152: This is How Much $$$ You ACTUALLY Make as a Data Analyst

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I'm about to show you what a 200, 000 data analyst job looks

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like and what it takes to get there.

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In this episode, I'll explore

six different data analyst

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jobs ranging from 25K to 200K.

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I'll explain what they pay.

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What you need to do to be qualified

and how you can actually land the job

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starting with the lowest paying data

analyst job that I could find job number

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one is located in Fresno, California,

and it pays drumroll please only 35, 000

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well technically it pays 17 and 69 cents

an hour and it's for a data specialist

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role for an analytics firm in California

called Avenue Insights and Analytics now

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technically this Is a data specialist

role, which isn't really quite a data

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analyst role, but often it's like the

job right below a data analyst, you'll

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still be doing some sort of analysis

and analytics, but it's also mixed with

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some manual analysis, like looking at

things or some sort of data entry or

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data validation or something like that.

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The good news about that is it has

less requirements and we'll get to

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those requirements here in a second.

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But the bad news is it doesn't pay great.

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You can honestly make more starting out

as a cashier at Bucky's than this job.

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But, but, but this job would help you

get some relevant data experience on

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your resume, which is very beneficial.

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That would make landing a data

analyst job down the road.

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a lot easier.

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Anytime you can get the word data

on your resume, it is a good thing.

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So at this job, you'd basically

be ensuring data accuracy, finding

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leads from tax sheets and making

corrections for state and local

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governments, because that's actually

what this analytics firm does.

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It comes into your state or local

government and does some basic

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revenue and operations analysis.

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for these local entities.

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Fun, I know.

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In terms of requirements, they are

looking for someone with an associate's

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degree, attention to detail, and

some sort of ability to do some sort

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of analysis and think critically.

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This job also strangely requires

you to be bilingual with Spanish and

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English, which seems a little bit

more specialized and niche than usual.

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Pero si puedes hablar

espanol, You're good.

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Like I said, it's in

California and it's on site.

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So even though it doesn't require a

lot of previous experience, I think

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they're going to have a hard time filling

this role because the pay isn't great.

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It's on site and there's that

strict bilingual aspect that

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it's going to make it really

difficult to find the right person.

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I personally think that this

role should pay more like

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something around 50, 000 per year.

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Not 35, by the way, all of these six

jobs that we're looking at today,

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I found on my own data job board.

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It's called find a data job.

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com and it's a hundred percent free.

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It has a great search and filter

widget on the left hand side that

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allows you to search by title,

company, salary, remote jobs.

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So if you're looking for a place

to find less competitive data

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jobs in the U S and Canada, be

sure to check it out, find a job.

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com a hundred percent free.

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And just a real quick note requirements on

job descriptions, in my opinion, are more

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like wishlist than actual requirements.

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Basically it's a way of companies

saying like, this is what we'd want in

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a perfect world with perfect candidates.

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But in reality, they're not even really

likely to find one person that has.

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All of those requirements.

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And if they did the salary that they have

listed on the job description or that

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they've allocated in the budget probably

isn't enough to properly compensate

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this absolute unicorn of a data analyst.

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So my personal recommendation and you're

welcome to follow it or not is whenever

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you're looking at job descriptions is

to kind of look at them with blurry

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eyes, like kind of squint your eyes

at it and look at the descriptions.

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If you fit.

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Say 60%, 70%, 55 percent

of the requirements.

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And you're actually like

interested in the job.

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Like genuinely, I think you should apply

because you never know what might happen.

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And honestly, the hiring manager who

rejects you the most is actually yourself.

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So go ahead and hit apply anyways.

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Okay.

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Job number two is located in

the great town of Pickerington.

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Ohio.

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And now I don't actually

know if it's a great town.

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I've never even been to Ohio, but

doesn't it just have like a lovely

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name and sound like a great place.

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Now, job number two, it is a business

and data analyst role for the

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American motorcycle association.

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And how freaking cool is that to work

for the AMA, especially if you ride

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a motorcycle, it sounds pretty cool.

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In my opinion, like.

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Fun job.

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This job pays between

55 and 60, 000 per year.

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And if you heard me say that title and

you were kind of like, what the heck

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did he just say, then you are correct.

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Because a business and data analyst

title is a very interesting title.

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It's not really one

that I've heard or seen.

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Very often, or actually ever, it's usually

just like business analyst or just data

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analyst, or maybe like business data

analysts combined in some cases, but

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certainly not business and data analysts.

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That's sort of weird.

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In fact, I search LinkedIn jobs to see

if I could find a similar titled role.

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And sure enough, there was absolutely no

matches, at least in the market right now.

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And that made me even more curious.

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Cause it's like, what the

heck is going on here?

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So I went to the American motorcycle

associations, LinkedIn page and went to

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the people tab and searched for analysts,

by the way, side note, this is an

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absolutely great way to network and try to

learn who actually is already inside the

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company and who might be able to give you

a referral for any jobs that you apply.

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But when I searched for analysts.

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Sure enough, like no one popped up.

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And I think that there's no actual

data analyst or business analyst

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working at this company right now.

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This very well might be this company's

first day to hire, or at least first

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in a while, I obviously can't be

a hundred percent sure here, and I

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could be wrong, but based on the very

strange title and no other analysts

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that I could find on LinkedIn,

working for this company, my guess is.

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They don't really know what they

want or exactly what they're doing.

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Once again, I could be wrong, but that is

my gut feeling that this company is kind

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of new in the data maturity space, but

that's my gut feeling that this company

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is kind of new to the whole data thing.

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All right.

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Regardless in this role, you'd be working

with stakeholders to maintain and analyze.

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data to identify trends and to

work on some business processes.

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They are asking for a bachelor's

degree in business or computer science

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or analytics or something similar.

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And they also want one to three years

of experience in some sort of analytics.

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They want you to be proficient in

Excel, SQL, Power BI, or Tableau.

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And once again, when they're

saying Power BI or Tableau.

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Or even like having Excel,

SQL, Power BI, and Tableau be

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all in the same sentence here.

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It's kind of hinting that they don't

have a very mature data team because

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like just take Power BI and Tableau, for

example, usually a small company like

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this, it only has like a hundred employees

would only have Tableau or Power BI.

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Not really both large companies.

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They often have both.

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But they're both very expensive.

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And so smaller companies

usually pick one or the other.

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Now it's not always the case,

but that is my gut feeling.

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And so they probably don't

know which one to choose.

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And so maybe that would be something

that you would influence them on.

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Now, if you're learning Tableau,

learning Power BI isn't hard.

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Like you'll be able to figure it out.

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And sometimes I feel like companies

maybe list Power BI or Tableau

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because they're like, if you know

one, you'll figure out the other, but

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I think that's actually pretty rare.

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And I don't think that's

what's happening here.

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Anyways, this is a onsite role as

well, and it's quite a bit lower

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than the average data analyst salary

in the U S which is around 82, 000.

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They're requiring a bachelor's degree,

one to three years of experience, and

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the pay is a bit low for all of that.

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So despite that, I think

you should apply anyways.

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If you think that you fit maybe like

60 percent or maybe even 50 percent of

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the requirements for this job, the pay

that they're listing is much more entry

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level than their actual job description.

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And with their data maturity

being probably pretty low, you

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might be surprised on the bites

that you could possibly get in

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applying for a job like this.

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All right, next we have job number three.

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This is the 75, 000 job and

it is in Woodridge, Illinois.

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It's for a company called

Mahoney Environmental Solutions.

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And this job is right around the average

data analyst salary between 72 to 77, 000.

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The title of this role is

data visualization analyst.

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And now I purposely chose different

titles for each of these six jobs that

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I'm showing you, just to illustrate that

if you're only looking for data analyst

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roles, you're probably missing out on

like more than half of the job market.

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But I really do like this role.

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I think it is quite interesting.

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Now this company Mahoney

environmental solutions.

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They're pretty interesting too, because

at first I was like, okay, environmental

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company, they probably do something like

climate change or water purification

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or like toxic something or other.

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Right.

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But after looking at their

website, I was totally surprised.

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And I think you'll be surprised as well.

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It looks like they basically specialize

in one thing and only one thing,

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which is removing used cooking oil.

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And I think that just goes to

show that you can land a data job.

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A data role in any industry for

any company that does all sorts

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of different things, right?

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Like from Chuck E.

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Cheese to Apple.

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I don't know.

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Sometimes we just think that like,

Oh, it's only Facebook or that hires

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like data analysts, but like even this

company that's just doing like grease

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removal, they'll hire data analysts.

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So interesting.

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Data is literally everywhere.

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You guys, you just got to look for it.

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This role based on the description

sounds like you'd be building a

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lot of power bi reports on the

operation side of the business.

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It actually is quite a big business.

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They have lots of

locations all over the US.

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It does sound like there is some sort

of queries that may or may not need

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to be written to join a bunch of their

data sets together in order to visualize

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it in power bi requirements wise.

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You're looking at Two plus years of

experience with Power BI, DAX, and SQL.

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And they also say that

Python is preferred.

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They do mention that they're looking

for someone with a BS in data science,

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computer science, or a similar field.

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Once again, you need to look at, or I

guess really in your case, hear all those

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job descriptions with your eyes squinted.

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This is just a wishlist.

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For unicorn divide everything by two.

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And if that's you apply, if you

have any bachelor's degree at all, I

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personally think that fits the similar

field requirement for the education.

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And I say, apply, go for it.

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To me, this role is a bit

more than an entry level role.

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So I think the pay should honestly

be closer to about 90, 000.

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Here, but it does seem like

a pretty interesting job

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for an interesting company.

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So if you're in an Illinois, this might be

a good fit for you moving on to job number

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four, and it's actually right next door

to job number three in Chicago, Illinois.

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And it's with the Griffin museum of

science and industry, which who knew

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it is the largest and most interactive

science museum in the Western hemisphere.

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Pretty cool, right?

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Once again, like what a crazy company

and what an interesting industry.

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I would never have thought that

like museums are going to hire data

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analysts, but apparently they do.

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This role is for a senior financial

analyst role, and it pays just shy

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of a hundred thousand dollars salary

range is between 90 to 95, 000.

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And you'll notice if you're paying

attention that we've actually crossed

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into the senior role territory.

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And now just because a role is senior

doesn't mean that it's going to pay

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more than like a non senior role.

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There are lots of different factors

like where you're located, what your

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experience is, what the company does, what

industry they're in, so on and so forth.

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With that senior jump.

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We also are making that six figure jump,

or at least we're getting close to it.

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In this role, you'd be managing all of the

financial and planning for the company.

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You'd be reviewing budget reports,

doing some pricing analytics

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and predicting future revenue.

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If you're accountant or you've worked in

banking or any sort of like financial role

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in the past, this type of role, like a

financial analyst role would be an awesome

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fit for you with your previous experience.

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Now I will say.

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The requirements for this

role are pretty crazy.

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It has the most strict and the highest

bar of requirements, which is a bit

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weird considering we still have the

125, 000 job and the 200, 000 job left.

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They want a bachelor's degree

in finance or accounting.

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Okay.

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That's fine.

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That's standard, right?

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But with six to eight years

of related experience, plus

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they say public accounting

experience or an MBA are a plus.

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And in terms of what skills they're

interested in, they want power BI SQL and

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advanced Excel financial modeling skills.

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And just as a side note here, and pretty

interesting one as well, this is the

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only time a graduate degree will be

mentioned in any of the job descriptions

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that I read today, even the 200, 000 job.

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So if you're considering a master's

degree, just know that anecdotally

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out of the six jobs that we randomly

pulled today, a master's degree was

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only mentioned once and it was mentioned

as a plus, not as a requirement.

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Now back to the job as a common trend.

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The pay is a bit low for what's

being required, especially

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if you already have an MBA.

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But one thing to consider here and for all

these jobs as well is the cost of living.

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One of my favorite tools is the cost of

living salary calculator from NerdWallet.

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It lets you put in your current salary

and your current location and where your

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new location would be and it would display

what the actual salary would be according

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to the cost of living in that new place.

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So this job would be six figures.

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If it was in say, California, now

we've officially crossed the six

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figure mark and we are moving to

our 125, 000 job or job number five.

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And it's in the sunny state of California

in the beautiful city of Newport beach.

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It's a senior investment

operations data analyst.

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That is a mouthful with Pacific life

insurance company and it pays between

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111, 000 and 135, 000 per year.

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Now you've maybe heard of this company

before and in the name it's evidence

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it it's a life insurance company.

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So analytics is really important because

this business, this whole industry.

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It's basically one big math problem, the

odds of you dying and how much the payout

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would be to your benefactors, so on and so

forth, based off previous conditions and

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your current health in this role, you'd

actually be analyzing more financial data,

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a lot of financial data in this video.

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Don't know why you'd be

creating and redefining

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dashboards for all of that data.

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Talking to stakeholders, validating the

data for accuracy and consistency as well.

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They're asking that you have a bachelor's

degree in finance or the famous line here,

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similar field or equivalent experience and

five plus years of experience with SAP,

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Power BI, Power Query, Excel, and SQL.

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Remember guys, squint at these.

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Don't take it word for word.

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I actually think this pay is

honestly pretty realistic.

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I think it's pretty fair.

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Maybe they should add on an extra

10, 000 because cost of living

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in California is quite high, but

I actually think especially the

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upper end is fairly reasonable.

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And I actually think that you

could land this role with three

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years of experience, not the five.

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Once again, that's how I'd

personally squint at this role.

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And I would apply if I had

three plus years of experience.

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Surprisingly, this role also requires

more experience than our last and

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sixth job does pay nearly 200, 000.

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It's just down the road in

Santa Monica, California.

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And it's a company that you've.

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Definitely heard of

and probably used snap.

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Yep.

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Snapchat, you know, the app that

all the teenagers use to like

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send those like pictures of their

faces and say, Hey, what's up?

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What are you doing?

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Nothing much.

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Yeah.

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That company, this is a business

intelligence engineer role.

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And it actually pays and get ready

here because this is a big range.

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It pays between 107 and 189, 000 per year.

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I was right, right?

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That's a huge range.

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And why is it?

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Well, it's because this role might be

remote friendly in California and Arizona.

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I'm not actually sure the job description

is very confusing, but snap as a

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company actually has what's called

geographic pay zones that vary your

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salary based on where you're located.

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So if you're located in Washington or

California or New York city, you'll

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get paid in the a zone, which is the

most if you're in Austin, Chicago,

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Colorado, and a bunch of other States.

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You are in the B zone and all the rest

of us are in the C zone, the lowest pay.

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: 00:15:38

Now you'll notice that this is our

first job description that we've

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: 00:15:41

had in the tech industry, right?

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: 00:15:43

We did the analytics firm, a

motorcycle club, the grease for moving

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: 00:15:46

service, a museum and life insurance.

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: 00:15:49

And now we are in software.

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: 00:15:50

We're in apps.

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: 00:15:51

We're in like.

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: 00:15:52

Tech, right?

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: 00:15:53

That's one of the reasons

you'll see a high pay because

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: 00:15:55

tech does have high salaries.

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: 00:15:56

That's partially because they're really

like in Seattle or LA or San Francisco.

320

: 00:16:01

And the cost of living in those areas

is quite big, but also this role

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: 00:16:06

doesn't have a huge barrier to entry.

322

: 00:16:08

They're only asking for a bachelor's

degree in computer science,

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: 00:16:10

math, physics, or related field.

324

: 00:16:12

That's what they all kind

of have asked for, right?

325

: 00:16:14

Or equivalent years of

experience, whatever that means.

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: 00:16:16

But they're only really asking

for three years of experience.

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: 00:16:19

And minimum, you should

know SQL and Python.

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: 00:16:22

One thing that I really liked that Snap

did with this job description, and this

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: 00:16:26

is becoming more popular, but still a

lot of companies aren't doing it, is

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: 00:16:30

they put the minimum qualifications.

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: 00:16:32

And then the preferred qualifications.

332

: 00:16:34

Like I said, not a lot of companies are

doing this, but it makes the process

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: 00:16:37

for the job seeker so much easier.

334

: 00:16:39

Like that whole squinting

thing I talked about basically

335

: 00:16:41

doing the squinting for you.

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: 00:16:42

It's telling you what you need to

know and where you can get a leg up.

337

: 00:16:45

If you do know any of these things

for this particular job and the

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: 00:16:47

preferred section, they're asking

for experience in big query, get

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: 00:16:51

airflow and ETL type processes.

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: 00:16:53

And in terms of salary, I feel

like this is a pretty fair salary.

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: 00:16:56

I mean, obviously it's a huge

range, but with three plus years

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: 00:16:59

of experience, I do think it is.

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: 00:17:01

Pretty good.

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: 00:17:01

So there you have it.

345

: 00:17:02

Our six different salaries ranging from

35, 000 all the way to 200, 000 per year.

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: 00:17:07

Now I can already hear some of you guys

in the comments asking, you know, all

347

: 00:17:12

these jobs that we looked at ranging

from 35, 000 to 200, 000 a year, they

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: 00:17:16

all required some college degrees.

349

: 00:17:19

Most of them bachelors.

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: 00:17:20

You're probably going to ask, are there

any jobs that don't require degrees?

351

: 00:17:24

And the short answer is yes, there are.

352

: 00:17:26

They are less common, but they do exist.

353

: 00:17:28

I actually made this playlist here

with some interviews of people who

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: 00:17:31

were able to land jobs without degrees.

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: 00:17:33

It'll be right here on your screen,

or if you're an audio listener, it'll

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: 00:17:36

be in the show notes down below.

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: 00:17:38

And the other half of you are

probably going to comment in the

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: 00:17:40

comments, you know, where do I start?

359

: 00:17:42

What skills should I start with?

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: 00:17:43

What should I be focusing on?

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: 00:17:45

And I have a great episode for you here.

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: 00:17:47

That will help you get started learning

your tech skills, where to actually start.

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: 00:17:51

So just click right here, or you

can find it in the show notes.

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: 00:17:53

Thanks for listening.