Hey there, everybody. Recent joiner who’s been lurking. I have been searching the posts here and gotten some great info from them, but I’ve now got some questions of my own. Hopefully, they’re ones that others have and they might benefit from the thread, as well.
TL;DR: I feel like I need more skills to apply for new positions, and I don’t know which skills to learn or the best places to cultivate them that an employer would recognize as legitimate.
I am currently working as a Data Analyst (though that title is a reach, you’ll see why below) since Spring of 2022. It’s my first corporate position, though not close to my first work experience, and I have advanced very quickly. I am in line for my second promotion right now, depending on the completion of some goals. The trouble is, this company fucking sucks. It’s a mess at every level. I am one of the most competent people on my team “data analytics” wise, and some of these people have been here for the better part of a decade. I really don’t say that to make myself sound like some sort of savant, but to highlight just how poor the standards of quality and skill are. Our R&D department is basically one guy whose file organization is about as clear as muck. All it took to be a walk-on was some creativity and a VERY baseline understanding of computers.
All of this to say that I do not have the same industry skills as other data analysts. My team is really pigeon-holed in the scope of what we do. Without giving away too much detail, it’s basically just bioinformatics quality assurance. So the softwares I now know, and the processes I have learned, are largely industry and company specific. I opted to teach myself Excel macro construction to make my own life easier. I’m only one of two out of 15 people on my team that knows how to make them. All of it is self study. I can’t go to anyone at my company, because they don’t know anything, either. They don’t even “allow” us to use SQL, and the data we produce is far, far too large for Excel.
I am currently finishing up the Google Data Analytics Certificate on Coursera. But I don’t feel that any of it is enough when I read these job ads. There’s another course that follows this one, but I’m thinking that I’d rather pivot to data science. That just leaves me with more uncertainty on which skills to invest in.
All this to ask: once I’ve completed the Data Analytics cert, what do next? Those boot camps don’t seem worth it price wise, and I imagine that workforce is very saturated. I have considered applying to graduate programs for bioinformatics, but I’m on the fence about returning to academia unless I can get some sort of grant, and that’s so competitive these days I’m not sure if I will outshine other candidates. I have some experience in JS. I am learning Python, R, and SQL. I have ordered the book “Automate the Boring Stuff” for my python learning, too.
Once I decide what to do, it’ll be easy. I’m very good at learning these things and solving my own issues as I learn (which is most computer shit anyways). The problem I have is that I just don’t feel like I have a good read on the industry outside of the very small corner I’m in.
Thank you in advance. Sorry that got so long-winded.
My advice is to just apply and if it takes a while then keep learning and practicing what you know. I was in a similar position and decided to learn python to automate stuff in my admin job. The job was fairly data centric so it wasn’t long until I saw someone using pandas and I instantly knew I wanted to be an analyst. I spent a while learning pandas, then SQL and then dicked around with power bi a bit.
When I started applying for jobs I didn’t have much success at first but I stumbled on one which included tools I had no experience with but I applied anyway, not expecting anything but feeling desperate and hopeless at that point. Well, I heard back from this one and I ended up getting the job somehow. Now I use Alteryx, which I had never heard of, and Tableau, which I had never used. They must have seen that I was passionate and loved to learn, and we’re happy to take me on based on the potential I had. I rarely use python or pandas, occasionally SQL for basic stuff, so it was more the principles from learning these that were useful rather than the actual tools themselves.
I would recommend learning at least the basics of SQL and start learning tableau (by using tableau public). Most of the skills are transferable so learning the logic of one programming language and a bi tool will mean that you can pick up others fairly easily and employers understand this. If you are in excel a lot then learn how to write formulas and learn power query so you can practice joins and data cleansing.
So basically, get the fundamentals down and start applying, don’t spend forever trying to learn a million things because you think they are all essential. Apply for as many jobs as you can, even if you don’t know the tools they use, and practice and develop your skills while you are waiting.
I think that’s where I’m at. I just need to update the resume and start putting it out there while I work. I have done some work with Tableau, and I already see how much potential it has. I definitely have the least amount of experience with viz as my customers are all researchers or labs that want raw data.