Planning a late career shift to Analytics / Big data?

Planning a late career shift to Analytics / Big data?

I am an equity analyst (finance background) and have 10+ years

experience. I don’t have any background in IT. I have a background in chemical

technology (BE) and MBA finance. Can I move to analytics?

We get quite a few queries asking my advice on this matter regularly. Here are a few samples

Here are a few concerns people express

Would my existing profile be adaptable to

career in business analytics?

How easy (or difficult) it would be to get job in

business analytics?

Agenda

• Thinking of a career shift – first things first

• Do you absolutely love numbers and logical problem solving?

• A few other concerns

• Dead sure this is the way – Next steps!

The first question you need to answer…

Is career shift to analytics just a fancy or a bigger

urge / purpose for you in life?

Credit: http://optimalbi.com/who-we-are/optimal-team/kathryn-greenbrook/

The first question you need to answer…

I hope you are not making this choice under some

illusion, because the reality is…

Credit: http://optimalbi.com/who-we-are/optimal-team/kathryn-greenbrook/

Be prepared for facing these challenges

• Consistent hard work without clear sight of results for at least 12 months

• Loads of self learning

• Competition from grads from best universities

• A lot….I repeat…a lot of initial rejections

Proceed only when Completely sure

Agenda

• Thinking of a career shift – first things first

• Do you absolutely love numbers and logical problem solving?

• A few other concerns

• Dead sure this is the way – Next steps!

Do you love numbers, statistics, probability and logical problem solving?

Why are they required?

There is a lot of slicing and dicing of data, which happens before you

come out with actionable insights.

Why are they required?

You will be required to troll through complex statistical analysis to find out answers for your questions.

Why are they required?

You will need to perform calculations on

the fly – in meetings, during whiteboard

discussions, during

negotiations…everywhere you can

possibly think of.

Agenda

• Thinking of a career shift – first things first

• Do you absolutely love numbers and logical problem solving?

• A few other concerns

• Dead sure this is the way – Next steps!

Will your experience be considered?

Well, It depends…

On the nature of your experience

Will your experience be considered?

• Non Technical Experience:- (E.g. Sales, Telecalling executive) Will not be considered

• Only benefit you might get is that the interviewer can expect you to be more mature with your thought

process / decision.

• Technical Experience:- IT (programming / SQL / server) gets counted, but will only be

considered as equivalent of 1 – 2 yrs. experience.

• Consulting/ Research Experience:- it would count more. May not be 100%, but healthy

fraction would be considered

How soon can you find a job?

Oops! Where are all those jobs, which

were promised?

How soon can you find a job?

• The rosy picture (recruiters running behind you) you thought, would be at

least 3 – 5 years away.

• The first few years would be very arduous (don’t tell me I didn’t warn you)

• When you land up in your true data science job depends on multiple factors

like…

How soon can you expect to get a job depends on…

How quickly can you come up the learning curve?

Your technical abilities Your Hard Work

Agenda

• Thinking of a career shift – first things first

• Do you absolutely love numbers and logical problem solving?

• A few other concerns

• Dead sure this is the way – Next steps!

Only if you are dead sure about the shift…

I can’t live without

becoming an analyst

Here is the first step…

Step 1: Sign up for a few MOOCs

to see if you enjoy the subject.

Check out:

1. Coursera.org

2. eDX.org

3. Udacity.com

A few other resources

• Subscribe to a few blogs on the subject:

• Analytics Vidhya (www.analyticsvidhya.com)

• KDNuggets (kdnuggets.com)

• Join a few communities:

• Datatau.com

• Linkedin Groups on Analytics / Big data / Predictive modeling

• Facebook

• Read up a few books on the subject:

• http://www.analyticsvidhya.com/blog/2013/07/read-books-analysts-or-interested-analytics/