Not everyone can become a Data Analyst!

Not everyone can become a data analyst!

Yes, you heard that right.

Unlike some people/companies who are selling you misleading courses with captions like ‘You can become a data analyst in 5/10/30 days’, I’d like to be brutally honest in this article.

Fundamental skills for a career in data analytics

The data industry is growing rapidly and is trending for a while in the IT job market not just in India, but globally too. But, if you want to become a data analyst, here are the 3 things in my opinion, that you would fundamentally need to survive and thrive in the industry.

Analytical mindset

You need to have the ability to think in terms of numbers. You should be comfortable crunching numbers day-in-day-out. At the end of the day, you’re going to report numbers to the business users, and it is crucial to possess an analytical mindset.

If you’re someone who hates math (even basic math), then a career in data analytics would be a difficult path to travel.

Basic programming

Though you need not require a software developer level of coding knowledge, you should have at least some understanding of basic programming languages (SQL, Python/R, etc.) that are required for data analytics.

At the end of the day, you would be working with computers, and we haven’t yet reached a point where you can give a prompt in ChatGPT and get your reports/dashboards ready. And if that day arrives, companies won’t even need data analysts after that.

Until that day comes, we will be building data/BI solutions using computers. Hence, some amount of coding knowledge/programming logic will be required for sure.

So, if you’re a person who hates programming, then it’s a challenging road ahead for you in the data field.

Business acumen

This is a very underrated skill set that many ignore while talking about a career in data. Data is generated as a result of some business process that is being recorded digitally. Hence, the ability to bridge the business context with the technical context is absolutely required to build reliable data analytics solutions.

If you’re someone who doesn’t understand (or) is not interested in business processes, then however good your technical skills might be, thriving in this career will be an uphill task.

Conclusion

You need not be really good in all the above 3 skills, but you need to be above average in them to succeed here and not get burnt out during the job.

This article is not to scare anyone from getting into the data analytics field, but to educate people such that they will be able to choose by themselves, to see if it would be the right career fit or not.

So, the next time someone comes to you and says, You can become a data analyst in 30 days and start earning 15 LPA, RUN far away from them!

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