What Makes You an Ideal Candidate for Data Analyst?

23:20 rafi 4 Comments

Disclaimer: This article is personal opinion, the answer might differ for someone who might be an expert already.

Source: pluspng.com

Recently, someone asked me

"What makes you qualified as Data Analyst? I mean, you graduated as Meteorologist, how could you get the job?"

The answer to me, is pretty simple.

First of all, you need to figure out that every field, would need analyst in it. And of course, their jobs/roles might be completely different each other, cause it depends on the needs of the business. Some companies I knew, even had its own analyst in every division. Let say, there are Human Resource Analyst, CRM Analyst, Marketing Analyst, Buyer Analyst, Seller Analyst, Promotion analyst, GIS Analyst, and etc .... The tools might be different each others and of course the purpose and how focused it was, would be depends on the roles itself. So yeah, every body can be analyst, but the complexity should be differ each others.

Second of all, Human themselves, are born to be problem solver. Being analyst, not going to make you only do the simple things such as create report and stuff, instead, you will be expected to solve problem, analyze, and give the best recommendation to drive the business. So, assure you can solve problem in an effective way, this would explain your way of thinking to define, approach, and solve problem itself.

Third of all, before you think it's your best job, please assure that you love it. You need to remember, that, this role might be a new whole things to you. Let's take an example, that formerly what you analyze were Atmospheric stuff, in here, you'll learn about the business as a whole. Yet, you need to remember as well, that the tools would be something new to you. Imagine if everyday, you didn't like your job/ role, learning new things might pain in the ass. Seriously, but if you love it, it will be your new playground, where you feel happy about learning it, and every day would be the best day coz you learn new things every minutes. And of course, if you enjoy it, you'll learn faster, and you'll feel the gap between you and other professionals faster.

Last but not least, being Meteorologist itself, is one of my biggest advantages in explaining what my passion is. Yes, Meteorologist closely work with Programming and Statistics. And I love crunching with data, and transform it to be insightful things that can be informed to the locals. This is why, being Meteorologist might be the best start to begin my career in analytics as well as Data Science world, right? Coz in here, we always start with 5W+1H questions to analyze any phenomenon, and to be able explain why something just happened. We need to be ready about that, and all of the possibilities to explain the "Why".

Source: valuesearchonline.com

Sip. The conversation continues, I was asked more "How could I get this job? Since, from what I knew, if the major completely different with what they expect, the company might reject our application directly."

Well, about this. I guess it depends on the way you convince the interviewer tho.

I personally, when I was interviewed by my GM, I told him that I really interest with this world. I could convince by the time when I was on FGD, I nailed it. The topic simply about big data, analytics, and science. And I could explain all of that, cause I was prepared enough. And of course, I told him that Meteorology was learning about Statistic and Programming, and my final thesis were about prediction analysis, and how huge the data can be.

So yeah, if you want to nail the interview, please prepare this well. Convince them how interest you are, and how far you want to achieve that. For example, I told him that I was already taught myself about Pivoting, and SQL, and told him honestly about how hard this can be, when I didn't have the database by myself. But since, I used to learn programming and stuff, I could give him how well "my logic" to solve the business problem.

Sip. He kept asking me about this, so let it flow. He asked about "How tight data analyst competition is?"

Hmmmm, well, tbh, the competition is quite hard. Mostly our competitors would be came from IT, Scientific major (Physics, Mathematics, Meteorology, Oceanographic, perhaps Astronomy (?)), and Statistic. Usually, the qualification looking for those who already applied statistic and IT at the same time. So yeah, goddamn blessed to our major tbh. Coz we have learned both intensely haha, even though for data analysis purpose with different metric.

However, it doesn't mean those who came from Engineering background can't have this jobs. Coz fun facts, my senior came from Chemical Engineering, and my colleagues in advance analytics came from Physics background. And both are completely talented.

Your application can be stand out from others if you had given that you're really interest with this. You tell them with how far you already researched about that, and imagine the possibilities! There would be more advantages if you already have the business acumen. Let say you already have experienced in it, and show them how you solve problem based on the data and stuff. Or ..... perhaps, imagine the possibilities once and for all. Let me state this clearly, if you're better statistician than your peers, if you're better in programming than average statistician, and if you have the business sense to grow your business farther, Then welcome to the world, gaes, you're the perfect candidate for Data Scientist!

Please keep in mind, if you came from not-so-related background (that you thought?), don't be. Coz, all of the things that happened in this working world, always expect us to be able to learn. Yeah, all of the gaps can be filled, if you want to fill it. How? Learn it! Sketch what you need to learn, learn it from any resources (googling really does help), and apply this so that you can be master to it!

Hohoho, good luck, Yud!