So, attempting to master every single data analysis tool in the workplace may be futile.

What is helpful is a strong understanding of the data analysts roles, duties, tasks, responsibilities and the techniques or principles commonly employed in data analyst jobs

The Data Analysts Job Description

The data analysts’ job description frequently includes importing, cleaning, transforming, validating or modeling data with the purpose of understanding or making conclusions from the data for decision making purposes.

The data analysts job description may include presenting data in charts, graphs, tables, designing and developing relational databases for collecting data and in some organizations it also includes building or designing data input or data collection screens.

The data analyst may have to write Data Definition Language or Data Manipulation Language SQL commands, be responsible for improving data quality and for designing or presenting conclusions gained from analyzing data using statistical tools like Microsoft Excel, SAS, SPSS and others.

Data analysts work in diverse domains including healthcare or social sciences and they come from a diverse background.

Some data analysts have backgrounds in technology, information management, relational database design and development, business intelligence, data mining or statistics.

What is important is not the specific tool like SAS or SPSS but the investigative mindset or techniques that can be used with any specific tool.

It is important not to get tool minded but to get process minded. For example, it’s important to understand the concept of designing a business report because you can learn implement that report in Crystal Reports or SQL Server Reporting Services or even with Microsoft Access Reports.

A good data analyst can convey his or her mastery of data analysis concepts at the job interview and direct the interviewers to a favorable conclusion.

For example, let’s say that a data analyst job description stresses SQL Server Reporting Services skills and you only have knowledge of Microsoft Access.

What you can do is let the job interviewer know that you have strong data analysis skills and will be comfortable working on new tools. You can achieve this by stressing your data analysis experience by talking about your data validation experience, discussing how you have analyzed large datasets, drawn your own inferences and presented them successfully to management using a reporting tool. Then you emphasize the strength or advantages of your data analysis background and repeat that you are willing to learn the data analysis tool used by the employer in question.

So, a solid understand of data analysis techniques or processes will help reduce the need for you to learn every data analysis tool in the market!

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Statisticians are sometimes surprised at the difficulty of finding entry level data analyst jobs despite having a college or graduate statistical degree.

In this issue, we will be answering a question posted by a statistician with Marketing, SAS and Clinical background who is finding it hard to get an entry level data analyst job!

How To Find a Marketing Data Analyst job

You need to broaden your skills by adding a number of more marketable Data Analysis skills and you also need to show more of your working marketing experience at the job interbiew.

Let’s start by taking a look at what a data analyst does on a day to day basis:

What Does A Data Analyst Do?

1. Data Validation – collects, validates and cleans data.
2. Data Management – imports, transforms and loads data into a Microsoft Access, SQL Server or Oracle database using tools like SQL Server and Oracle Data Bulk Import Routines or Data Extraction, Transformation and Loading scripts.
3. Statistical Data Analysis – analyzes data stored in a database using statistical principles, SQL Queries and tools like SAS, Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel. Your post graduate background in statistics already equips and prepares you for this task.
4. Reporting – prepares and distributes scheduled reports on data collected with tools like Crystal Reports, SQL Server Reporting Services, Business Objects, Microsoft Access Reporting. Some of these reports may have to be designed in tables using CSS/ HTML and some others will be presented as written documents or with graphs and charts. As a data analyst, you must be conversant with the process of producing reports distribution in multiple formats (HTML/CSS, PDF, Excel, CSV, Word)

How to Find a New Data Analyst Job

1. Broaden your Data Analysis Skills: SAS and CDM (clinical data management) foundation courses alone may not be enough for an entry level data analyst job because data analysts work with other tools like Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, SQL Server and Oracle. So, an employer reviewing your resume may decide that the only data analysis tool (SAS) which you know, is not used or needed for the job in question.
2. Database Skills Required for Data Analysis Jobs – with your post-graduate degree in Statistics, you are superbly positioned for entry level data analyst jobs. However you also need strong database skills because that is where the data you are working with will be stored in. Some Data Analyst tools provide you with an interface for analyzing data without looking at the underling tables or having to write SQL statements. However, many data analyst positions still require that you to have those skills even when you don't use them on the job. 
3. Personal Branding for Data Analysts – your ability to market your career decides how you are perceived at the data analyst job interview. Based on your post-graduate statistics degree and your background in marketing, you should reposition yourself online as a skilled statistician or data analyst with a background in marketing because employers prefer skilled and experienced professionals. So, you need to review your resume, your presentation at job interviews and your online profile and determine if you are doing a good job at positioning your career. If you are not, then you need to start a personal branding campaign and use it to re-position your career.

My recommendations are that you broaden your skills by learning an enterprise database development platform and that you also start a personal branding campaign that positions you as an experienced statistical marketer.

I hope that I answered your questions about finding a data analyst job.

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