Looking for the fastest route to a career as a Data Analyst?
Data jobs have been a hot topic for years, but not every company needs PhD-level expertise in machine learning or NLP. What businesses do need, according to Codecademy Data Science Domain Manager Michelle McSweeney, are people that can process large amounts of data to find insights that can help inform strategy and find new opportunities.
That’s why business analytics is booming — nearly every industry utilizes data to uncover insights and help make decisions. Business Intelligence (BI) Analysts can do everything from help marketing teams monitor and fine-tune their campaigns, work with sales and tech teams to find the underlying reasons behind a product’s success, and even partner with law enforcement to detect patterns and trends to help mitigate crime.
Another great aspect of BI is that there’s a low barrier to entry to all of those promising career opportunities — with the right training, you can become a BI Analyst in just a few months. Want to learn how? Check out our new Business Intelligence Data Analyst career path.
Who is the new path right for?
If you’re looking for the quickest path to becoming a Data Analyst, this path is for you. You can be ready to start applying to jobs within three months if you stay focused and committed to your learning, Michelle says.
But how do you know if BI is right for you?
If you’re naturally inquisitive and enjoy finding the answers to problems, that’s a good sign. Curiosity is the most valuable skill in any data profession, but especially BI. “Taking a bunch of observations from a dataset and turning it into something actionable feels empowering,” Michelle says. “But you need to be curious about looking in other areas and segmenting data in different ways. If you look at the data differently, does it tell a different story?”
It can also be a great choice if you’re considering changing careers but want to stay in the same industry. According to Michelle, your past knowledge and expertise can provide a unique perspective into your new role. “The combination of domain knowledge and the tools you’ll learn in this career path to really work with data is invaluable,” Michelle says. Not only will you know which questions to ask and where to look to find answers, but you’ll also have a better understanding of the real-world values of the numbers on the page. Plus, your communication and collaboration skills will help you work with different departments and tailor your messages for different audiences.
What’s more: Business intelligence is a promising field with tons of room for growth. “There are many career paths with this foundation, and learning these skills gives you an opportunity to branch out and grow in different ways,” Michelle says. You could utilize your insights from past experiences to pursue a job as an Analytics Manager or even keep building your analytics skills to become a Data Scientist.
And if you don’t consider yourself a “numbers person,” rest assured that you don’t need to be a math whiz to be a BI Data Analyst. “Analytics” might sound like it involves a lot of number-crunching, but Michelle explains that it’s more about understanding how to look at data and then telling the story behind those numbers.
What will you learn from the new career path?
Our new Business Intelligence Data Analyst career path will equip you with all the skills you’ll need to land an entry-level position in the field. You’ll learn how to use SQL and Python to manipulate and visualize data, and we’ll also show you how to use Excel and Tableau — two popular BI tools — to create clear and effective dashboards and reports. “The business world runs on dashboards, and composing a dashboard that tells a really clear, coherent story is an invaluable skill,” Michelle says.
After completing the path, you’ll be able to:
- Query and manage databases with SQL
- Use basic statistics to draw conclusions from datasets
- Create data visualizations with Tableau
- Clean and validate data
- Generate reports with data-driven explanations
- Clean, manipulate, analyze, and visualize data with Python and the pandas and matplotlib libraries to generate meaningful insights and reports
And as you complete the path, you’ll use these skills to build personalized projects that you can use to build a portfolio to share with hiring managers when you’re looking for a job. We’ll also help you prepare for the job hunt with advice from technical recruiters, interview prep courses, and other useful resources you can find in our Career Center.
Ready to jump into the world of data? Check out our BI Data Analyst career path!