141: The ONLY Framework to Become a Data Analyst in 2025 (SPN Method)

On YouTube, there's lots of data advice given to you every single day by lots of great creators. And I don't know about you, but me personally, I watch a lot of videos, but I'm not actually sure that I take a lot from them that I can concretely follow. The general ideas are great, but I find it really hard to take the knowledge they're giving me and apply it. So that's why I created something that's actually concrete that will help you land your first day at job. It's a framework that you can follow and it's really easy to remember because it's just three simple letters. SPN. The SPN method is the fastest and the simplest way to land your first data job. And if you follow it, success is likely to ensue. It's how I got a data job. It's how hundreds of my students have gotten data jobs, and honestly, I hope it's the way that you get a data job as well. What is the SPN method? It's really a simple philosophy, and it's the idea that. But skills alone is not going to land you a data job. Your technical analysis, your data skills, your technical tools, those are the bare minimum. Those are the checkboxes that you have to be able to check to even be qualified to land a job. But it's never what actually lands you the job. It's not what sets you apart. The truth is there's probably someone who's less skilled in SQL, who can't make as good of a data visualization, who maybe can't even program. They're less of a technical candidate than you are, but they're landing a data job over you because they're following the SPN method. We live in a world where for better or worse, it's not necessarily how skilled or how technical you are that gets you the job. If you're the best sequel programmer in the entire world, it's not like you're going to get paid the most. You might, but you probably won't. There's probably people who are less good at sequel who are actually making more money than you. So basically that's to say that your salary and your skills are not directly correlated. Is there some correlation? Sure, but it's probably something closer to like 5 than a 1. 0 correlation. So what does matter when you're getting hired and how fast you get hired and how much you get paid if it's not just your skills? Well, it's how you are appearing and it's how your personal brand is being presented. If you're trying to land a data job, you have to convince a hiring manager or recruiter that you're not high risk. That you can actually do all the things that they're requiring in the job description. And these hiring managers and the recruiters, they're busy to be perfectly honest. They have a lot going on and they have families like you. They have hobbies like you. They're really busy at work. And so your job as a job candidate is to make their life as easy as possible. And you'll do that by following the SPN method. So what does the SPN stand for? S stands for skills. Of course you have to have the skills. But you also need the P and the N. The P stands for projects, or a portfolio, and the N stands for networking. You'll need all three to land a data job. My guess is you understand why skills are important. To be honest, most people do. In fact, most people over index on skills. They think skills are super important, the most important thing. But in the job landing formula, skills are only 33 percent of the actual formula. The remaining 66 percent are going to be your projects and your network. Projects are important because they are very easy ways, tangible evidence to show to hiring managers and recruiters that you are valuable, that you can actually bring value to a business. Like I said, hiring managers and recruiters, they're busy and they're going to read through resumes. After the ATS screens through a bunch of them, but once they actually get to the actual resumes, they're going to be like, okay, who can do what this job description says? Who can I trust? And if you don't have much of a data background, if you don't have much of like a STEM background or didn't go to school for data or something like that, what evidence can you provide to them that, yeah, I can be a great data analyst. If it's just listing your skills on a project in like a list, Python, Excel, Tableau, Power BI, that's not very convincing. You're going to have a hard time convincing hiring managers and recruiters that you are worth hiring. But if you have tangible evidence via a project and you can say, Hey, look, I know you're looking for someone with Tableau experience who can analyze marketing data. Here is a project I did in Tableau where I analyzed marketing data to find the top customers and top campaigns for the latest. You know, marketing campaigns that our company did that is really powerful. And I said our marketing company, but I really just meant any marketing data you can get your hands on. If you can create these projects from scratch and almost replicate as if you are working for the companies that you want to work for, that is like the most powerful thing for hiring managers and recruiters to see because all of a sudden it's so tangible and so. Oh my gosh, I actually understand what Avery can do as a data analyst. Here's how he took this raw data and transformed it into this amazing report with really great insights. I would love for him to do that at our company. Avery, you're hired. And that's the power of projects. Maybe a way that you can think about this is let's say you're a hiring manager for the Fast and the Furious, the action car movie. That's coming out soon. And for this particular role, you're looking for a stunt double, someone that can do stunts really well. In fact, in this case, they have to be able to jump over a car. Let's say you post the job on the internet and you get two applicants. Applicant A has a resume and on the resume says, Yes, I can jump over a car. And applicant B also has a resume that says, I can jump over a car. But in addition to that, sends in a video of them jumping over a car. Who are you more likely to hire, person A or person B? It's the person that's in the video, right? And why is that? It's because they provided tangible evidence. They made it themselves less of a risk for you and then made it really clear, oh yes, I totally see how this person can be of use in this role. Well, it's the same way as data analyst jobs. You want to make it as easy for the hiring manager to make their decisions. Most people over index on how important skills are, and they obviously are important, but they're only one third of the equation. I think a lot of people Enjoy learning and so they really spend a lot of time actually doing the learning But you have to remember your purpose in watching this video in your self studying and in your upskilling is really to land a job It's not to just learn right when I was an undergrad in college I studied chemical engineering And there was a week where we had like a career week where we had the career fair and we had all these recruiters Coming and all this stuff and it was also During midterms as well. So we had all these tests that we were supposed to be studying for and taking and acing, and we were supposed to be doing all this job fair application stuff as well. I remember seeing one of my fellow students and she was studying a whole heck of a lot. And to be honest, I really wasn't. She was really focused on learning and actually getting the fundamentals so that she could ace this test. Instead of studying, I was spending my time talking to recruiters, hiring managers, going to the career fair, trying to. Get hired. And the midterm for a really hard class came up that week and she got an A on the test and I got an F. Literally 46%. I failed and she aced it. But by the end of that semester, she had no prospects for a job and I had a six figure offer. It's really important to make sure that you're studying. Not to ace the test, not for studying's sake, but you're actually studying to land a job. You have to remember that's the focus. And so you shouldn't spend all your time on studying and learning the skills, because that's only one third of the equation. So if you find yourself taking mini course after mini course on Excel or Tableau or Excel, and you're not getting any sort of job bites, The answer is because you're not really working on landing a job, you're working on upskill. And those two things are related, but they're not directly correlated. Another note is when you're trying to land your first day at a job, you have to realize that there's over 2, 000 different data skills you possibly could be learning, and you're never going to learn them all. Just like, forget about it. No one's ever going to learn all of those. And so instead of just trying to upskill from one skill to another skill to another skill to another skill to another skill It's important to reflect and be like, what skills do I actually need? And if you're trying to land your first data job, trust me, Excel, Tableau, SQL, those are the only three you really need to use. That means for going Python, which is probably touted as the data skill to learn. And it's a lot of fun and it's used quite often. But the truth is, is it's used in under 30 percent of data analyst jobs. And it's really hard to learn. So it's going to take you a long time to learn. And it's not used all that much. So. Honestly, it's probably not worth focusing on right now. In today's economy, there's just way too many job applicants for all these jobs. And you really have to think about how you stand out. 95 percent of candidates won't have a portfolio. So you can be a top 5 percent candidate by simply having a portfolio. It's like these fish right here on the screen. Which one of these fish out of 420 really stands out to you? It's the pink one, right? Because it looks different than the gray fish. That's what having a portfolio can do for you. And that's actually what happens with my students. This is a direct message from one of my students, who landed a data analyst job without a degree. Not even any sort of bachelor's degree at all. This is what he said. Thank you, I am legitimately doubling my current salary. It's amazing what doing some projects and having a portfolio can do for you. And this quickly too. Projects are the cheat code, you guys. It's what makes you stand out. And it's tangible evidence to hiring managers and recruiters that they should hire you. Now, that was the P part of the SBN method. Let's talk about the N. The networking. And in this crazy economy with inflation, how it is, and the amount of job applicants where it's at, you really have to know someone to land a job. Once again, it's all about trust, right? These hiring managers and recruiters, they're taking a risk when they're hiring you. Are you actually smart enough? Are you actually going to work hard? Are you actually like an honest, good person that's going to help the company? Are you a team player? It's all about if you can create enough trust for that person to be like, yes, I believe that Avery is going to be a good addition to our team and help. I trust in him and I'm going to hire him. Well, who do you trust? It's honestly the people you know. And so your network is huge when you're getting hired because that's just your circle of trust. Those are the people who trust you and they're more likely to hire you than anyone else. But you're probably thinking, oh crap. Well, I don't really know anyone, so I'm screwed, right? And the answer is No, you're not screwed because there's two things that you could do today. Number one, you can realize you probably know more people than you realize. And number two, you can get to know more people. My first tip is just to literally go through your phone and look at where data analysts might work. Go through every single contact and just write down where that person works. Ask yourself, does that company hire data analysts? Yes or no. If yes, shoot that person a text and say, Hey, do you know any of the data analysts at your company? Just start the conversation. You're not asking for a million dollars. You're not asking for a referral yet. You're just starting a conversation. That conversation could lead somewhere quite fruitful down the road, but it doesn't have to yet. You're just making a connection. Number two, you can meet new people. One of the easiest ways to do that is via LinkedIn by creating content and commenting on LinkedIn. It's something that I teach and ask my students to do inside of the Data Analytics Accelerator. It's scary for sure, but it leads to great results. Another thing that you can do to stand out is send hiring managers and recruiters cold messages. These are messages that just explain who you are and why you might be a good fit for the role that they're posting about. 95 percent of job seekers don't send these, so just you doing so puts you in the top 5%. Another thing that's easier said than done is to really optimize your resume and your LinkedIn. If you're applying for jobs and you're not getting any bites, you're It honestly probably could be because your LinkedIn and your resume aren't optimized. These are the two tools that the ATS, the applicant tracking system, look at to see if you're a good candidate or not. If you haven't set it up correctly, you're not getting past them. You're not even getting a chance to get rejected by a human. You're just getting auto rejected by the computer, which is super frustrating, but there's some simple things that you can do to optimize both of those. That's also part of the end. All this is to say, if you're struggling to land the data job, It's likely because you're really fixated on the S. But just remember that's only one third of the equation. You have to have projects, you have to have a portfolio, and you have to be networking. If you ignore the other two factors, the P and the N, you're going to have frustration. You're going to feel like you're stuck in tutorial hell, or you feel like you're making progress because you're learning new things. But, you have to remember that learning doesn't equal earning. The combination of the learning with the portfolios and the networking, that equals earning. If you want to learn more about how you can follow the SPN method, I send out a free weekly newsletter explaining how you can follow the SPN method step by step. So go check out the show notes and sign up for that. I wish you the best on your data journey. And if you need another episode, I suggest this one here or it's in the show notes down below.