If you’re ready to become a great data analyst, the five skills I’ll teach you in this video
will help you really stand out. I’ve spent over a decade working as an analyst and hiring
analysts, so I know all the things that hiring managers and analysts themselves are hoping
for in their newest employee.
If you want to really shine above all the other candidates, stay tuned til the end where
I’ll give you a bonus 6th tip that really sets you apart from everyone else.
I’m Jen with The Career Force. We help smart, career minded professionals stand out in today’s
job market. If you want all the best career advice, subscribe to this YouTube channel
where we post new videos twice a week.
The first skill you need are math or statistical skills. Whether you’ve got a degree or you’ve
gone through training, you really need to have a solid foundation here. While there
are lots of different programs you’ll use as an analyst, at the end of the day, you
need to understand the logic behind them. That’s why you’re being paid. Anyone can
use a system, but you’re really bringing the expertise of how it works behind the scenes.
So have a solid foundation in regression analysis, in predictive tools, and you can study these
on your own. It’s fantastic if you have a degree. It will probably help you get a
job faster, but you can also learn a lot of this online for free. Or pick up an old statistics
textbook and read that, practice what’s in there. You’ll grow your skills and really
stand out in this area.
The next skill you’ll need as a data analyst or data scientist are some sort of programming
skills. This is really going to range depending on what the exact position is, and certainly
in a data science role, you’ll need a lot more programming skills than in an analyst
role. Here, look at all of the different options there are. There’s SAS, which is used primarily
in the medical industry and by a fair number of large companies, so that’s a definite
option. There’s great online training. They have fantastic resources. This is a skill
I actually taught myself for the most part when I started as an analyst. Go out there,
look at the free options that are there, and google it. You’ll find a lot of information.
The other two popular programming languages are Python and R. Both of these should be
fairly cheap or free for you to learn. Again, tons of resources online, so google it. You’ll
find something. At the very least, practicing some SQL can definitely help. It shows you
know how to talk in the programming languages, and you know how to take a problem, work through
it, and at the end of it come out with a result that provides some benefit. Any programming
language is great. Tailor the language you’re learning, especially if you’re focused on
a new one, based on the type of companies you want to be hired at. If you’re going
into the medical industry, definitely have SAS. With other industries, any of these are
great, and you can probably find out which companies are using different systems that
are out there, whether it’s Python, R, SAS, or one of the many other options. Just by
doing a little checking on the company. Most of them get involved in convererences or write
papers, they send people from their teams to the conferences or to write papers or speak
on them. Do a little looking, you’ll be able to find out the company you want to get
hired at what they’re using.
The third skill you’re going to need, and for me this may be the top skill that any
analyst needs is problem solving skills. I can work with a new analyst who doesn’t
know a software or programming language. I can’t work with an analyst who has all of
the math background, but none of the practical application. In my view, 90% of analytics
is knowing which question to ask. If you’re asking the wrong question, you’re probably
going to find an answer, but it may not be helpful. Think about thinking through logically
different problems that you encounter. You almost need to look at what solution you’re
going for, where you are, and what are the steps you need to get there. A lot of this
is like doing a math proof. You take the things you know to get to the things that you don’t
know. Those math skills will come in handy, but overall, how do you go about solving problems?
The internet is a fantastic resource for this. I often turn to Google to help me answer questions
when I just don’t know what the next step to analyzing a thing is. The beauty of knowing
how you’re going to solve the problem or knowing your approach is if you don’t know
how to program that specific thing, once you have something to look for, there’s probably
someone else that’s faced that problem that you can already find the answer online or
you can go to one of the many forums and groups or different experts or the company themselves
that puts out the software and ask them, “How do I do this specific thing?” I’ve found
people are extremely willing to help, and since a lot of us analysts really are
kind of enjoying nerding out on the math side and the problem solving side, you’ll definitely be able to
find someone who wants to give you a hand.
My 4th out of the top 5 skills for data analysts is data visualization. This is becoming more
the expectation than the exception. It used to be relatively rare, or normal at least
to use excel for visualization, and now it’s really popular. Think about everything you
see online. Tons of stuff is visual. A lot of people who don’t understand the data
and the science part of what you’re talking about may understand a good visual. Actually,
if you’re doing a good job they will understand a good visual. The baseline to get started
if you don’t have skills here is use excel. There are lot of different options here just
in the native tool, or Google Sheets you can try something like that. Take some different
data sets. Start making different graphs. Do bar charts, line charts, do combinations.
See how simply that you can tell the story. It’s really difficult to take a complicated
topic and make it simple, and that’s really what you’re being asked to do when you visualize
data.
Beyond that, there are again plenty of free resources and companies use all different
sorts of versions. You could learn Power BI. You can download that for free, and it’s
got some awesome features. Tableau is another great resource that you can use. If you’re
really into programming, you don’t need any of these. You’ll just be able to code
visualizations, and that’s great too. SAS again if you’re working for
a large company, they’ve got some fantastic tools, both with their SAS visual analytics
and within some of the other tools that they have. Take some time learning how to visualize
data. The way I like to look at it is, “What would I do that would make my mom understand
this?” My mom doesn’t necessarily understand analytics. She’s a smart lady, but I can
talk to her and I can communicate information about topics that are really complicated in
a clear way that she understands. When you’re in the business, chances are there are going
to be some other analysts around, but you’re going to be dealing with a lot of people that
have a high level knowledge of the subject, especially as things go further up the chain.
If you have things going up to the CEO or C level in general, they’re going to have
some idea of what’s going on, but you need to really break it down, make it super clear
for them to understand 1. What’s going on but 2. What’s the impact? What’s the insight
they should take away? And great visualization does exactly that. It tells them what’s
the insight they need to know from the data, and what the conclusion is that they should
draw ,so that they can take smart, well informed actions that affect the rest of the business.
The 5th skill you’ll need to really be an excellent analyst is communication skills.
I think this is one of the top reasons why my career grew as fast as it did. Especially
if you’re looking to move into managerial roles, or even higher levels within a company,
you need to know how to communicate. It’s really not that much different than a data
visualization, but this case I’m talking about not just the graphics, but how do you
talk with people, how well are you able to write and articulate what you need to say?
This is super important. You need to be able to be clear with people. Work on your communication
skills. Make sure you’re able to break down technical information really simply and explain
it. You can be the most fantastic technical programmer. You could be the most skilled
person in the world, and if you can’t communicate it, it’s really going to hurt your career.
Sure we hear about the people that write apps and programs and make millions, maybe you’ll
be that person, but for the average analyst just being able to communicate well. And I
say analyst but really the average person, communication skills go a long way to help
you grow your career.
Those are my top five areas for data analysts to have skills in. Which area do you need
to focus on to continue to grow in your career? Leave it in the comments below. I’m really
curious which of these areas stand out to you.
Now I’ll give you my bonus tip. This is the thing that will really make you stand
out, especially if you’re applying for a job, and you’re on par with other candidates.
And that’s, know the industry. You can be amazing technically, you can have good communication
skills, you can have great math skills, but knowing the industry makes you really valuable
and saves a lot of training time for people. You’re more likely to be able to do effective
analysis if you understand what’s going on. Know the competitors. Know the type of
work that’s going on. If you’re in the automotive industry, know how horse power
relates to torque or engine size. If you’re in the software world, know how processing
power relates to other factors. All of these things help you become much more effective
as an analyst. What I’ve found is when people don’t know the industry, it takes them
a while to be effective, but they also usually draw these conclusions that they are so proud
of and they find so amazing, and are completely meaningless to the business because they’re
connecting things we already know are directly connected. Know the industry. This will really
make you stand out, especially if you’re going for a particular job or want to be in
a particular industry in general.
Let me tell you how I did this for my personal career. My first job I was working in an automotive
role with a diesel truck company. I knew absolutely nothing about these vehicles. When I got the
call for the interview, the first thing I did was I talked to my uncle who was a diesel
truck mechanic. I went to the library, I started Googling. I wanted to at least know the basics.
I think that also goes a long way to show your interviewer that you really are invested,
you really do want this job. It makes you seem really authentic and curious and that’s
a fantastic thing. When I was a hiring manager and I knew people spent the time, it was obvious.
And it was really obvious the people that learned the bare minimum before they came
into the interview because they usually said something that didn’t make any sense that
they would have known with 30 seconds of Googling.
Are you ready to transition to an analyst career or maybe you’re ready to take the
next step in your own analytics career. If you want my tips for landing your next job,
check out the cheat sheet that I’ve linked in the description box below. It’ll give
you the top items you need to focus on to land your next job. If you enjoyed this video
I hope you subscribe and come back and check out our other videos. I cover everything related
to careers and especially analytics and technical careers because that’s where I’ve got
experience and that’s where I think we have a lot to connect on. If you want to know more
about me personally and my experience, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I’d be
happy to talk with you about how we can grow your analytics career.