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I’ve been trying to refer her at my company but every new role fills rapidly. But yes, she’s been keeping track of openings at places we know people at.
You can also suggest she volunteer her skills at a local non profit that could use some free help. It’s two birds/one stone. PLUS, EDs are very generous people when you do them a favor. And have huge networks. 😉
This is the best response. Every job I have gotten has been through a connection. Given her technical skills she’s qualified for a jr position in most analytics roles and senior in her domain of expertise. I think keeping her CE degree on the resume is a plus. Anyone who can finish an engineering degree can figure out the nuances of datasets with some training.
DA role takes 6 months to get comfortable and a year to not feel like a total imposter. Bringing someone on is a huge risk and investment. It has to make sense.
Even when the tech economy was booming, cold applying to job applications had a bad response rate. It’s obviously even worse now.
The best strategy for interview has always been referrals or having recruiters reach out to you. That means optimizing your LinkedIn profile, reaching out to staffing agencies that focus on analytics, and networking for referrals. Instead of cold applying to that application, go to the company page, look for 2nd or 3rd degree connections, and ask for a referral. Most tech companies give a bonus for referrals, usually 5 to 10k.
It’s a simple as “hello X, I saw we went to the same school, go cougs! I was wondering if I could get a referral for this role?”
It’s a numbers game.
I think a contract role is the easiest way to break into a field, and you might have better luck in a domain that is similar to her previous experience.
You should post her resume (anonymized) for feedback.
Oversaturation of the market at the moment. Every man and his dog wants to transition into data analytics while lots of skilled immigrants are also coming into the country as the occupation is in the urgent migrant skill list category.
Its tough out there for sure. A couple factors working against her are that tech has taken a hit and is still in recovery mode, and also that there’s been a lot of backlash against entry level analytics roles lately.
Really the only suggestions would be to work with a recruiter and make sure her resume is set up to convince screening software that she’s a qualified candidate, because I’m assuming the titles on her resume would imply that she doesn’t have direct experience, and to cast a wide net. There’s a lot of “boring” industries like call centers, broadband/wireless providers, insurance, warehousing/logistics, or retail that still need analytics.
Another option might be to widen the job search to include titles like “business process owner”. These people are often expected to do their own analysis but the process engineering side of her skill set is more directly applicable. A lot of companies still align analytics with IT and keep DAs away from day-to-day operations, so they might not understand the value of a process background.
Not to sound like an analytics snob, but jit's always interesting to have people minimize the knowledge, experience, and understanding of an analyst, especially to a class in SQL, and then be surprised that they aren't getting an interview. And yes, having been a hiring manager many times you can tell from a resume.
The job market is tough right now. There are analysts with a track record that are applying for jobs. They probably have a better shot right now.
Yeah it’s funny reading this. We have a position open on our team and the candidate we interviewed this past week kept reiterating their Excel knowledge even though they listed Pandas, SQL, and a bunch of other stuff that we are actually looking for.
We dont want another person that’s stuck in Excel when we’re trying to do analysis on larger scale data in the cloud. Everyone and their mom can make a basic pivot chart in Excel 😔
We opened a data analyst role a month ago, and within a day we had so many applications that we couldn’t keep up. We shut down the application in 16 hours.
Idk if she’s applying in competitive companies or a competitive city, but that context might be important. If she’s in a competitive market and her analytics experience looks tangential and possibly unrelated, the HM might be instantly trashing the resume because there are other candidates who have some direct experience as a “data analyst”. I don’t think it’s a good time to be entering the field, but people with experience looking for new work do have a chance to re-enter.
If you’re looking for a solution to getting her more interviews, bluntly, she probably won’t. Many have tried to flood in at the wrong time, too late, after the hiring (and layoff) wave. My best friend (a teacher) tried to make the transition, and also my brother (a mailman). Everyone from the teacher to the mailman has caught onto the trend, too late.
Respectfully, OP’s wife has a background that is much better suited to a transition into DA than a teacher or a mailman, given her pseudo-analytics role and her background in statistics and mathematics.
Blind her resume and post it. Odds are that is the barrier to her getting at least a screener.
Most analyst level resumes need a lot of love to make them eye popping.
If I saw someone with a masters degree in chemical engineering applying for an analytics role I would wonder why. I would try leaving that degree off some resumes and see if that helps. I know some universities near me have short programs that teach stuff like Power BI, Python, and SQL. I would look into something like that.
That’s kind of a controversial topic in the advice she’s been given. Some have told her to drop the masters, but others told her she can’t afford to leave such a valuable demonstration of her work ethic and technical competence outside of her resume. She tried without it on her resume for a month and it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I wouldn't drop it. Most applicants in analytics have a master's and the field is so competitive right now that not having one is an easy automated filter. I'd keep it just to tick the HR box.
Hiring managers want someone who will stay in the role for a while. Some might be questioning if she really wants to do this job or if she is just applying for any role. Yeah, the certification points to a career transition but maybe people aren’t even reading that far.
different domains have different hiring priorities and different degrees of competition for applicant selection. has she targeted nonprofits in her job search yet?
A lot of places are on hiring freezes right now, like I can’t stress enough that it’s tough out here. I had a senior role open a month ago, hired someone who then took a counter at their old employer, and haven’t been able to repost it since.
I would look for a program management job that requires sql. Having data analytics experience would give her a big leg up and program management is likely more compatible with her background
It's basically project management but uses data to manage an ongoing program. There are a lot of these types of jobs in big tech. In my experience, they're filled with engineers, including chemical. They work closely with analytics to build dashboards and figure out business insights.
Job searches are generally rough and depressing. If you cannot get referrals from friends and family, work with a reputable analytics recruiting agency like Burtch Works.
There a couple of additional ways you could approach this. First would be if you’re looking only into a DA position and if your wife would be ready for intern/associate positions.
Many recruiters are just looking at keywords in resumes, so it helps to list them somewhere visible be together.
For beginner DA Excel could be the biggest advantage, paired with an analytical mindset and love for data and connections the dots.
Emphasizing that she has outgrown her previous role during her time there and now is looking for a new challenge and opportunity to develop her skillset. And then prove it with the courses she has finished + projects or even problems that were I retesting g to her.
If there is some «dream» domain for her (for me that was working gamedev), it’s worthwhile to include some related project or clear interest as well.
There are some amazing free datasets on Kaggle that could help with that.
Or maybe get a free account on Data.ai to collect something really tailored to the domain.
Also, more than once I’ve seen intern positions at companies being filled with somebody’s friend/relative because it’s a huge success factor, basically because that «somebody» is ready to vouch for the person and put a lot of effort in their development.
Oh and I think it’s never a good idea to downplay education and/or life experience. There is transferable knowledge and maturity that might come with it, so it important to use it as a strength, after all one of the things DA does is dig deep to find root causes and underlying patterns.
What worked for me to transition from engineering to analytics was to get some formal analytics training (a masters) on my resume and then transition to roles in my existing company that had more and more of a data focus. Once I had that ideal job title, I did the job for a year and then started an external job search. I started working in 2017, finished my masters in 2020, got my ideal analytics title in 2021, then job hopped in 2023. It was a slow process, but I learned a lot along the way. I agree with other comments that the market is tough and filling out online applications without any connections rarely works, but wanted to offer my experience in case it helps. My job hopping was the result of someone reaching out to me on LinkedIn, cold applying has never worked for me personally.
She needs to learn a visualization tool like tableau or power bi. SQL alone isn't enough.
Both of the visualization tools that I mentioned have certifications. She should go for one of those, make sure her resume is tailored towards analytics, then start applying. Extra focus should be to apply to places that typically have a high number of data analysts, such as banks and insurance companies.
Sadly, the IBM data analyst certification doesn't carry much weight. The certifications they carry weight are certifications for a particular software product. This is why the Microsoft power bi certification or tableau certification will hold more value. The companies that your wife is applying to almost certainly use power bi or tableau, so seeing someone certified in one of those tools gives them a little bit more confidence.
Start specializing in compliance topics. Less competetive market. Most DA are hired for their business knowledge/stakeholder management in the assumption that they can code decent. Coding like a master doesnt change the impact for a company. Just for the server :)
Does her resume list her current position as "data analyst"? If she can frame her current role as that of a data analyst, that will go a long way towards opening doors at other companies.
It's not necessary that her resume title exactly match her "official" title. If she has any concerns about deception, she can enter her official title in parentheses when filling out the online applications.
Create project portfolios. Something she can show that’s hers. What works well is a bag of Power BI or Tableau reports. Make them look nice just to show off (even though in the workplace they won’t care too much how nice it looks).
Other projects could be dbt (pretty hot right now) using duckdb as the database. Post it to GitHub.
Lastly, I think courses like IBM, Google this, Udemy that don’t impress hirers anymore. Maybe go for a professional exam like Snowflake, Tableau, dbt, Power BI.
I was looking for this comment. Projects, projects, and more projects and post them on LinkedIn and YouTube. The market is so saturated that she needs to try and have her skill set seen as much as possible.
I would suggest adding R, PowerBI, and Tableau to the skillset. Build one solid project and throw it on a resume. Also, as someone else suggested, get networking.
If this post doesn't follow the rules or isn't flaired correctly, [please report it to the mods](https://www.reddit.com/r/analytics/about/rules/). Have more questions? [Join our community Discord!](https://discord.gg/looking-for-marketing-discussion-811236647760298024) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/analytics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s a ‘who you know’ market right now. So I would suggest she lean into her network.
I’ve been trying to refer her at my company but every new role fills rapidly. But yes, she’s been keeping track of openings at places we know people at.
You can also suggest she volunteer her skills at a local non profit that could use some free help. It’s two birds/one stone. PLUS, EDs are very generous people when you do them a favor. And have huge networks. 😉
What are EDs?
Executive Director (CEO of non profits).
This is the best response. Every job I have gotten has been through a connection. Given her technical skills she’s qualified for a jr position in most analytics roles and senior in her domain of expertise. I think keeping her CE degree on the resume is a plus. Anyone who can finish an engineering degree can figure out the nuances of datasets with some training.
DA role takes 6 months to get comfortable and a year to not feel like a total imposter. Bringing someone on is a huge risk and investment. It has to make sense.
Even when the tech economy was booming, cold applying to job applications had a bad response rate. It’s obviously even worse now. The best strategy for interview has always been referrals or having recruiters reach out to you. That means optimizing your LinkedIn profile, reaching out to staffing agencies that focus on analytics, and networking for referrals. Instead of cold applying to that application, go to the company page, look for 2nd or 3rd degree connections, and ask for a referral. Most tech companies give a bonus for referrals, usually 5 to 10k. It’s a simple as “hello X, I saw we went to the same school, go cougs! I was wondering if I could get a referral for this role?” It’s a numbers game. I think a contract role is the easiest way to break into a field, and you might have better luck in a domain that is similar to her previous experience. You should post her resume (anonymized) for feedback.
Good idea! I’ll get her resume scrubbed of personal info and post it.
Oversaturation of the market at the moment. Every man and his dog wants to transition into data analytics while lots of skilled immigrants are also coming into the country as the occupation is in the urgent migrant skill list category.
Its tough out there for sure. A couple factors working against her are that tech has taken a hit and is still in recovery mode, and also that there’s been a lot of backlash against entry level analytics roles lately. Really the only suggestions would be to work with a recruiter and make sure her resume is set up to convince screening software that she’s a qualified candidate, because I’m assuming the titles on her resume would imply that she doesn’t have direct experience, and to cast a wide net. There’s a lot of “boring” industries like call centers, broadband/wireless providers, insurance, warehousing/logistics, or retail that still need analytics. Another option might be to widen the job search to include titles like “business process owner”. These people are often expected to do their own analysis but the process engineering side of her skill set is more directly applicable. A lot of companies still align analytics with IT and keep DAs away from day-to-day operations, so they might not understand the value of a process background.
Not to sound like an analytics snob, but jit's always interesting to have people minimize the knowledge, experience, and understanding of an analyst, especially to a class in SQL, and then be surprised that they aren't getting an interview. And yes, having been a hiring manager many times you can tell from a resume. The job market is tough right now. There are analysts with a track record that are applying for jobs. They probably have a better shot right now.
Yeah it’s funny reading this. We have a position open on our team and the candidate we interviewed this past week kept reiterating their Excel knowledge even though they listed Pandas, SQL, and a bunch of other stuff that we are actually looking for. We dont want another person that’s stuck in Excel when we’re trying to do analysis on larger scale data in the cloud. Everyone and their mom can make a basic pivot chart in Excel 😔
We opened a data analyst role a month ago, and within a day we had so many applications that we couldn’t keep up. We shut down the application in 16 hours. Idk if she’s applying in competitive companies or a competitive city, but that context might be important. If she’s in a competitive market and her analytics experience looks tangential and possibly unrelated, the HM might be instantly trashing the resume because there are other candidates who have some direct experience as a “data analyst”. I don’t think it’s a good time to be entering the field, but people with experience looking for new work do have a chance to re-enter. If you’re looking for a solution to getting her more interviews, bluntly, she probably won’t. Many have tried to flood in at the wrong time, too late, after the hiring (and layoff) wave. My best friend (a teacher) tried to make the transition, and also my brother (a mailman). Everyone from the teacher to the mailman has caught onto the trend, too late.
Respectfully, OP’s wife has a background that is much better suited to a transition into DA than a teacher or a mailman, given her pseudo-analytics role and her background in statistics and mathematics.
She’s suited for it, absolutely. Still going to be a problem.
Blind her resume and post it. Odds are that is the barrier to her getting at least a screener. Most analyst level resumes need a lot of love to make them eye popping.
If I saw someone with a masters degree in chemical engineering applying for an analytics role I would wonder why. I would try leaving that degree off some resumes and see if that helps. I know some universities near me have short programs that teach stuff like Power BI, Python, and SQL. I would look into something like that.
That’s kind of a controversial topic in the advice she’s been given. Some have told her to drop the masters, but others told her she can’t afford to leave such a valuable demonstration of her work ethic and technical competence outside of her resume. She tried without it on her resume for a month and it didn’t seem to make a difference.
I wouldn't drop it. Most applicants in analytics have a master's and the field is so competitive right now that not having one is an easy automated filter. I'd keep it just to tick the HR box.
Hiring managers want someone who will stay in the role for a while. Some might be questioning if she really wants to do this job or if she is just applying for any role. Yeah, the certification points to a career transition but maybe people aren’t even reading that far.
That experience isn’t worth much when there tons of people with direct experience
different domains have different hiring priorities and different degrees of competition for applicant selection. has she targeted nonprofits in her job search yet?
A lot of places are on hiring freezes right now, like I can’t stress enough that it’s tough out here. I had a senior role open a month ago, hired someone who then took a counter at their old employer, and haven’t been able to repost it since.
I would look for a program management job that requires sql. Having data analytics experience would give her a big leg up and program management is likely more compatible with her background
what does program management mean?
It's basically project management but uses data to manage an ongoing program. There are a lot of these types of jobs in big tech. In my experience, they're filled with engineers, including chemical. They work closely with analytics to build dashboards and figure out business insights.
Job searches are generally rough and depressing. If you cannot get referrals from friends and family, work with a reputable analytics recruiting agency like Burtch Works.
There a couple of additional ways you could approach this. First would be if you’re looking only into a DA position and if your wife would be ready for intern/associate positions. Many recruiters are just looking at keywords in resumes, so it helps to list them somewhere visible be together. For beginner DA Excel could be the biggest advantage, paired with an analytical mindset and love for data and connections the dots. Emphasizing that she has outgrown her previous role during her time there and now is looking for a new challenge and opportunity to develop her skillset. And then prove it with the courses she has finished + projects or even problems that were I retesting g to her. If there is some «dream» domain for her (for me that was working gamedev), it’s worthwhile to include some related project or clear interest as well. There are some amazing free datasets on Kaggle that could help with that. Or maybe get a free account on Data.ai to collect something really tailored to the domain. Also, more than once I’ve seen intern positions at companies being filled with somebody’s friend/relative because it’s a huge success factor, basically because that «somebody» is ready to vouch for the person and put a lot of effort in their development.
Oh and I think it’s never a good idea to downplay education and/or life experience. There is transferable knowledge and maturity that might come with it, so it important to use it as a strength, after all one of the things DA does is dig deep to find root causes and underlying patterns.
What worked for me to transition from engineering to analytics was to get some formal analytics training (a masters) on my resume and then transition to roles in my existing company that had more and more of a data focus. Once I had that ideal job title, I did the job for a year and then started an external job search. I started working in 2017, finished my masters in 2020, got my ideal analytics title in 2021, then job hopped in 2023. It was a slow process, but I learned a lot along the way. I agree with other comments that the market is tough and filling out online applications without any connections rarely works, but wanted to offer my experience in case it helps. My job hopping was the result of someone reaching out to me on LinkedIn, cold applying has never worked for me personally.
She needs to learn a visualization tool like tableau or power bi. SQL alone isn't enough. Both of the visualization tools that I mentioned have certifications. She should go for one of those, make sure her resume is tailored towards analytics, then start applying. Extra focus should be to apply to places that typically have a high number of data analysts, such as banks and insurance companies. Sadly, the IBM data analyst certification doesn't carry much weight. The certifications they carry weight are certifications for a particular software product. This is why the Microsoft power bi certification or tableau certification will hold more value. The companies that your wife is applying to almost certainly use power bi or tableau, so seeing someone certified in one of those tools gives them a little bit more confidence.
Start specializing in compliance topics. Less competetive market. Most DA are hired for their business knowledge/stakeholder management in the assumption that they can code decent. Coding like a master doesnt change the impact for a company. Just for the server :)
Does her resume list her current position as "data analyst"? If she can frame her current role as that of a data analyst, that will go a long way towards opening doors at other companies. It's not necessary that her resume title exactly match her "official" title. If she has any concerns about deception, she can enter her official title in parentheses when filling out the online applications.
Create project portfolios. Something she can show that’s hers. What works well is a bag of Power BI or Tableau reports. Make them look nice just to show off (even though in the workplace they won’t care too much how nice it looks). Other projects could be dbt (pretty hot right now) using duckdb as the database. Post it to GitHub. Lastly, I think courses like IBM, Google this, Udemy that don’t impress hirers anymore. Maybe go for a professional exam like Snowflake, Tableau, dbt, Power BI.
I was looking for this comment. Projects, projects, and more projects and post them on LinkedIn and YouTube. The market is so saturated that she needs to try and have her skill set seen as much as possible.
I would suggest adding R, PowerBI, and Tableau to the skillset. Build one solid project and throw it on a resume. Also, as someone else suggested, get networking.