What Skills Should You Focus on With Your Data Analysis Project?

It is not a secret that data collection and analytics are an important part of any business process. This flow of information is necessary to make the right decisions based on clear parameters and numbers, not intuition.

A data analyst helps a business not to get lost in the ocean of information – it structures and interprets it in order to present it in a visual format. This material contains detailed information about skills that a data analyst should have.

What Is A Data Analyst, In Simple Words?

Almost all large companies are engaged in data collection. They are needed to track the behavior of customers and their reactions to a new product. Data can be ordered or scattered and have different structures and densities. If we talk about volumes, then data analytics work with gigabytes and terabytes of information. Processing such arrays manually is time-consuming and difficult, so automatic processing tools were created for analysis.

Students who want to be data analysts learn how to collect and analyze big data, process it, study it, and draw conclusions. Students conduct A/B tests, identify trends in customer behavior, and test hypotheses. All this takes a lot of time. If you want to save it, simply ask the assignment service to help. An experienced data analyst will help you to deal with your homework quickly.

What Is The Job Of A Data Analyst?

To do their job well, a data analyst must have a thorough understanding of a company’s business processes. It is necessary to know what problem their work should help to solve. Here are just a few of the tasks that may be part of the responsibilities of a data analyst:

• Conducting A/B testing. You need to compare which version of the site visitors like best. The analyst collects data about the actions of visitors on the site and the amount of time that each spent on the page. As a result, it recommends which version of the site should be implemented.
• Conducting advertising or marketing research. An analyst should draw graphs for the inflow and outflow of users, correlate them with ongoing advertising activity, and evaluate the effectiveness of the promotion.
• Product tasks. An analyst should carry out segmentation of visitors or customers according to certain segments; determine what people like about the product and what they don’t. An analyst should identify possible problems and find solutions.

What Skills Should You Focus On?

Let’s briefly list the data analyst skills that a successful specialist will need:

• Knowledge of at least one programming language: R or Python
• Ability to work with queries in SQL database
• Knowledge of the basics of mathematical statistics
• Experience with BI systems: Tableau, Google Data Studio, Power BI, and others.

You may need knowledge of Google Analytics, Google Sheets, and the SolarWinds SQL analyzer tool. It depends on the direction of the company. If you’re interested in learning more about Google Analytics courses, check out this article.

Do you want to be a data analyst? Make sure you have the necessary qualities for efficient and comfortable work:

• Patience. You will have to do monotonous and the same type of work every day, which requires perseverance and endurance;
• Accuracy and care. The data analyst must not lose sight of any factor that can affect the result of the work. Otherwise, the conclusions drawn will be erroneous;
• Ability to think in a non-standard way. Sometimes it is worth trying to look at things from an unusual angle in order to get the right solution;
• Logical mindset. This profession involves the constant operation of algorithms and statistical data, drawing up graphs and tables, and testing hypotheses. All these actions should please you and not cause difficulties.

How To Become A Data Analyst From Scratch

You’ve made up your mind to become a data analyst. What’s next? There are several options for mastering this profession.

Study At The University

A higher education institution will help to obtain a large amount of fundamental knowledge. The disadvantage is that the process will stretch for 2-3 years. Along with the necessary knowledge, you will have to study disciplines that are not directly related to the chosen profession.

There is also more emphasis on theory, so students will need to spend a lot of time on self-study. Only in this case will it be possible to understand how to apply theoretical knowledge in practice.

Self-education

You can find all the information you need to study the profession on your own. We list the main sources of the necessary data:

• Videos and lectures from available sources. Many free lessons are on YouTube;
• Books. Printed literature is useful for obtaining a base, without which further study of data analytics is impossible. For example, read Investigating Big Data Analytics by William D. Mawby.
• Online platforms where you can explore a particular area of interest or upgrade your skills.

Training In Online Data Analyst Courses

The best option to learn the profession of data analysis from scratch is to take online courses. Here, in a short time, you will receive all the necessary information to enter the specialty and will be able to immediately put it into practice. During the training, you can perform actual real tasks and projects.