In today’s world, data is everywhere. Particularly, humans use data in their daily lives. There is a need for professionals that can analyze data and identify human elements.
Data Analyst Job Description
The job of a data analyst is to analyze data and determine data relevance to people. The data derived from different sources tell an analyst about the users’ preferences that generated the data. These patterns and trends also help data analysts to narrow down their target audience. A data analyst’s other responsibilities include collecting data from multiple sources, maintaining databases, ensuring data clarity, and creating graphs.
Relationship between a Data Analyst and Data Scientist
Data analysts and data scientists can be mistaken for each other as they share similarities but are not identical. Data analyst utilizes data collected to draw insights based on patterns, creates database and system, and works through data mining and statistical analysis, among others. On the other hand, a data scientist creates algorithms and statistical models, organizes undefined data sets, etc.
Relationship between a Data Analyst and Business Analyst
Business and data analysts are analytical and data-driven jobs but with different focuses. Business analysts internally focus on analyzing data to allow businesses to run more efficiently. Alternatively, data analysts use external approaches in looking at data trends for meaningful insights into their target audience.
Types of Data Analytics
1. Descriptive Data Analytics: Focuses on quarterly earnings, monthly website traffic, or whether the budget was exceeded. It requires further inspection to tell analysts more
2. Diagnostic Data Analytics: Analyzes descriptive data. It includes a searching pattern that determines why earnings fall or sky-rocketed
3. Predictive Data Analytics: Applies information from diagnostic analytics to the future
4. Prescriptive Data Analytics: Searches for the future and industry trends and successful habits of businesses.
Data Analyst Qualifications & College Degrees
Although degrees can be optimized through school, boot camps in data science, and mathematics/statistics, there is no set degree for a data professional.
Data Analyst Skills:
- Experience in programming languages such as python.
- Experience with data clearing languages, especially SQL and PL/SQL.
- Experience with a data warehouse.
- Proficiency with Microsoft excel
Data Analyst Interview Questions
While every interview will be different depending on the company, here are some questions you can expect:
1. Why Do You Want To Be a Data Analyst?
2. What Do Data Analysts Do?
3. What Data Analyst Software Are You Proficient In?
4. What Has Been Your Most Difficult Data Analysis Project Thus Far?
5. What Were Your Daily Duties In Your Past Data Analyst Position?
How Much Does a Data Analyst Make?
Considering the high demand for Data Analysts and the low competition, they often earn a competitive salary compared to other careers. According to Salary.com, the average annual income for a Data Analyst is between $66,713 and $85,613 in the United States for a starting salary plus bonuses. This number also depends on where you live and living costs.
Conclusion
As a Data Analyst, work can be exciting and fulfilling if you’re passionate about solving problems. You may also be looking for a challenging career combining your people and computer skills.
