145: How To Get Ahead of 99% of Analysts

Avery: 00:00:00

Here are the five things you need to be doing to get ahead

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of 99 percent of data analysts

in the next three to six months.

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Number one, become laser

focused on what you want.

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If you're watching this video,

chances are you want to become a data

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analyst, but specifically what type

of data analyst do you want to become?

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Do you want to become a financial analyst?

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Do you want to become

a healthcare analyst?

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What industry do you want to work in?

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What companies do you want to work for?

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What type of problems

do you want to solve?

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What tools do you want to use?

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When do you want to land that job?

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How much do you want to make in that role?

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Do you want to be working remote?

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Hybrid?

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What type of impact do you want

to have at that organization?

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You need to get into the nitty

gritty details of what you

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actually want in your data career.

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And once you've figured out

the what, Then you need to ask

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why, why do you want that role?

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Why that particular role, that particular

company, why this career in general?

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And then once you have that, why

you need to ask why one more time,

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what's the actual reason that

you want to be working from home?

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What's the actual reason you want to

be making a hundred thousand dollars.

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Once you've figured out that why,

you should ask yourself why again.

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This is a method created by

the founder of Toyota, Mr.

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Toyota himself.

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When he was trying to figure out an

answer to a problem, he would ask why five

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times until he found the ultimate root

cause of the desire or of the problem.

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Once you've figured out what you want

and why you want it, then commit yourself

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that you're actually going to do it.

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That no matter the cost,

you're going to figure it out

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because your why is big enough.

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There's that old phrase, when

there's a will, there's a way.

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And if your will is big enough,

you'll figure out the way.

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No matter your background, even if

you don't have any sort of technical

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experience, even if you're coming

from a non STEM background or you

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have no experience working at a desk

job at all, you will figure it out.

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There's an old fable, uh, that's called

The Crow and the Pitcher, that basically

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there was a crow that was really

thirsty and it found a pitcher of water.

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But the neck of the pitcher was too thin

for the crow to actually, you know, stoop

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its neck down there and get a drink.

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And I think a lot of us in this

case would give up if we were the

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crow and be like, Oh, look at this.

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This pitcher is too small.

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We're never going to be

able to drink this water.

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I'm just going to give up.

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I'm going to say it's the economy.

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I'm going to say it's the market.

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I'm going to say it's just, you

know, bad luck, but not this crow.

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This crow came up with a creative

solution and actually found small

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stones that the crow could throw down

into the pitcher, ultimately raising

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the level of water high enough that

the crow could drink from the pitcher.

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So I promise no matter your background,

if you have a college degree, if you

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don't have a college degree, if you've

been making six figures already, or

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if you've only been making 10, 000

a year, we can figure out a plan.

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To get you to a data analyst job,

but it's important that we need to

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create a plan because when you fail

to plan, you should plan to fail.

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Honestly, if you're just thinking

that you're going to luck into a

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data job, not in today's economy,

it is so much harder to land a data

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job today than it was a decade ago.

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And you have to be intentional about it.

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It's very rare that a data job is

just going to fall in your lap, even

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if you're trying hard to land one.

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You need to develop a plan, a personal

roadmap of actual steps that you can

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take one by one to land your data job.

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This means when you sit down at

your computer to study, you should

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know exactly what you're studying

and why you're studying it.

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This rarely means that you should

ever sit down and be like, Hmm,

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what am I going to do today?

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No, you should know beforehand exactly

what steps you're going to take.

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I'm going to be posting on LinkedIn.

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I'm going to leave five comments.

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I'm going to work on my Tableau project,

and then I'm going to call it a night.

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This will help you get to your goal

faster, but it'll also keep your sanity.

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When I'm tackling big projects, like

completely pivoting my career, I

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need to do it step by step, milestone

by milestone, and follow actionable

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steps to get to the end goal.

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And this actually leads me to number

two, which is to actually focus on what

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lands you a job, not what feels good.

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If I were to create a scatterplot

of time it took to land the data job

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against how skilled someone is at

data skills, say SQL, It would not

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be a linear one to one correlation.

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You'd like to think the people who are

better at SQL would land data jobs more

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quickly, but it's just not the case.

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There's too many factors in play.

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In fact, none of your data skills

really correlate with how fast

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you're going to land a job.

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So why are you spending so much

time learning new data skills

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when that's actually not what

correlates to landing a job?

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Later in this episode, I'll talk

about some of the things that I think

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matter more than your data skills

when you're landing a data job.

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But it's really important that you're

focusing on what lands data jobs.

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For example, if I stayed SQL 24 hours a

day for the next 365 days, I'd be really

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good at SQL, but I wouldn't magically

land a data job because I'm good at SQL.

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It would require me applying to data jobs.

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There's no magical level that you'll hit

in SQL, Python, or any other data tool.

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That's going to magically

get you a data job.

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And at this point, honestly, if

you haven't landed a technical

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data interview and failed it, it's

not your skills holding you back.

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It's something like your resume

or your LinkedIn profile.

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Unless you're routinely failing technical

interviews, you don't need to be working

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on your technical skills all that much.

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Once you have a good foundation.

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So why is everyone still

working on their data skills?

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The phrase that best describes it

is one that I don't really enjoy,

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but I can't think of anything else.

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I'm actually going to look in

chat GPT right now to see if I

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can come up with a better phrase.

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Update.

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I checked chat GPT.

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I can't find a better phrase

and it's mental masturbation.

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It's the idea that what you're actually

doing is making you feel good, but

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it's really getting you nowhere.

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Learning data skills, it makes

you feel more productive than

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sending out 50 cold messages to

recruiters and getting no responses.

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That makes you feel rejection.

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Learning data skills is fun.

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It's your learning.

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It makes you feel productive.

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But you have to remember that

learning data skills and landing a

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data job are two different things.

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They are related, but they're

not directly correlated.

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So you have to lower your scope

here and actually be laser

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focused on what you need to do.

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What is the actual things, the steps

you need to take to land a data job?

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One easy thing that you can start doing

to actually help you make some traction

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on your data journey is number three.

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And that is to quit being silent

and actually share your work.

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If you're not talking about what

you're doing, you honestly don't exist.

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Now, this can come in a variety of forms.

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I challenge you to start posting

on LinkedIn about what you're

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learning, your daily data journey.

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The reason I challenge you to do that

is because it literally changed my life.

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And honestly, if I had never started doing

that, I wouldn't be making this video.

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You would not be hearing my words.

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I would just be some data scientist

from the middle of nowhere in Utah.

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But because I started talking

about what I was doing, you

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guys are hearing my voice today.

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So start posting on LinkedIn.

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Tell me what you learned today.

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In fact, I challenge you right now

to pause this video and go post on

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LinkedIn and share this video to talk

about one of the things you're going

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to try to do is to talk more and

explain and document your process.

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And I know some of you guys are

thinking, uh, Avery, you are so cringe

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and everyone's so cringe who posts on

LinkedIn and maybe it is a little cringe.

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Fine.

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But are you willing to be a little cringe

going back up to number one and your why?

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Your why strong enough to overcome that?

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Personally, mine is, and

I hope yours is as well.

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If you can't post on LinkedIn for

whatever reason, or it's too scary to

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get started, then just start talking

about what you're doing in your resume.

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Make sure your resume accurately

is showing your career

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pivot, build a portfolio.

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Talk about what you're

doing on your portfolio.

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It doesn't even have to be

for, for the public eyes.

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Other than when you're applying for

jobs to hiring managers and recruiters,

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instead of getting stuck in tutorial,

how doing the same exercises that

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the rest of the people watching this

YouTube video are doing, build a

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project, talk about your project,

do a writeup of your project, make a

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video talking about what you've done.

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Put it on a portfolio.

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Think about this.

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A recruiter or a hiring manager basically

looks at your application for like

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anywhere between three to seven seconds.

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How are you going to stand out

in those three to seven seconds?

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How are they supposed to get an accurate

description of who you are in that time?

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The answer is they're not really going

to, but if you can provide them with

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like some evidence, some stuff that

you've actually done, like a project.

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You're going to have a lot higher

chance of earning their next 10

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seconds, and then the next 60

seconds, and then the next 60 minutes.

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In today's economy, it's just

not enough to apply for jobs.

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You have to actually be talking

about what you're doing.

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This leads me to number four,

which is going to be controversial.

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But you need to be living by the

old fashioned maxim, it's not

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what you know, it's who you know.

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And that's just the truth.

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70 percent of accepted job offers

come from being recruited or referred.

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This basically means you

need to be networking.

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Remember earlier how I told

you skills aren't directly

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correlated to getting hired?

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Well, who you know and your network

is directly correlated at 70%.

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Honestly, if that's the case and

you actually believe that like two

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thirds of accepted job offers come

from being recruited or referred,

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Why aren't you spending two thirds

of your time working on your network?

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The answer is, it doesn't feel good.

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Networking sucks.

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Especially at the beginning when

you're just growing your network.

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It feels pointless.

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It feels awkward.

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You don't know who to talk to.

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You don't know what to say.

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Look, I get it.

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I was the same way.

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I used to be you watching these videos.

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And then I did number three and I

started posting on LinkedIn and all

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of a sudden my network was growing.

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And one day I finally got the

courage to actually reach out to

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Kate Strachney, who was a really

big LinkedIn influencer at the time.

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And I did a collaboration with her.

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That was after, honestly, I sent

dozens, if not hundreds of cold

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messages that either kind of got

ignored or didn't really lead anywhere.

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They were all just dead ends.

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And after I went to a bunch

of in person data events and

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I Didn't really meet anyone.

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I honestly can name one person

I met from those events.

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Networking honestly feels pointless

until all of a sudden it doesn't.

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And for me, one of the biggest

changes in my life is when I

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actually reached out to Ken G.

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Ken is a data scientist, YouTuber, who

has always had way more followers than me.

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And one day I reached out and I actually

invited him to a platform that was

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invite only at the time called Clubhouse.

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It was basically like an

audio group call together.

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It was kind of a weird product, but I

offered him my only invite that I had.

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And he really appreciated it.

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And so we ended up doing a video together

and he actually ended up introducing

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me to people like Alex, the analyst,

Josh Farmer, and a bunch of other data

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content creators who I've now had the

chance to interview on my podcast.

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Getting connected to Ken, it.

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Was lucky, I totally admit,

I had a lot of luck in play.

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He had to read my message, he had

to be interested, and Clubhouse

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at the time, he had to be a good

person and kind and want to help me.

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But you can't just say it's luck, because

I sent hundreds of other messages that

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never got opened or never got replied to.

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Networking, especially for introverts

like you and me, will always suck.

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It's just if your why is big

enough, you embrace the suck.

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This is what I meant earlier when I talked

about, you know, learning SQL, learning

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more SQL is fun, but it's not really

getting you closer to your day to job.

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When sending cold messages to recruiters

would get you closer to your job, but it

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doesn't really feel like it until it does.

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In fact, I had a stay at home mom

who recently landed a data job.

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She had been out of the workplace

for 20 years and her previous

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roles were a teacher, so not

even closely related to data.

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She landed a data job with

only one application, one

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interview, and she got the offer.

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She got lucky.

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And if you just hear that, you would

just be like, oh, she got lucky.

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And she did get lucky.

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But what you aren't seeing behind the

scenes is the hard work and dedication

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she was putting in towards networking.

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She found someone for this role

that she could cold message.

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Cold message them, no response.

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Found another person,

cold message, no response.

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Found another person.

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Cold message, no response.

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I think most of us

would've given up, right?

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Cold message someone else.

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Response.

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Said, sorry, can't help you.

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I think we would've all given up there.

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But not this person.

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She sent another cold message to

another person that she found.

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And this person said, oh, you

have an interesting resume.

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Let me see what I can do.

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Turns out that role wasn't

even supposed to be posted.

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It was only an internal hire and

the recruiter had messed up and

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actually opened it to the whole world.

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So hundreds of you had applied for that

job and you never stood any chance of

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actually landing it because they had no

intention of actually hiring externally.

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But because my student had cold messaged

this person, their resume was in front

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of the hiring manager's eyes already.

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And the hiring manager said, well,

this is a pretty interesting resume.

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Let's take a look and let's

bring her in for an interview.

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She got the role.

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Networking will help you land

jobs that aren't even open.

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It'll open doors that are locked close.

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And whether you like it or not,

whether you're introverted or

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not, that's the case for everyone.

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The last thing that you can do, number

five, to actually get ahead of data

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analysts this year is mind the gap.

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And what I mean by that is

we all have limited time.

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We each have 24 hours in the day,

no matter if you're Elon Musk or

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the poorest person on planet Earth.

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That's something that we

all have is just 24 hours.

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And some of you guys are working two jobs.

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You're working like 80 hours a week.

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You have kids.

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I totally get that.

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You're like, Oh my gosh, I don't know

when I'm going to do this, Avery.

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Like how the heck am

I going to learn this?

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And my short answer is, I don't

know how you do it either,

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but here's my suggestion.

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Mind the gap.

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And what I mean by that is when you

go to the tube in London, they have

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mind the gap painted on the ground.

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And they're basically

saying, pay attention.

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To the space the empty space between

the edge of the platform and as you

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step on the actual subway Obviously

good advice if you're ever on the subway

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But what does that have to do with you

and your data career no matter how busy

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you are and how many things you have?

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On your schedule, you're always gonna

have little teeny tiny gaps in your

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day I have them all the time and

honestly, I feel a lot of it with

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Instagram scrolling looking on Twitter

And watching YouTube videos kind of

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like this and watching things like Mr.

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Beast videos on YouTube.

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My suggestion to you to get ahead

of 99 percent of data analysts is to

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fill that gap with videos like this.

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Cut out as much fluff as you can

in the gap and actually try to fill

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it with things that are valuable,

that are worth listening to.

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I think that's one of the biggest things

that you can do in your data career is

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actually be listening to stuff like this.

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Because obviously if you're watching, it's

involving your eyes, a lot of time you're

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going to be at a TV, at your phone, or

at your desktop or something like that.

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With audio, you can be

doing two things at once.

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So for example, if you have any commute

right now, fill that commute with

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listening to data YouTube videos.

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If you found this video on YouTube,

continue listening on YouTube.

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If you found this via the podcast,

keep listening on podcasts.

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: 00:13:26

But obviously you don't

only have to listen to me.

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: 00:13:28

There's other great podcasts.

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: 00:13:29

I really enjoy the Super Data Science

Show, Plumbers of Data Science,

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: 00:13:33

How to Land an Analytics Job, Data

Engineering Podcast, DataViz Today.

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: 00:13:37

In terms of YouTube channels,

obviously Alex the Analyst is great.

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: 00:13:41

I'm a big fan of Elijah Butler.

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: 00:13:43

I just interviewed Tu Vu recently

on my podcast and she's great.

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: 00:13:46

I really like Mo Chen's videos and there's

obviously a lot of other good shows.

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: 00:13:50

But fill your day and fill

specifically those gaps, specifically

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: 00:13:53

with audio, with this good data

content that's honestly free.

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: 00:13:57

I promise as you do that, you will

continue to learn and grow without

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: 00:14:00

even having to spend more time.

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: 00:14:02

So to recap, become laser focused

on what you actually want, a

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: 00:14:05

title and the why behind it.

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: 00:14:07

Then focus on what actually matters.

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: 00:14:09

Cut out all the fluff and focus

on the actual steps that's

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: 00:14:12

going to land you a data role.

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: 00:14:13

Then, quit being quiet

and actually speak up.

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: 00:14:16

We want to hear what you're doing

and you will benefit from it.

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: 00:14:18

Remember, it's not what you

know, it's who you know.

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: 00:14:21

And five, fill the gap

with content like this.

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: 00:14:23

If you want to keep filling your gap

with my content, I highly suggest

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: 00:14:26

this episode next and I'll have

it in the show notes down below.