Who is a Data Analyst?
A data analyst is an individual whose job is to collect, clean, and interpret the different data sets with the purpose of answering a question or solving a major problem. A data analyst can easily work in different industries be it business, finance, science, medicine, or government.
Data Analyst Responsibilities:
Following are the responsibilities of a Data Analyst;
Data Collection:
He often has to collect data himself. And this is done by conducting surveys and tracking visitor characteristics on a website.
Data Cleaning:
Next, he has to clean the data. In other words, the raw data collected could be duplicated or has errors in it so he has to maintain the quality of data in a spreadsheet and make it error free. This is done so that the interpretations won’t go wrong. Check out the IBM Data Analyst Professional Certificate.
Data Modeling:
Similarly, another role of a data analyst is to model the data. He has to create and design the structure of a database. This includes choosing the type of data to be stored and collect, then establishing how data categories are related etc.
Data Interpretation:
This involves finding the right pattern or trend in data that will lead the finding the answer to question in hand.
Data Presentation:
This includes communicating your findings to the desired entity. This is done either in the form of charts and graphs or by writing reports and showing it to the interested parties.
Did you know?
According to our research;
The major companies have now come to realize the value of data-driven business strategies and thus they are constantly in need of talented data analysts.
70% of the US executives are preferring candidates who have data skills. And thus the demand for data analysts will only tend to grow.
Similarly, 41% of the data that is available in the data science pipelines is coming from public.
Lastly, 78% of the input data that is utilized in data science is generated by internal systems.
Related Courses:
Top 3 skills for data analyst:
Interested in knowing the top 3 skills for Data Analyst? We have listed these three skills below.
Microsoft Excel:
Whenever we talk about excel or someone says he is using excel, the first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is spreadsheet right? But if we think big then there is so much more to it. There are advanced excel methods that are widely used for quick analytics. This includes writing Macros by using VBA lookup.
Similarly, when you start working at a startup. The first version of the database that you might see would also be in excel. So, this shows how important skill this is to build. So many years have passed and this is one of the tools that managed to stay in every industry.
Critical Thinking:
This is another skill that a data analyst must possess. If a data analyst has the ability to ask the right questions in the first place and find answers to the questions then this shows his ability of critical thinking. And this is the kind of skill that can help to become a successful data analyst. So you need to improve your critical thinking skills and train your mind to think out of the box. Just remember one thing; always try to think on your own rather than relying on what is already available in front of you.
Data Visualization:
We live in a world where data is mostly presented in the form of visualizations and thus this skill is also very important to possess. If you learn to tell compelling stories with data and present your finding in the form of high quality charts and graphs then this can put a great impact on the viewers. And for this purpose, we recommend you to learn to use Tableau as it is one of the best data visualization tools.
Other skills include the following;
Machine learning
Presentation skills
R or Python-statistical programming
SQL
So it is your job to make sure you possess these skills if you really wish to become a professional Data Analyst.
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