Hi Reddit,
I'm not 100% sure this is the best place for this question but thought it'd be worth a shot.
My wife has been looking for a Data Analyst position for several months. She does not have prior experience in any tech roles and is transitioning from being a High School math teacher.
I'm sure many of you can imagine how difficult it is to switch careers, and I'd like to see if anyone in the industry has some advice on how someone with no prior experience can maximize their chances of getting an interview for an Associate Data Analyst position.
Below are some of the things she has tried thus far:
-
Obtained a Master's Degree in Statistics
-
Worked on basic prjects for her portfolio in Codecademy/Github
-
Taken courses on things like SQL, Python, Tableau
-
Tailored her Resume to include keywords recruiters would look for based on the average Data Analyst position
-
Set up alerts for Data Analyst on popular sites (Indeed, LinkedIn, Glassdoor, etc.)
-
Attempted to leverage personal connections with tech friends
-
Attended job fairs
I'm biased of course but I am 100% certain she is going to be able to knock this out of the park if she can just get some interviews. Does anyone have a suggestion on something we may not have thought of? How can she stand out to recruiters without having X years of experience in the field already?
I was laid off from my job as an attorney back in November. Prior to the lay off, I considered switching to a data analysis/programming/coding job since the legal job market is oversaturated, and now seems like a perfect time to transition since I can focus on learning a new skill.
However, I’m worried the switch to tech may not pan out though due to the recent tech layoffs, and I have had trouble finding another attorney job. I’ve been applying to jobs daily since the lay off, and I’ve been teaching myself how to code. I plan to start a boot camp once I’ve gotten a little more proficient at coding.
Is it a bad idea to switch to tech in 2023? Any advice is welcome.
I’m doing basically exactly what you’re considering right now. I have 10 years high level sales experience and was laid off at the end of the year. I was initially interviewing for other sales roles but stopped applying for them entirely and focused on completing the Google course, learning SQL and Tableau, and putting a portfolio together.
I got through the Google course in about 2 weeks, spending about 8 hours a day watching videos, taking notes, studying. I was learning more SQL on the side through YouTube videos and fully immersed myself by even watching SQL TikTok videos.
Took me about a week to put together a decent portfolio with a couple of Tableau dashboards, a SQL cleaning project in an Azure notebook, and a quick project I did in R for the Google capstone.
I started applying for data analyst jobs Monday last week and haven’t had much luck. I’ve probably submitted 150+ applications and received 2 calls from recruiters from the same recruiting company about 2 different jobs at big companies in the domain my experience is in. Both screenings seemed promising but haven’t heard from any hiring managers yet.
But you know what? When I was applying for sales jobs (where I have experience) it was the same rate.
The one thing keeping me going is - earlier this year I had just started applying to analyst jobs in my domain out of the blue without knowing anything other than Excel. I made it through 3 rounds of interviews and even got to the technical round. I didn’t get that job but I keep reminding myself that if I could get to that round without knowing anything, then I can definitely get to that round now. And when I do get to that round now, I’ll crush it.
My goal is to have a job by my birthday at the end of June. That’s about as long as I can go without a job. At this rate, I’m a bit discouraged but it’s only been a week and I plan to keep at it. I have a hard time believing I won’t find a job in that time span if I continue at the rate at which I’m applying. I’ll re-evaluate in a month or two - at which point I may find some form of income to get me by.
I say go for it if you have the income to sustain for a long period of time.
How many years of experience do you have? Also which country are you looking for a job in? What's the level of programming you've done before?
It would be a bit difficult to land a job in tech right away with no background given the current situation of the market. But it's not impossible. If you're looking to get employed quickly then it would be better to apply to jobs you have got prior experience into.
Hi everyone, I will be graduating from Master of Statistics in a Canadian university this upcoming May, but I haven't had a job lined up before graduation, and I am starting to get nervous. I have tailored my resume and cover letter to include as many keywords from each job description as possible to pass the ATS, but still no luck. I have had several people from my university's career centre review and fix my resume too, but still no invitations. Some questions in mind:
-
What are the improvements I could add on my resume?
-
I wonder if unconscious bias is still a thing, because my surname does not sound like a name from North America, and that is another reason why I did not include my Bachelor information in my resume.
-
Should I put my skills and certifications at the top, or should the education section be written first?
Here are my suggestions:
-
Include your Bachelor's degree
-
You don't need any info under your Master's degree, you can share those details either in a cover letter or an interview.
-
Remove "expected graduation" and just put "May 2023", hiring managers will understand what this means
-
I would suggest putting the same amount of bullets under each job description to make things flow better. Can you do two bullets per job? I'll include an example:
Teaching Assistant
-
Provide support and assistance to individual students and small groups to increase their understanding of difficult materials
-
Successfully increased test scores by 20%
Math and Physics Tutor
-
Offered professional tutoring services to wide range of students from Grade 4 - 12
-
Provided services through a people-first approach with a focus on increasing results and instilling confidence in students
Hopefully those help. Some more suggestions:
-
I would remove "Canada" after the company name.
-
Your information in the bottom section of your resume is good but it looks a little too busy. I would recommend spacing them out more. If you need to go onto two pages, go onto two pages.
-
Under your Data Analyst role, the first point has "automated" twice. I would suggest fixing that sentence.
Overall you're a good candidate for Data Analytics jobs, you have good experience. What I will say is that companies in Canada don't typically hire this far in advance. You aren't graduating for another 4 months. You can still certainly apply, but I wouldn't expect you to get anything that starts in May/June at the beginning of February. I would suggest using this time to research companies you really want to work for and work on getting your foot in the door - go to events they may be hosting, follow them on their social media, sometimes they companies have general recruitment sessions, etc. Then closer to your graduation date, start applying again. Personally, I would start looking again around mid/end of April. You have lots of time. Good luck to you!
Are you authorized to work in Canada, or are you looking for sponsorship? It might not even be unconscious bias based on your name but intentional bias based on your visa status.
Welcome to the "How do I get into data analysis?" megathread
August 2023 Edition. A.K.A. Mods Gone Wild On Vacation!
Rather than have 100s of separate posts, each asking for individual help and advice, please post your questions. This thread is for questions asking for individualized career advice:
“How do I get into data analysis?” as a job or career.
“What courses should I take?”
“What certification, course, or training program will help me get a job?”
“How can I improve my resume?”
“Can someone review my portfolio / project / GitHub?”
“Can my degree in …….. get me a job in data analysis?”
“What questions will they ask in an interview?”
Even if you are new here, you too can offer suggestions. So if you are posting for the first time, look at other participants’ questions and try to answer them. It often helps re-frame your own situation by thinking about problems where you are not a central figure in the situation.
For full details and background, please see the announcement on February 1, 2023.
Past threads
This is megathread #6.
Megathread #1 (February 2023): See past questions and answers.
Megathread #2 (March 2023): See past questions and answers.
Megathread #3 (April 2023): See past questions and answers.
Megathread #4 (May 2023): See past questions and answers.
Megathread #5 (June 2023): See past questions and answers.
Megathread #6 (July 2023): You can still visit and comment here! Lots of unanswered questions.
Useful Resources
Check out u/milwted’s excellent post, Want to become an analyst? Start here.
A Wiki and/or FAQ for the subreddit is currently being planned. Please reach out to us via modmail if you’re willing and able to help.
What this doesn't cover
This doesn’t exclude you from making a detailed post about how you got a job doing data analysis. It’s great to have examples of how people have achieved success in the field.
It also does not prevent you from creating a post to share your data and visualization projects. Showing off a project in its final stages is permitted and encouraged.
Need further clarification? Have an idea? Send a message to the team via modmail.
Seeking help with becoming a Data Analyst within 12 months. I plan on taking the Google DA course in April and do a detailed learning on these skills in this order: Excel>SQL>Tableau>Python>building projects. How do I divide my time? What resources can I use to learn?
Our org needs a new data analyst, so I wrote up a job description with the skillset I needed and passed it off to our HR director to do what she needed and post it. I didn't put any degree requirement on it, I put responsibilities and real tools the new hire would be expected to work with. It is a remote role. I started looking for the posting, but couldn't find it, so I asked for a copy because my LinkedIn was getting attention indicating it existed somewhere.
I expected this response if I had posted for a Data Scientist role, but I didn't. I posted for a Data Analyst.
She took it down. There were 255 applicants in less than 24 hours. She sifted through half of them, excluded those who weren't already authorized to work in the US and those who didn't show English proficiency through their resume, and then forwarded me 9. I don't know that the 9 was all of the viable candidates that remained, they did seem to be biased to areas we have a footprint in the US, and I had just requested a sample.
Of those 9, 3 were absolutely new to the field. They put a data analytics certificate, but didn't even list which of the languages indicated on the posting they already knew. They didn't list any projects, just their previous work history (which was at best adjacent to the field). I looked up their certificates quickly and then moved on. List your technical skills - I'm not looking for "good attitude, can learn", I want to know how you've gotten yourself started in ways that are relevant to what I need. Your certificate only matters in what it taught you, not that you have it.
I had 4 that were on point. They had the skills I had listed and then a few, and they either had relevant work experience or a history of coursework (online or through universities) that showed they would have a good framework to start from.
Two were overqualified. Their experience was legitimately as data engineers. I assume they actually read the posting, so they remain in consideration, but their skills are beyond the specifics I need. I can't justify paying them more unless I can find ways that benefit the org to use those extra skills. I assume they will drop themselves from consideration when we talk more, so if I were in a time crunch, I would cut them from my list. Wishful thinking on getting a unicorn isn't a good use of my time.
I figured this was an opportunity for some perspective, seeing that we get "what do I need to do to get a role" posts all the time. I don't know what response I would have received if I had region locked this to around our HQ, or if we were offering hybrid or on-site work.
Just to add - I am not accepting resumes through here. I'm also ignoring anyone who finds my or my coworkers' LinkedIns and sends us resumes outside the standard process. I've already seen those happen.
Edit to add: I also considered projects in the "on point" group - they showed they applied the skills.
Update: I checked with HR, the pay was included in the post. To be clear, it was mid-3rd quartile for a Data Analyst position - we weren't posting anything with an amazing rate. It's very possible people submitted without reading the details, especially given the skill mismatches I see. I feel better about it, because I could not have written a more honest description of the role, so they had full information.
Also, 27 resumes were forwarded to me so far. I have sent 10 back for follow up, with another 5 to be written up on my side.
Data Engineer hands down!
The information on this apprenticeship is so limited so I am taking the initiative to create my own thread having just submitted my application. I will update whenever I get any updates lol but other applicants please feel free to share your experience because we need more info on this great opportunity. So pretty much I signed up for Google alerts so that I wouldn't miss the application deadline but after the crickets from the 2022 apprenticeship I didn't have my hopes up at all. In fact, I was in the process of applying to college for Data Management because I just thought they weren't going to do it this year. But literally yesterday in the middle of my run I got a notification that the application was live. What shocked me the most was that the deadline was to submit before April 25th and if I am not mistaken the application opened April 23rd. So I am assuming they really want to cut down on the number of applicants. This makes sense to me because I didn't even get a rejection letter last year it was just nothing. I am still keeping my hope at a minimum and I believe the salary is a bit smaller but with all the big tech cuts once again it all makes sense. Also, this year I chose to include a cover letter, I know it was stupid of me not too in the first place, just so they could get a better sense of who I was, what my resume was about and why I wanted this apprenticeship. I feel like for those who want to apply to jobs like this it's truly essential to include a cover letter because odds are you aren't a traditional candidate to begin with which is the whole point of opportunities like this so you really want to give them a sense of who you are. Hopefully communication is better this year. Fingers crossed.
I am 35 and I have a few months in between jobs. I recently did a certification in SQL with code academy. I’ve been told that SQL , Tableau and power BI has good demand in the industry. My background is in communications and I don’t have coding or Math background. Where should I begin and what certifications can I get? Also, is it realistic to start so late?
Hi, I'm a math graduate and I've been looking into career options. I initially started with dev route but the dev market is just damn harsh at the moment and don't seem to be getting better any time soon, so I am looking into becoming a data analytics. I love problem solving, working with data and am just into all mathy things.
I have some transferable skills. I've done some academic research, where I used Python for dealing with data, and I know SQL from dev study I was on before. I'm thinking of picking up some more tools like Tableau, maybe R in the future.
I'm wondering how the entry-level job market is for data analysts. All my developer friends told me that the junior market for dev is doomed, everyone on internet told me the same so I feel that I need to steer off from this path. If it's similar for junior data analysts, I suppose I need to look for some other ways sadly.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Also if you have any skills in mind that I should learn for an analyst role, please share!! Thank you.
Background: I have a PhD in social psychology that I completed in Spring of 2023. The last few years of my doctorate, I worked full time for ~2.5 years as an evaluation coordinator for a process evaluation of a statewide gun violence reduction program. After this (and most recently), I worked ~2 years full time in a supervisory role at a state office focused on criminal justice programs working with data, writing legislative reports, and doing some grant management.
Miscellaneous skills: I know R, SPSS, Power BI, and some SQL. I’m well-versed in multivariate stats, psychometrics, and even some Bayesian inference. I’m used to working with lots of forms of data, ranging from survey data to public datasets from the census bureau/FBI to SQL databases accessed through ODBC connections. I only have 4 peer-reviewed publications and only taught 2 classes during my PhD, but that’s largely because I pivoted towards acquiring non-academic work experience somewhat early in my program.
Problem: I’ve been aggressively applying to multiple positions for the past six months with very disheartening results. I’ve mostly focused on the public sector plus some non-profits and think tanks (I’m geographically close to the DMV, so the government-industrial complex is really THE big employer where I am). I’ve recently started applying to more private sector jobs too, though. Out of the dozens of positions I’ve applied to, I’ve only gotten one real interview. It’s rough…
Has anyone else in a similar position who left academia been experiencing this? Any advice to improve my search and/or prospects?
I'll start.
2020 (Data Analyst ish?)
-
$20Hr
-
Remote
-
Living at Home (Covid)
2021 (Data Analyst)
-
71K Salary
-
Remote
-
Living at Home (Covid)
2022 (Data Analyst)
-
86k Salary
-
Remote
-
Living at Home (Covid)
2023 (Data Scientist)
-
105K Salary
-
Hybrid
-
MCOL
2024 (Data Scientist)
-
105K Salary
-
Hybrid
-
MCOL
Education Bachelors in Computer Science from an Average College.
First job took about ~270 applications.
I do see many, many who want to work as a Data Analyst in 2024 and I absolutely wonder why....
-
If you look for the Search keyword "Data Analyst," this is one of the hardest keyword difficulty in the world, meaning there are literally hundreds of thousands of websites ranking for this job/keyword
-
The next 5-10 most searched keywords in Google are coming from 3rd world countries and are tagged with "Data Analysts Jobs" "Data Analyst Career" etc. etc.
-
In Google Trend the search trend for Data Analyst goes up BUT only as well only from so-called 3rd world countries and all related to jobs, carrer, studying, certificate
In sum, the market is totally oversaturated.
Hi everyone, I’m a fresher and currently planning my learning path for 2026. I’m looking for honest and practical advice from people who are already in the data field.
First of all, is Data Analytics still worth learning in 2026? I’ve heard very mixed opinions. Some people say the future is very bright, while others say there are almost no jobs for freshers.
I’ve also heard that many people complete full Data Analytics courses but still struggle to find a job for 3–4 months or even longer. So I want to understand — are jobs really that limited for freshers, or are these just exaggerated / fake claims?
If Data Analytics is still a good option, I would really appreciate guidance on a clear learning roadmap, for example: • Where should I learn Excel from? • Where should I learn SQL from? • Should I learn Python (and to what level)? • What about Power BI / Tableau? • In what order should a beginner learn these skills?
Also: • Are certifications like Google Data Analytics, IBM, Microsoft, etc. actually helpful for getting interviews? • Is self-learning + projects enough, or is a paid course necessary?
And if there is anyone here who is currently working as a Data Analyst, please share your personal experience: • How did you start? • How long did it take you to get your first job? • What skills mattered the most? • What mistakes should freshers avoid?
Thanks a lot in advance 🙏 Any genuine advice will be really helpful.
So I’m interested in taking a course to get a cert in being a data analyst maybe even in cyber security. I’m just wondering from primarily experienced people in this fields what’s the good and bad starting out? I’ve been doing research already and seems to be a lot more to this field. Like business intelligence, data engineer etc, I’m a veteran just weighing my options. I may even go school and get a degree in this field if I decide I really like it. Also, been hearing good government jobs hire and good pay for this kind of remote work…
Just would like to hear your opinion on this one. I am currently trying to change career switching in data analysis.
I have worked as a virtual customer service for 3 years and now trying to learn data analytics and i have tried learning it previously as well but I didn’t give it time. Now i have time as i left my job so will you help me with some tips and ideas how to get started and keep up to date with learning. I watch videos and understand the concept but while try to solve the problem i have to go back to watch video so is it okay in starting?