Choosing your next Career Path? - check this out!

So here I am, reaching out to you all to tell you more about working in the wonderful world of Data Analytics, what can I tell you? Maybe I start with who I am? Well my name is Isaac, I graduated from NTU earlier this year in January to be exact, with a bachelor degree in mathematical sciences majoring in statistics.

Since you are here reading this, chances are you are interested in becoming a Business analyst, a Data Analyst or a Data Scientist? Maybe you were drawn into the field by the exciting developments in artificial intelligence. Or maybe you were inspired by how multi-billion dollar companies like Google, Netflix, Amazon, are tapping into big data to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems? Pretty cool eh?

For myself, it was the marriage of my two favourite subjects: statistics and programming. Armed with my portfolio of data science projects from school and an internship, as well as technical knowledge, I set off on my job search but alas, of course, it was never going to be that simple. The same job posting from two companies can have vastly different requirements. It was difficult to justify my worth in a field dominated by postgraduate students and industry veterans, where do we start?!

After months and months of rejections, which can take a toll on one’s confidence, I actually remained undeterred; my passion for this industry was further ignited during the search and it was when I heard back from a small but mighty company called Sparkline that my journey into digital analytics began, as an intern. As part of my onboarding process, I embarked on a pre-designed learning plan for my first 3 months during which I soaked up as much information as possible, read as much about the field as I could get my hands on and I opened my mind to LEARN - this is the best advice I can give in terms of the mindset to adopt and honestly, it has helped me ramp up much faster than I had anticipated.

So cycling back a step, why this industry I hear you ask? Why a career as a Digital Data Analyst? Well let’s look at it another way, I am sure we can all bear witness to our increasing digitalized world: from online shopping to booking flight tickets, to online banking. The other day I read an inspiring piece on an independant fishmonger who is now selling his wet market produce online, the internet has democratized the sales and marketing process for millions, at both enterprise and individual level! Consider the success of ecommerce businesses such as Carousell and Lazada which allows anyone to be a seller, master of their own destiny and bank balance! Looking closer at enterprises, such as the Fortune 500 businesses we work at Sparkline, still only a fraction of these companies have digital analytics implementation in place, and this does not even include many other small and medium-sized enterprises who are planning to go digital.

As such, these companies find it hard to measure their performance and drive sales through marketing campaigns. Information on digital analytics is scarce and buried beneath cryptic technical guides. Adopting Digital Analytics and building skills in this area, can help business flourish by making better business decisions along with utilising their marketing spend more effectively, I am hugely excited by enabling businesses to do this, that is why this is the role I have chosen, the path I am taking and the skills I am developing here at Sparkline.

Despite having no prior experience,through onboarding plans, training opportunities and on the job learning with my awesome team it wasn’t long before I was wrangling through data from an Ecommerce website to discover what medium their users were coming from, which part of the shopping process had the highest dropoff, and making recommendations to the client.

In conclusion, while predicting the potential churn of your existing customers, recognising handwritten digits and predicting housing prices from a toy dataset are certainly impressive feats, it is difficult to prove your worth to potential employers. Digital analytics is a powerful and highly practical skill that I sincerely believe you should add to your repertoire. I am grateful to Sparkline for introducing me to digital analytics and giving me the opportunity to be here today as a full-fledged data analyst.

I hope that my ‘speech’ has sparked your interest in digital analytics. Whether you are taking training courses with Sparkline’s Training Business or navigating your way through the labyrinth of Youtube, Coursera and Udemy videos, we would like to welcome you to the incredible world of digital analytics, enjoy the ride!

Written by Isaac Teo, Digital Analyst @ Sparkline - Sparkline is a Digital Data Analytics Consultancy that specialises in Projects, Product Development and Training - check us out, work with us, train with us, call upon our services!

https://www.sparkline.com/