Introduction to Data Analyst Associate
Data Analyst or a junior data scientist is a work that everybody cherishes for. You don’t have to be highly educated or work too hard to become a data analyst associate, only a little planning and right Data Analyst course/ Data Analyst training material is required.Although several universities across the world offer full-time/part-time data analyst courses that you can pursue but the good news is that if you have the right training material at hand and right guidance then you can yourself become an excellent data analyst associate.
Also please note that the job of data analyst associate is one of the high paying jobs in USA, Canada, and across the world as every company needs a data analyst associate.
So how does one become a data analyst associate? What does it take in terms of education or training or for that matter any other thing that needs to be pursued in order to become a full-time data analyst associate? We tried to answer the aforesaid question in the article below for you to understand the nitty-gritty of the situation and help yourself. Read on to find out more.
Good Data Analyst Associate and Salary
Let us discuss the salary of a good data analyst.
Background
What kind of background in terms of education did you need in order to become a data analyst associate? An answer to this question is that in case you are a graduate, good enough. If you can play with numbers and are good at mathematics and statistical analysis then it’s the best. Although some companies require master-level data analyst education for the job that they are offering most of them require to graduate.
Technical know-how
First and foremost you need to learn and master Microsoft Excel, which is the basic requirement for a data analyst associate. Although there are several smart and latest data handling software that are available in the market as of now but to start with Microsoft Excel has no competitor.
First, you have to learn basic Microsoft Excel, its use as a spreadsheet, and its other data handling capabilities and then gradually you can use its advanced features as well.
A basic and beginner tip that we would like to mention here is that learn Microsoft Excel on Window Operating System and not on Mac as Microsoft Excel on Mac is a little scaled-down version and all the features and functionalities may not be available to the end-user.
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Basic SQL learning is the must
Apart from learning Microsoft Excel, you need to learn some database skills as well; after all, you are going to become a data analyst associate. There are several databases and relational databases available in the market but we would advise you to start with basic SQL commands.
These commands could be as simple as FROM, SELECT, GROUP BY, WHERE, ORDER BY, HAVING, and other easy commands. Once you get the grasp of basic data set commands, you can go on for advanced commands as well.
Basically what you need to do is data wrangling and analyze data in such a way so that some meaningful information can be churned out from it. This information can then be utilized by data analyst companies and individuals to predict and forecast future outcomes and thus becomes beneficial for the growth of the company.
How about learning some web development
Although this is not a mandatory requirement for learning some web development techniques always helps you to become an expert data analyst associate. More and more data analyst companies are doing business in Web/Internet technologies and they want that the data analyst associate they hire also should be aware of these technologies.
The most common ones out of these are HTML and Java but more advanced can be learned and mastered as well. The data that you analyze and report can be well presented using these web technologies and is beneficial for the company as well.
If possible you can also learn some blog-creating technologies as well such as WordPress as this is most widely used and every other company is making good use of it.
What does exactly a data analyst associate do?
As the name suggests, the main duty of a data analyst associate is to analyze and present the companies data in a meaningful way that makes sense to higher management and helps them formulate the long and short-term strategies for the company.
It is also sometimes called junior data scientist, wherein a data scientist is one step further who can create algorithms and delves deeper into data handling technologies.
It can also dictate trends based upon the data that he or she is working on and can predict meaningful insights into complex problems.
Data Analyst Associate portfolio that the companies are looking for
Ever wondered what kind of portfolio the data analyst companies are looking for when they decide to hire a data analyst associate. We tried to answer this question, read on to find out more.
- Expertise working on large amounts of data that typically don’t fit into the spreadsheet or other small data handling applications. This is also called data wrangling and please note that data could be totally unstructured or incongruent.
- There is quite a good number of high-end data handling applications that are available in the industry so you need to learn and master them. Some of them are Pandas, R, Scipy, Numpy, and many more so you need to learn and experiment a lot.
- As we have mentioned before you need to have strong analytical and reasoning skills. Apart from that you also need to have strong mathematical problems solving skills as well as strong statistical analysis skills.
- Although this is not very essential because lots of tools and technologies are available in today’s industry that automates your task but still if you have data mining skills as well then that would be great.
Salary of a data analyst associate
Since we have gone into the details of the data analyst skills that you need to become a data analyst associate, you must be definitely wondering what kind of salaries does a data analyst associate typically get. Well, here is the answer.
The salary of one gets typically depends upon the kind of basic/advanced qualification he has, the kind of data analyst experience he has and yes, the company that he is working for. There are many more other factors as well but these are the most important ones.
A person working as a data analyst associate in the USA can get a salary up to $72,000 per year with middle-level experience. A similar data analyst associate in Canada can fetch a salary up to $64,000 per year so as you can see it’s a good amount of money.
Please keep in mind that a job of data analyst requires you to sit in front of laptop/computer for long durations and in case you have to meet deadlines then even longer.
Some useful tips
In order to become a data analyst associate, you can always read some books or browse the Internet for some useful stuff but there is nothing like practical experience. Along with your regular study and whatever course material you are using, you can always become an assistant to any regular data analyst or scientist. This position is called Actuarial
A technician or statistical assistant and can help you a lot in gaining actual practical experience in data analysis tools and technologies that are being used by data analyst skills. The best part with becoming a statistical assistant is that you get hands-on experience in analytical tools such as SigmaStat or SAS and other tools as well.
So here we are done with our article on How to Become a Data Analyst, do share it with your friends and work peers and let us know how to do you like this article. In case you have any queries or comments, do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
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