified in it, you can get a SAS certification. We will get into the SAS certification details further.

2. Who Can do SAS Certification?

The eligibility for SAS certification for Base Programmers is to have at least 8 months of experience, and for the other SAS certifications, a minimum experience of 3 years is compulsory.

3. How much does the SAS Certification Cost?

The exam can be taken from the comfort of your home or at SAS certification exam locations. SAS certification exam fee is USD 180 (this is for the base SAS certification fees). If you are a student, you might also get a 50% discount on the SAS certification exam cost. Depending on the exam you appear for, the SAS certification price changes accordingly.

4. How to Register for the SAS certification exam?

All the details regarding the registration and SAS certification exam time can be gathered from its website, which has the latest schedule, updated SAS certification exam fees, and other useful details.

Students who want to appear for SAS certification review courses can avail it. Still, the certification prerequisites are that they should have attended ‘SAS Programming 1: Essentials’, and ‘SAS Programming 2: Data Manipulation Techniques’ before the review. It is also helpful in appearing for SAS Base Programming for SAS 9 exam.

5. What are the Benefits of SAS certification?

Naturally, questions like, ‘Is SAS certification worth it?’, or ‘Does SAS certification help someone climb up the career ladder?’ are very common if you are planning on getting a SAS certification. But, numerous reasons prove the SAS certification value.

1. Once you are a SAS certified professional, you are well versed in big data and AI-based topics that provide you the best chances of embarking on a similar career path.
2. After becoming a SAS certified professional, your salary would have a steady increase along with your skill level. Salaries range more than $52,000/year.
3. You will get a certified recognition that provides electronic verification. This authenticity can be displayed, and suitable work can be demanded accordingly.
4. Employers looking for SAS certified experts can gain direct access to the best in the industry and get their business issues resolved by you.
5. You can be a part of the community and gain extra knowledge throughout your journey, before and after appearing for the exams. 
6. SAS finds excellent applications in business by providing predictive as well as Business Intelligence based uses. SAS is also useful in calculating the potential risk of a decision.
7. The in-depth processing of business data is of great help in making suitable decisions for the organization’s senior executives. This can be easily done through complex event processing, data mining, benchmarking, process mining, etc. 

6. What are the Career Opportunities after SAS Certification?

After the SAS certification, programmers can opt to work as SAS Analysts, Data Managers, Customer Analytics Manager, Data Scientists, Statisticians, Data Warehouse Specialists, or Platform Administrators. The healthcare industry sees various SAS applications for creating safe and clinically researched drugs for medical development.

7. Which Resources would be the best to go forward with?

SAS website is a great resource as it provides online classes and the entire preparation material. However, if you wish to gain a complete understanding of concepts like data manipulation, data visualization, data processing as well as want to build proficiency in tools like R, Python, Tableau, Pig, Hadoop, and more, you can check out Jigsaw Academy’s 6-month-long online Full Stack Data Science program. It is an industry-recommended and validated course, aligned to the SSC NASSCOM curriculum.

Conclusion

After getting a detailed view of the benefits of SAS certification, you would have gotten the answer to your confusion. With the requirements arising in the industry, the value of certified SAS professionals is increasing. Proficiency in Data Science and Analytics will make you stand out from the rest in today’s data-driven world.