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I am working as Data Analyst and currently have a permanent contract. I am not applying for jobs but I am looking at job requirements and I see most employers in my area of expertise asks for a minimum of 2 years but usually 3 or 5 years of experience.
I am very active, proactive, looking for new goals constantly, working overtimes (sometimes on weekends) and I made a lot of improvements, saved time and money to the company I am working now but I barely have a bit more than 1 year of experience. I see there are other colleagues that sit watching facebook and always do the same stuff for 3 years, very easy and basic tasks compared to mine. I was even assigned to complex projects considering I have less time working in the company.
But the job descriptions mention I need 3, 5, 7 years of experience for most jobs. That means those with 3 years working doing the same Excel stuff every day are more qualified and can get these jobs? What can I do? I feel I am qualified for jobs (I have the technical skills) that for me are easy to meet requirements but I don´t have the years of experience they ask. Sometimes are jobs that do not require much technical expertise but they ask 3 or 5 years of experience. If I want to access these jobs I need to sit here 2 or 4 extra years to be qualified to apply for them?
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,551 posts, read 81,085,957 times
Reputation: 57728
Our data analyst positions are not asking for Excel, we require 3-5 years Tableau experience. Their title is Business Intelligence Analyst, and pay is $100-150k. With many jobs the years of experience may be relaxed if the person seems otherwise well qualified. For others, like here, HR will not allow us to interview a person unless they meet the minimum qualifications. My suggestion to you is apply to any jobs you are interested in, the worst that can happen is you are rejected.
There is that quote that says something to the effect of: Some people say they have 20 years of experience. When in fact, they only have 1 year of experience repeated 20 times.
The key is to be able to show growth in knowledge. So for someone with 3 or 5 years of experience, there is an expectation of what that knowledge is. If you can show that knowledge on your resume, many will over look the fact that you may not meet the x year requirement. In most cases, no one will meet every requirement on a job posting.
That said - there are certainly some that will simply filter you out if you don't match said criteria. Unfortunately, not much you can do there. But, I wouldn't let that deter me from applying. As Hemlock says, the worse that can happen is they will say 'no'.
I'm am a reporting and data analyst with nearly a decade of experience doing this type of work. The thing about the years of experience isn't so much about having your butt in the chair for a particular amount of time. More importantly, it's about the tips and tricks you've learned in that span of time to make your output more efficient and accurate.
I don't know what you know after a year of experience, I can only speak for myself. Looking back at my first year in this line of work, I only knew a small fraction of what I know now. I was good, don't get me wrong. But my efficiency and accuracy has improved considerably since then. I know what errors to look for, I know which applications to use in my work, and I know what to check for before sending off my special unicorn report off to someone. Chances are that this is along the lines of what those employers are looking for who are demanding 5+ years of experience.
Here's the thing though. Will they get precisely what they're looking for? There's no certainty they will. A job description is merely a wish list. So, maybe you're the best applicant they get and they really need to get someone in to start working on projects. Maybe you get a chance on one of those "3 years of experience" roles. The only way to find out is to apply.
You need to highlight real projects and "wins" from your current job. If you can clearly show a positive track record of accomplishments - to me, that's much more valuable than "years of experience."
Our data analyst positions are not asking for Excel, we require 3-5 years Tableau experience. Their title is Business Intelligence Analyst, and pay is $100-150k. With many jobs the years of experience may be relaxed if the person seems otherwise well qualified. For others, like here, HR will not allow us to interview a person unless they meet the minimum qualifications. My suggestion to you is apply to any jobs you are interested in, the worst that can happen is you are rejected.
Are HR people writing the postings, or is an actual IT professional doing it?
You need good references from your bosses that would say that you are a fast learner, have great skills and are performing all your tasks very well. Add to it great work ethics and perfect attendance.
List all your skills and credits.
Find out what they expect and make sure you know that stuff.
Appear confident.
That often means more than years of experiences, laziness and bad habits.
Location: San Diego CA>Tijuana, BC>San Antonio, TX
6,496 posts, read 7,525,332 times
Reputation: 6873
I recommend following Alex The Analyst's YouTube channel. Dude is super positive and worked up to a 6 figure senior data analyst salary after only 3 years (took me 12 years starting from the bottom as a Associate Reports Analyst) and he became a data analytics manager after only 5 for for a fortune 500 healthcare company.
His degree and background before this was something like a behavioral health counselor, or something to that effect.
His channel is specifically geared toward new analysts or aspiring analysts, not hard core techies. He usually recommends learning and creating a portfolio project with SQL, Excel and a data viz tool such as Power BI or Tableau.... if possible he also recommends learning/using Python/Pandas for data science.
I'm an experienced senior data analyst myself, I can tell you he gives some really sound advice.
Bumping because I'm interested to delve deeper in data analysis. Hopefully someone can answer two questions of mine :
a. Is MS Access enough to learn how to wirte SQL queries from Excel and managing small department database?
Right now our unprocessed datasets are approximately 10 spreadsheets with each sheet contains approximately 5k-10k rows and 20-50 columns.
b. What are useful skills in Excel I can learn for data analytics other than VBA and Macro? Right now I'm taught by my coworker how to use more advanced Excel formulas and the basics of Power Query, but unfortunately this is the limitation of his and my skills
Thanks in advance
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