Do a Google search for “How to become a data analyst in 2023” and you’ll find a ton of roadmaps that you can follow to begin your own career. They almost always go something like this:
Learn SQL, Python/R, Excel, Tableau/Power BI, Statistics in some specified order
Update your resume, update LinkedIn profile, and create a portfolio to show off your work
Find a recruiter and/or apply to jobs
The roadmap takes 5-10 hours a week for anywhere from 3-9 months but by the end you are ready to go. While these plans likely will work they are also highly inefficient. It is kind of like creating a plan to walk somewhere when you’d be better off driving. You’ll get there but so much slower. Same for the generic roadmaps, they’ll get you there but likely slower than is necessary.
Here are the summarized gaps in the usual plan.
All of the learning is for the skills you’ll need once you are a data analyst. It makes the giant assumption that learning the skills will be enough come interview time when in reality many very knowledgeable people are terrible at interviewing and don’t get their preferred roles because of that.
There is no step to actually assess where you are currently at. It just says do these things without knowing where you are. If you don’t know enough to determine that you should ask someone who can tell you, not just assume you are at square #1.
It appeals to your fear of rejection. “If I apply before I’m ready I’ll be rejected, but if I learn all of these things my chances of experiencing rejection are much lower”.
There is a huge opportunity cost. Waiting 6+ months to get your entry level role (yes you’ll still be entry level even with the learning) has a huge cost in terms of on the job experience. Chances are with a bit of coaching and extra time spent job hunting you could get your first role significantly sooner.
Many of the activities mean very little to hiring mangers. Almost none of them will care about your Coursera certificates or your practice project portfolio. In fact most are lazy and won’t even look.
There is no step to understand how data analysts fit into a broader organization. The plan just assumes you’ll do the work end to end so you’ll need all skills. This simply is not true.
There is no mention of critical thinking and communication skills. These are just as important, if not more so, than you technical skills.
What you should do instead.
Find someone who can help you assess yourself objectively. If you can’t find someone hire someone. If you spend 7 hours a week for 6 months that is 7*26=182 hours. Even if you can skip just 10% that is still 18 hours. Acknowledge that your time is worth something and save it. We do skills assessments that can fill this gap so unless you value your time at very little you’ll easily make up the difference in time saved.
Learn what you need to get yourself your first job, don’t spend time learning skills you may or may not use day 1. You’ll do so much learning on the job that 3 months of doing the work will be worth 2 years of self study. Learn the minimum and reassess once you’re working somewhere.
Practice your interview skills. Most people are not good interviewers. A few hour investment in your interview skills is worth 100+ hours of technical learning when it comes to your chances of getting the job.
Write your resume in a way that speaks to hiring mangers. They don’t care about how many technologies you can claim and they don’t care about how technical your work was. They want to know that you can answer business questions using data.
Learn about all of the roles related to data & analytics and don’t just focus on those with data analyst as the title. You might be surprised to learn about all of the specializations and all of the ways that companies organize the work. This is important so that you know what roles to target which is important for how you write your resume.
Hopefully you’ve found this summary helpful. I want to emphasize that the roadmaps you see online and on YouTube will work. They are just unnecessary for most people. If you want a quicker path consider talking to me. We can’t guarantee it’ll be faster but it sure is worth it to find out.