126: You’ll Never Land a Data Job If You Do This

Avery: 00:00:00

welcome to the Data Career Podcast the podcast that helps aspiring

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data professionals land their next

data job here's your host Avery Smith

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Avery Smith: There's one thing

that will kill a data career

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pivot faster than anything else.

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And it's not running out of money, not

being smart enough or losing a job to AI.

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None of these.

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It's losing momentum.

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And I know, I know it sounds a

bit basic, but I promise you it's

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very true because think about it.

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When you started your data career

journey, correct me if I'm wrong,

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but you were bright eyed, you were

bushy tailed, you were super excited,

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and you were motivated to learn.

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But as you continued in your journey.

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Something may have happened where you

kind of lose your momentum or you lose

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your magic the thing that you were so

excited about and Maybe you're mad or

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bitter even but the process isn't the same

anymore and you've lost your momentum.

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Tell me, if this sounds familiar, you

spent the last three weeks learning

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sequel, and then you got distracted.

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Maybe there was a wedding you had to

go to, or maybe you got sick and you

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took a week off, maybe two weeks off.

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And you come back two weeks later,

sit at the keyboard, ready to code

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some sequel and you forgotten pretty

much everything that you learned.

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So what do we do?

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Well, if you're new here, hello,

my name is Avery Smith and I'm a

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senior data analyst and career coach.

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And I've literally watched

hundreds of aspiring data analysts

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lose their momentum, but it's

a hundred percent preventable.

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It just takes a little bit of work.

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I like to employ two rules

to try to keep momentum up.

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Those two rules are number one, learn in

community and number two refuse to stop.

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So let's get into it.

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All right here.

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So many aspiring analysts try to

learn data analytics and make their

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data career pivot on their own.

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And I totally get it because that's what

I tried to do when I was breaking a data

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analytics, I tried to do it by myself.

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I tried to do the YouTube, the blogs,

the websites, the books, and just me.

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But there's a big problem when you

try to break into data on your own.

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In fact, there's three big ones.

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You're more likely to one,

lose motivation and give up.

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Two, go down the wrong learning track

and waste time, and three, miss out

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on key networking opportunities.

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And to illustrate this point, I

want to tell you a quick story.

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So I live in Utah and I recently hiked

Mount Tipenogos to watch the sunrise.

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It is this awesome, beautiful, tall

mountain, and it usually takes me

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about eight hours to do this hike.

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So I actually got to the trailhead at

3am so I could catch the 7am sunrise.

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And like many of you are doing

with your data career journey, I

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chose to do this adventure solo.

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And you guys, it was pitch black.

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Like it was so dark.

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And when I arrived at the trailhead, it

was super hard to even see the signs and

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even to see the trail and the markings.

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And to make matters worse, I was

hiking and about one mile in, I

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see something up in the distance.

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And I'm like, what is that?

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And I'm already freaked out, right?

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It's just a deer, not a big

deal, but the glowing eyes were

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there and it was staring at me.

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I was like, Oh, that was kind of scary.

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but then I got about a half mile later

and someone actually left a note and

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the note read bear spotted, beware.

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And you guys, I'm like freaking out.

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I'm terrified.

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I honestly felt like just turning around

right there and giving up and being

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like, Nope, this hike is not for me.

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In this moment.

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I was by myself.

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And so I was freaked out.

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Had I had friends, I maybe wouldn't

have been as scared and they

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possibly could have encouraged

me and be like, Oh, it's fine.

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You have pepper spray.

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You have bear spray.

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You'll be all right.

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And we're all together in a group.

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We're kind of noisy.

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So we'll scare off any bears, right?

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Uh, that was not the case.

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I was by myself and I was just in my head.

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And this will be true in

your data journey as well.

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When you face your bear of discouragement

or failure, you're going to want to

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have friends there to lift you back up

Dusty off and help you brave the danger.

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Uh, I know if I would have turned

around, I actually would have been

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super mad at myself as well, which

is one of the things that friends and

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community gives you is the ability

is they can hold you accountable to

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what you actually want to do, right?

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I didn't want to complete the hike,

but I let my feelings and my emotions.

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Kind of get the best of me

in that situation so you want

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to be learning in community.

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You don't want to do this by yourself.

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Despite how scary the bear was, I

decided to do the hike and keep going.

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A few miles down the trail.

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I started to feel like, man,

this looks a little different.

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Maybe I'm not going the right way.

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Nah, you're going the right way.

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I was kind of in my head.

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Um, but I kept going until I saw the next

trail marker and sure enough, I had taken

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a wrong turn in the darkness of the night.

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I couldn't really see where I was

supposed to turn and I honestly

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had to hike back 25 minutes.

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So that wrong turn, not being able

to see the sign wasted almost an

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hour of time that I had when I

was trying to catch that sunrise.

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And had I been in community, had I had

friends with me, maybe one of them would

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have seen the trail marker that I missed

and been like, Hey, we need to go here.

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Don't go there.

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Right?

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Friends on your data journey

will do the exact same thing.

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They'll make sure you're studying

and doing, taking action on the right

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things that's going to lead in the

direction of landing a day to job.

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It's not just you kind of guessing, you

get to decide with your friends and kind

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of workshop and brainstorm with them

of like, Oh, is this working for you?

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Oh, it's working for me.

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Maybe I'll try that.

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So on and so forth.

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Despite all this mess, I eventually

made it to the top of the

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mountain and it was beautiful.

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But I missed the sunrise by 45 minutes.

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It was still amazing, but I honestly

wish I had done it with friends.

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Not only because the wrong turn, not

only because the scariness of the bear,

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I never saw the bear by the way, but

I wish I'd done the hike to create and

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foster and build more relationships.

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It just would have been

more fun to do in community.

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And once again, this is true in your

data journey, because it's just more

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fun when you're learning together,

you can learn faster and you can learn

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more efficiently and also it's really

important to be in community because

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you'll have more opportunities because

you'll be part of a larger network.

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You're part of their network, right?

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The network effect, right?

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And you know, the 80 20 rule of the

job hunt says that 80 percent of

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job offers come from either being

recruited or referred, which is

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really all a form of networking.

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So you want to be learning and job

hunting in community to get that effect.

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All of this to say, you keep your

momentum when you're in community.

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There's lots of opportunities to be

in community in the data community.

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There's master's degrees, there's

boot camps, there's free discords,

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wherever you can find community

that you vibe with, go for it.

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If you're not sure where, please check

out the Data Analytics Accelerator.

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I'll have a link to it in

the show notes down below.

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It is an awesome group of aspiring

analysts that I personally coach

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and help them on their data journey.

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We're in a big community all together

and we help each other every day.

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Check it out in the show notes.

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All right, let's talk about rule

number two, which is refusing to stop.

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And one of the easiest ways to keep

momentum is simply to refuse to stop.

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That's it.

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I know it sounds simple.

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Once again, that's the only

thing that you cannot do.

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Stop.

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Everything else allowed.

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Stopping.

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No.

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Even if that means you're only doing

one teeny tiny thing every day,

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you're at least doing something.

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I recently asked Zach Wilson, the

million dollar data engineer, what

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he chalks up all of his success

to, and here's what he said.

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Consistency, showing up, writing

one line of code every day, even

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when I'm sad or when I'm tired.

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You guys, Zach made over

550, 000 as a data engineer.

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He made it, and what he says

his success was because?

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Consistency, doing

something small every day.

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You need to show up every day

in your data journey, even if

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it's just one line of code.

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Earlier this year, I actually

completed my first Ironman 70.

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3 race, which if you're unfamiliar is a 1.

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2 mile swim, a 56 mile bike ride and a 13.

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1 mile run.

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And as you can imagine, that

is not an easy race and it

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was very difficult for me.

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At about mile 50 on the bike, we

hit the biggest hill of the race.

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It honestly felt straight up and

I was already quite depleted.

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Cycling, especially uphill, is one of

my weaker areas, and the exhaustion of

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the swim and the first 50 miles of the

bike was really draining my energy.

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I watched biker after biker break down on

the side of the road due to dehydration,

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cramps, or straight up exhaustion.

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They were so tired and so was I.

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And honestly, that was really

tempting to just do what they do.

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Pull to the side of the

road, hop off the bike.

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Even if it was just for a second, right?

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Because I was exhausted.

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My foot was crushed in my cycling shoe.

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My butt was numb from three

hours of straight bike saddle.

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And I could barely keep my legs

moving on that steep incline.

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As I was doing so, I felt the

embarrassment and honestly kind of

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ashamed because I was getting passed

left and right by other bikers.

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I had lost all of my lead, all of my time,

and I was barely moving up this hill.

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And I thought, Oh, what will three minutes

on the side of the road do to my time?

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Nothing.

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But I told myself I cannot

stop pedaling no matter what.

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I refuse to stop because I knew that

if I got off that bike, even if it

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was for three minutes in my head, it

would be longer than three minutes.

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I'd also lose momentum and getting

back on the bike and going up the

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hill would be near impossible.

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You cannot get off your data bike.

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Even if it's just one day, be like

Zach and get one small task done

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every day, no matter how small it is.

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It could be something as simple as

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reading a data article, writing one

line of code, making a data viz,

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reading one page of a data book,

apply to one data job, sending one

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cold message, listening to a data

podcast or YouTube video like this one,

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All of these tasks are something that

you can do even if you have a big

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work day or you have a family function

or you're tired or you're sick.

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In fact, that actually leads to one

of the biggest momentum killers, which

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is actually something you wouldn't

think about, but it's interviews.

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Interviews are actually one of the

biggest momentum killers because

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people get interviews and they

really cram for the interviews.

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And I totally get that

and I understand that.

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But they almost do so much cramming

that they forget where they were

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in their process, in their journey,

what they were studying, what they

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had just learned, and they have

a hard time getting back into it.

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Or they might have stopped applying

for jobs altogether just because

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they landed this one interview.

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And the problem with that is the interview

process might be two to three weeks.

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And that's two to three weeks that

you might not be applying to any jobs,

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and you're in the groove right now.

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When you land the interview, you got

to keep applying and almost pretend

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that you didn't get the interview

because no interview ever leads

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to a job 100 percent of the time.

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There's always a chance that you're not

going to land it and when that rejection

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letter comes, you're going to be really

sad and you're going to be even sadder

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if you haven't been applying for any

jobs and you have in the pipeline.

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So my challenge to you is to just

do one small thing every day.

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Just choose one, do it today,

do it tomorrow, do it the next

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day, and over and over again.