I recently had the pleasure of attending the Center for Business Analytics Career Panel event at Villanova University where myself and other analytics professionals sat on a panel to discuss the future of analytics with the students.
My hope is that it helped inform them of possible career paths they can take with their future degrees and inspired (at least one of!) them to pursue a career in strategic analytics as I’ve done.
In mulling over the panel discussion and content, it got me thinking about my past and current experience and what I’ve found to be the core practical and technical skills I’ve needed to be successful in my career (besides my natural charm and charisma, of course). So, whether you’re currently a seasoned analytics professional like me, or are considering starting a career in data, here are the top 5 technical skills you’ll need to succeed:
The bottom line is, whether you’re an external consultant, the CEO or a business analyst, spreadsheets still can more easily do a lot of things that BI tools can’t. Embrace it. Master it. Love it.
Improving logical thinking also helps you more easily figure out business problems or foreign data sets that are dropped into your lap. In my current role, I’m always inheriting new datasets and investigating processes that I need to break it down into parts.Mastering logic will help you in any operations profession, but especially in analytics.
As a bonus, I recommended to the students that they master PowerPoint. Seems unrelated, but after you’ve assembled the world’s most amazing data and performed genius analysis to then form a game-changing recommendation, it can fall on deaf ears if it isn’t presented to stakeholders in the correct way. You’d be surprised what a well-ordered slideshow with simplified graphics and succinct bullet points will do when conveying a complicated data-driven narrative.
That’s my list — but maybe it doesn’t stop at just 5 skills. Do you have any other items a current or aspiring analyst needs in their toolbox? Let me know in the comments below!