How To Build a Career in Data Science?

I still remember the time when many start-ups and companies considered the data science revolution as a fad. Those who refused to adopt data science in their businesses initially now immensely thrive on it, seeking crucial information on business decisions, customer retention techniques, staffing and more. The niche industry is at its peak and if you’re still wondering if you should make data science your career, there can’t be a time better than right now.

Easy Ways to build a Career in Data Science

As you know, the evolution of data science has been phenomenal and industries from banks and e-commerce platforms to healthcare and pharmaceutical companies use it for niche purposes. For instance, here’re two videos of how Big Basket and Cooliyo use data science/analytics in their business.

The way data science has impacted the IT industry has led to the Harvard Business Review calling it the sexiest job of the 21st century and LinkedIn quoting data science as one of the top skills to possess for employment. With an estimated shortage of 190,000 data scientists in the US alone, data scientists are the ones to come out as one of the most lucrative and authoritative professionals currently.

So, for those looking forward to switching to the analytics industry, here’re the skills you need.

Education

Data scientists are a highly educated bunch of individuals. Stereotypically, they’re either from the premier colleges/institutes or people who’ve excelled in their academics. Though you don’t have to be one of them, you need to have a commendable understanding of mathematics, statistics, engineering, and computer science. While mathematics and statistics have more weightage in terms of helping you enter the industry, engineering/computer skills such as programming, machine learning, data visualization can help you make it big.

If you feel working with numbers and data is your forte and if you enjoy talking to data (or rather, make data talk to you), get crucial clues and insights from it, you’re already on your way to making a smooth shift into the industry.

Non-technical skills

Coding or working with a programming language
They say that engineers and software professionals find it easy to switch to analytics and it’s true. As data science also involves working on common programming languages such as R, Python, Hadoop and more, engineering and software professionals bring in their coding skills to learn these tools faster and better. So, if you’re from an engineering background, you’ll find it easy to join the analytics industry.

Business skills

Business skill is an acquired skill. Every day, businesses generate tons of data and you should possess business skills or acumen to know the approach to take to extract insights for threats and opportunities. This skill is not difficult to develop and working on real world data sets frequently will help you develop business acumen gradually.

Communication Skills

An exceptional data scientist should not just be good at working with machines and communicating with them but have the communication skills to convey his/her findings to laymen, too. You should know that not everyone in your office will come from a technical background and if there arises a situation that requires you to share your insights to the sales department, you should make the information as comprehensible as possible. This also includes your ability to talk and present your findings through excel sheets, reports, graphs and presentation.

How to develop these skills?

If you set off with a mindset to develop these skills one at a time at your own pace, you can’t switch to analytics anytime soon. What you need is a guided platform or a course that will make you sit down for a couple of hours and learn analytics and its allied skills for a few hours every day. You need to constantly stay updated about the industry and interact with analytics gurus and get hands on with the tools you’ll be working on.
So, the best way to develop these skills is to take up an analytics course that meets your aspirations and requirements and dedicate sold time into learning it. As you know, Jigsaw Academy offers premium course content on analytics and is a pioneer in analytics training. With access to real-time industry data, cloud labs, exclusive course content, renowned faculty and more, Jigsaw Academy can make your shift into analytics seamless.
Go ahead, this is the right time to get into analytics. Get started with your analytics course today.

Also Read 

5 Must-Have Skills You Need to Become a Data Scientist

Top 5 Skills Every Data Scientist Should Know in 2017