from the day i started messing around with
some data in Excel it took me about three years to land a data analyst job at Heineken and
another two years to land a job as a freelance data analyst at a big bank in Europe and another
two years to quit that job and travel the world full-time but more on that later can you become
a data analyst way faster? 100% i've wasted too many hours watching youtube tutorials and i've
spent money on Udemy courses that didn't add any value so i often ask myself if i could start
over with data analysis knowing what i know today how would i go about it? and that's exactly what
this video is about i'll remove all the fluff and give you the fastest path to go from zero to
a full-time data analyst and throughout this video i will share the three major mistakes almost
every data analyst makes so stay tuned for those the first thing every beginner data analyst needs
to pick is a tool or programming language for data analysis i personally started off with Excel is
that the best tool there is for data analysis no if i could go back in time would have started
with something else also no because apparently getting good at Excel was enough for my first
data analysis job and i personally recommend every single data analyst to start off with
Excel it's easy to learn used in almost every company and it has a wide range of applications
for data analysis but this is also it's pitfall although you can do a lot of different things
in Excel it's not designed specifically for data analysis meaning it has its limitations
you want to work with a very large data set well good luck not punching through your computer
screen after Excel crashes for the 27th time Excel is perfect for starting out but once
you've mastered excel it's time to move on to the more serious tools and the most logical
tool to learn next is SQL next to Excel it is apparently the second most requested skill in data
analyst job openings huge thanks to Luke Barousse for actually scraping a lot of Linkedin
job openings to come up with these facts you're a legend man thank you what up that nerds
and the reason SQL is so in demand is because it doesn't have the same limitations as Excel
why is my accent suddenly changing to southern i don't know what with SQL you can extract
transform and load very large data sets but the best thing about it is that SQL has its own
very easy to use programming language it's a great tool to add to your skill set as a data analyst
while also being a great stepping stone to some more serious programming but before we get to
that every data analyst needs a visualization tool there are dozens of BI tools out there but
having worked for multiple companies and projects and having looked at probably hundreds of data
analyst job openings i've come to realize that the majority of companies are looking for people
with experience with Tableau Power BI and Qlikview here's the pros and cons of each so you can decide
which suits you best Power BI is part of the Microsoft stack so it works smoothly with Excel
and Sharepoint besides that it has a free version and even the paid versions are relatively budget
friendly compared to the other BI tools next up is Tableau Tableau is a BI tool with more extensive
data visualization capabilities than Power BI it seems to be just a bit more in demand in
the job market than Power BI it comes with a much higher price tag though making it harder
to learn if you're starting out by yourself and then there's Qlikview using in-memory technology
making it a super fast and responsive way of doing business intelligence but also a pretty high price
tag and also it's less in demand than Tableau and Power BI i personally picked Power BI as my BI
tool although it might not be the fastest BI tool out there or the one with the most extensive
capabilities in my opinion it can give you the most bang for buck when it comes to becoming a
full-time data analyst before we move on to how to actually get good at data analysis and land that
first job there's one more thing we need to do as a data analyst after you've mastered a BI tool
it's time to get into the more advanced analytics i'm talking about which programming language
to use when it comes to data analysis or data science software developers and programmers get to
choose between java javascript ruby c-sharp python r c c++ and many more luckily for us data analysts
we only have to choose between two programming languages r and python so which one should you
pick i chose python but if i could go back in time i would choose python why well even though
they're actually very similar r is a programming language focused more on statistical analysis
well python is a more general purpose programming language that also happens to be very good for
data analysis and although r might be a little bit easier to learn i would still go for python as
it's the probably probably probably the number one programming language in the world meaning if you
get good at python for data analysis it might also open the door to a lot of different job
opportunities so the path i took is Excel SQL Power BI and Python this is the path i would
recommend as it worked out great for me but you can start off with any language or tool that
suits you best because whatever you pick your first language or tool will definitely not be your
last so now that you know which tools to learn let's talk about how to actually learn it and
this is where beginners make the first major mistake the mistake most beginners make is that
they try to learn by watching others this is how most people learn data analysis some people go to
Udemy and watch multiple 20 plus hour courses and probably not even finish all of them or they watch
youtube videos watching other people analyze data but without actually writing code or analyzing
data themselves they give themselves a false sense of progress because analyzing data in your
head is very different than from actually doing it data analysis in your head is very different
from actually analyzing data stumbling upon faulty data and debugging for hours so what is
the right way to do it? the answer is very simple: learn by doing you just need to get the
reps in and start coding and analyzing data by yourself for Excel i would recommend
a website called www.excel-practice-online.com a free website where you learn to use Excel
by doing from the basics to the most advanced functionalities for SQL i would recommend the
website www.w3schools.com/sql for Power BI i would recommend Datacamp there's free courses
and also paid ones for python you can go to this free website called learnpython.org whether
you're practicing every day at your current job so you can make that switch to a data analysis
career or whether you're still studying you need to practice every single day only this way will
you experience what it's actually like working as a data analyst analysis working as a data analyst
only then will you learn what it's like to debug your own code or formulas because to be honest
that's what you will spend the most time on debugging faulty code or correcting faulty data
being a data analyst is awesome but this is also the second major mistake most beginners make they
try to solve every problem themselves the fact is that error you just got in Power BI there's a very
big chance someone already has experienced exactly the same error as you and that's good news for you
because now you don't have to look for the cause of the error you just have to copy part of the
error message in google and you probably end up on some stack overflow website where someone explains
exactly how to solve this error let's be honest copying code from stack overflow is like 80%
of any developer programmer or data analyst job data analyst is awesome okay now that you know
what tool and programming language to pick and how to actually learn it it's time to build
your portfolio and this will help you build out an attractive CV for recruiters on Linkedin
recruiters i always talk like a bit this i know programmer so strange programming language
and recruiters talk to me every day now if you have a job where you can apply data analytics
already then do so right away if you don't really do anything data analytics related like sales for
example then try to build a report or a dashboard showing some key metrics or KPI's that you
can show to your manager he will appreciate it and you will get to learn your data analysis
skills and if you can't apply to your current job or if you're still studying then start a project
on your own at home because in the end it's about getting that data analyst job and the best way
to do that is as follows pimp up your Linkedin profile i've made a video before where i give
my top five Linkedin profile tips to attract recruiters on Linkedin and i'll summarize it here
for you make sure you put data analysts in as many places as you can in your profile Linkedin is a
search engine and if recruiters search for data analysts you want to be found you want to be on
top of that list so make sure your header contains the word data analyst in your work experience
if you've done something data analyst related put in the keyword data analyst once your Linkedin
profile is set up there's two things you can do start applying to every single data analyst
job you can find on Linkedin or any other job platform or the second way which i prefer is if
you've set up your Linkedin profile correctly then recruiters will soon start hunting you they
will invite you to job interviews for data analyst positions which brings me to major mistake number
three don't quit well do quit let me explain you see the second best decision i have ever made
in my life was becoming a data analyst and to become one yourself the only thing you have to do
is don't quit whether it will take you one week one month or one year if you keep applying if you
keep improving your skills updating your CV you will land that job eventually and trust me once
you do land that first data analyst job a world of opportunities will open up for you you can grow
your skills into a senior data analyst or become a freelance data analyst or what i eventually
did quit my job as a data analyst the single best decision in my life was quitting my job
as a data analyst you see becoming a freelance data analyst gave me the resources to quit my
job and pursue a completely different career creating my own brand while traveling the world
do not subscribe to my youtube channel i'm 100% serious if you're looking for advice and tips on
how to become a data analyst and how to build a data analyst career for the rest of your life then
i would recommend subscribing to Luke Barousse what up nerds as he makes way better videos than
me but if you view being a data analyst as a stepping stone to creating a life you want your
dream life whatever that might be for you then you might want to subscribe as i share my personal
lessons on this journey from a 9-5 to a dream life watch this video next to learn what made me
quit my six-figure job to start youtube cheers
