152: This is How Much $$$ You ACTUALLY Make as a Data Analyst

I'm about to show you what a 200, 000 data analyst job looks like and what it takes to get there. In this episode, I'll explore six different data analyst jobs ranging from 25K to 200K. I'll explain what they pay. What you need to do to be qualified and how you can actually land the job starting with the lowest paying data analyst job that I could find job number one is located in Fresno, California, and it pays drumroll please only 35, 000 well technically it pays 17 and 69 cents an hour and it's for a data specialist role for an analytics firm in California called Avenue Insights and Analytics now technically this Is a data specialist role, which isn't really quite a data analyst role, but often it's like the job right below a data analyst, you'll still be doing some sort of analysis and analytics, but it's also mixed with some manual analysis, like looking at things or some sort of data entry or data validation or something like that. The good news about that is it has less requirements and we'll get to those requirements here in a second. But the bad news is it doesn't pay great. You can honestly make more starting out as a cashier at Bucky's than this job. But, but, but this job would help you get some relevant data experience on your resume, which is very beneficial. That would make landing a data analyst job down the road. a lot easier. Anytime you can get the word data on your resume, it is a good thing. So at this job, you'd basically be ensuring data accuracy, finding leads from tax sheets and making corrections for state and local governments, because that's actually what this analytics firm does. It comes into your state or local government and does some basic revenue and operations analysis. for these local entities. Fun, I know. In terms of requirements, they are looking for someone with an associate's degree, attention to detail, and some sort of ability to do some sort of analysis and think critically. This job also strangely requires you to be bilingual with Spanish and English, which seems a little bit more specialized and niche than usual. Pero si puedes hablar espanol, You're good. Like I said, it's in California and it's on site. So even though it doesn't require a lot of previous experience, I think they're going to have a hard time filling this role because the pay isn't great. It's on site and there's that strict bilingual aspect that it's going to make it really difficult to find the right person. I personally think that this role should pay more like something around 50, 000 per year. Not 35, by the way, all of these six jobs that we're looking at today, I found on my own data job board. It's called find a data job. com and it's a hundred percent free. It has a great search and filter widget on the left hand side that allows you to search by title, company, salary, remote jobs. So if you're looking for a place to find less competitive data jobs in the U S and Canada, be sure to check it out, find a job. com a hundred percent free. And just a real quick note requirements on job descriptions, in my opinion, are more like wishlist than actual requirements. Basically it's a way of companies saying like, this is what we'd want in a perfect world with perfect candidates. But in reality, they're not even really likely to find one person that has. All of those requirements. And if they did the salary that they have listed on the job description or that they've allocated in the budget probably isn't enough to properly compensate this absolute unicorn of a data analyst. So my personal recommendation and you're welcome to follow it or not is whenever you're looking at job descriptions is to kind of look at them with blurry eyes, like kind of squint your eyes at it and look at the descriptions. If you fit. Say 60%, 70%, 55 percent of the requirements. And you're actually like interested in the job. Like genuinely, I think you should apply because you never know what might happen. And honestly, the hiring manager who rejects you the most is actually yourself. So go ahead and hit apply anyways. Okay. Job number two is located in the great town of Pickerington. Ohio. And now I don't actually know if it's a great town. I've never even been to Ohio, but doesn't it just have like a lovely name and sound like a great place. Now, job number two, it is a business and data analyst role for the American motorcycle association. And how freaking cool is that to work for the AMA, especially if you ride a motorcycle, it sounds pretty cool. In my opinion, like. Fun job. This job pays between 55 and 60, 000 per year. And if you heard me say that title and you were kind of like, what the heck did he just say, then you are correct. Because a business and data analyst title is a very interesting title. It's not really one that I've heard or seen. Very often, or actually ever, it's usually just like business analyst or just data analyst, or maybe like business data analysts combined in some cases, but certainly not business and data analysts. That's sort of weird. In fact, I search LinkedIn jobs to see if I could find a similar titled role. And sure enough, there was absolutely no matches, at least in the market right now. And that made me even more curious. Cause it's like, what the heck is going on here? So I went to the American motorcycle associations, LinkedIn page and went to the people tab and searched for analysts, by the way, side note, this is an absolutely great way to network and try to learn who actually is already inside the company and who might be able to give you a referral for any jobs that you apply. But when I searched for analysts. Sure enough, like no one popped up. And I think that there's no actual data analyst or business analyst working at this company right now. This very well might be this company's first day to hire, or at least first in a while, I obviously can't be a hundred percent sure here, and I could be wrong, but based on the very strange title and no other analysts that I could find on LinkedIn, working for this company, my guess is. They don't really know what they want or exactly what they're doing. Once again, I could be wrong, but that is my gut feeling that this company is kind of new in the data maturity space, but that's my gut feeling that this company is kind of new to the whole data thing. All right. Regardless in this role, you'd be working with stakeholders to maintain and analyze. data to identify trends and to work on some business processes. They are asking for a bachelor's degree in business or computer science or analytics or something similar. And they also want one to three years of experience in some sort of analytics. They want you to be proficient in Excel, SQL, Power BI, or Tableau. And once again, when they're saying Power BI or Tableau. Or even like having Excel, SQL, Power BI, and Tableau be all in the same sentence here. It's kind of hinting that they don't have a very mature data team because like just take Power BI and Tableau, for example, usually a small company like this, it only has like a hundred employees would only have Tableau or Power BI. Not really both large companies. They often have both. But they're both very expensive. And so smaller companies usually pick one or the other. Now it's not always the case, but that is my gut feeling. And so they probably don't know which one to choose. And so maybe that would be something that you would influence them on. Now, if you're learning Tableau, learning Power BI isn't hard. Like you'll be able to figure it out. And sometimes I feel like companies maybe list Power BI or Tableau because they're like, if you know one, you'll figure out the other, but I think that's actually pretty rare. And I don't think that's what's happening here. Anyways, this is a onsite role as well, and it's quite a bit lower than the average data analyst salary in the U S which is around 82, 000. They're requiring a bachelor's degree, one to three years of experience, and the pay is a bit low for all of that. So despite that, I think you should apply anyways. If you think that you fit maybe like 60 percent or maybe even 50 percent of the requirements for this job, the pay that they're listing is much more entry level than their actual job description. And with their data maturity being probably pretty low, you might be surprised on the bites that you could possibly get in applying for a job like this. All right, next we have job number three. This is the 75, 000 job and it is in Woodridge, Illinois. It's for a company called Mahoney Environmental Solutions. And this job is right around the average data analyst salary between 72 to 77, 000. The title of this role is data visualization analyst. And now I purposely chose different titles for each of these six jobs that I'm showing you, just to illustrate that if you're only looking for data analyst roles, you're probably missing out on like more than half of the job market. But I really do like this role. I think it is quite interesting. Now this company Mahoney environmental solutions. They're pretty interesting too, because at first I was like, okay, environmental company, they probably do something like climate change or water purification or like toxic something or other. Right. But after looking at their website, I was totally surprised. And I think you'll be surprised as well. It looks like they basically specialize in one thing and only one thing, which is removing used cooking oil. And I think that just goes to show that you can land a data job. A data role in any industry for any company that does all sorts of different things, right? Like from Chuck E. Cheese to Apple. I don't know. Sometimes we just think that like, Oh, it's only Facebook or that hires like data analysts, but like even this company that's just doing like grease removal, they'll hire data analysts. So interesting. Data is literally everywhere. You guys, you just got to look for it. This role based on the description sounds like you'd be building a lot of power bi reports on the operation side of the business. It actually is quite a big business. They have lots of locations all over the US. It does sound like there is some sort of queries that may or may not need to be written to join a bunch of their data sets together in order to visualize it in power bi requirements wise. You're looking at Two plus years of experience with Power BI, DAX, and SQL. And they also say that Python is preferred. They do mention that they're looking for someone with a BS in data science, computer science, or a similar field. Once again, you need to look at, or I guess really in your case, hear all those job descriptions with your eyes squinted. This is just a wishlist. For unicorn divide everything by two. And if that's you apply, if you have any bachelor's degree at all, I personally think that fits the similar field requirement for the education. And I say, apply, go for it. To me, this role is a bit more than an entry level role. So I think the pay should honestly be closer to about 90, 000. Here, but it does seem like a pretty interesting job for an interesting company. So if you're in an Illinois, this might be a good fit for you moving on to job number four, and it's actually right next door to job number three in Chicago, Illinois. And it's with the Griffin museum of science and industry, which who knew it is the largest and most interactive science museum in the Western hemisphere. Pretty cool, right? Once again, like what a crazy company and what an interesting industry. I would never have thought that like museums are going to hire data analysts, but apparently they do. This role is for a senior financial analyst role, and it pays just shy of a hundred thousand dollars salary range is between 90 to 95, 000. And you'll notice if you're paying attention that we've actually crossed into the senior role territory. And now just because a role is senior doesn't mean that it's going to pay more than like a non senior role. There are lots of different factors like where you're located, what your experience is, what the company does, what industry they're in, so on and so forth. With that senior jump. We also are making that six figure jump, or at least we're getting close to it. In this role, you'd be managing all of the financial and planning for the company. You'd be reviewing budget reports, doing some pricing analytics and predicting future revenue. If you're accountant or you've worked in banking or any sort of like financial role in the past, this type of role, like a financial analyst role would be an awesome fit for you with your previous experience. Now I will say. The requirements for this role are pretty crazy. It has the most strict and the highest bar of requirements, which is a bit weird considering we still have the 125, 000 job and the 200, 000 job left. They want a bachelor's degree in finance or accounting. Okay. That's fine. That's standard, right? But with six to eight years of related experience, plus they say public accounting experience or an MBA are a plus. And in terms of what skills they're interested in, they want power BI SQL and advanced Excel financial modeling skills. And just as a side note here, and pretty interesting one as well, this is the only time a graduate degree will be mentioned in any of the job descriptions that I read today, even the 200, 000 job. So if you're considering a master's degree, just know that anecdotally out of the six jobs that we randomly pulled today, a master's degree was only mentioned once and it was mentioned as a plus, not as a requirement. Now back to the job as a common trend. The pay is a bit low for what's being required, especially if you already have an MBA. But one thing to consider here and for all these jobs as well is the cost of living. One of my favorite tools is the cost of living salary calculator from NerdWallet. It lets you put in your current salary and your current location and where your new location would be and it would display what the actual salary would be according to the cost of living in that new place. So this job would be six figures. If it was in say, California, now we've officially crossed the six figure mark and we are moving to our 125, 000 job or job number five. And it's in the sunny state of California in the beautiful city of Newport beach. It's a senior investment operations data analyst. That is a mouthful with Pacific life insurance company and it pays between 111, 000 and 135, 000 per year. Now you've maybe heard of this company before and in the name it's evidence it it's a life insurance company. So analytics is really important because this business, this whole industry. It's basically one big math problem, the odds of you dying and how much the payout would be to your benefactors, so on and so forth, based off previous conditions and your current health in this role, you'd actually be analyzing more financial data, a lot of financial data in this video. Don't know why you'd be creating and redefining dashboards for all of that data. Talking to stakeholders, validating the data for accuracy and consistency as well. They're asking that you have a bachelor's degree in finance or the famous line here, similar field or equivalent experience and five plus years of experience with SAP, Power BI, Power Query, Excel, and SQL. Remember guys, squint at these. Don't take it word for word. I actually think this pay is honestly pretty realistic. I think it's pretty fair. Maybe they should add on an extra 10, 000 because cost of living in California is quite high, but I actually think especially the upper end is fairly reasonable. And I actually think that you could land this role with three years of experience, not the five. Once again, that's how I'd personally squint at this role. And I would apply if I had three plus years of experience. Surprisingly, this role also requires more experience than our last and sixth job does pay nearly 200, 000. It's just down the road in Santa Monica, California. And it's a company that you've. Definitely heard of and probably used snap. Yep. Snapchat, you know, the app that all the teenagers use to like send those like pictures of their faces and say, Hey, what's up? What are you doing? Nothing much. Yeah. That company, this is a business intelligence engineer role. And it actually pays and get ready here because this is a big range. It pays between 107 and 189, 000 per year. I was right, right? That's a huge range. And why is it? Well, it's because this role might be remote friendly in California and Arizona. I'm not actually sure the job description is very confusing, but snap as a company actually has what's called geographic pay zones that vary your salary based on where you're located. So if you're located in Washington or California or New York city, you'll get paid in the a zone, which is the most if you're in Austin, Chicago, Colorado, and a bunch of other States. You are in the B zone and all the rest of us are in the C zone, the lowest pay. Now you'll notice that this is our first job description that we've had in the tech industry, right? We did the analytics firm, a motorcycle club, the grease for moving service, a museum and life insurance. And now we are in software. We're in apps. We're in like. Tech, right? That's one of the reasons you'll see a high pay because tech does have high salaries. That's partially because they're really like in Seattle or LA or San Francisco. And the cost of living in those areas is quite big, but also this role doesn't have a huge barrier to entry. They're only asking for a bachelor's degree in computer science, math, physics, or related field. That's what they all kind of have asked for, right? Or equivalent years of experience, whatever that means. But they're only really asking for three years of experience. And minimum, you should know SQL and Python. One thing that I really liked that Snap did with this job description, and this is becoming more popular, but still a lot of companies aren't doing it, is they put the minimum qualifications. And then the preferred qualifications. Like I said, not a lot of companies are doing this, but it makes the process for the job seeker so much easier. Like that whole squinting thing I talked about basically doing the squinting for you. It's telling you what you need to know and where you can get a leg up. If you do know any of these things for this particular job and the preferred section, they're asking for experience in big query, get airflow and ETL type processes. And in terms of salary, I feel like this is a pretty fair salary. I mean, obviously it's a huge range, but with three plus years of experience, I do think it is. Pretty good. So there you have it. Our six different salaries ranging from 35, 000 all the way to 200, 000 per year. Now I can already hear some of you guys in the comments asking, you know, all these jobs that we looked at ranging from 35, 000 to 200, 000 a year, they all required some college degrees. Most of them bachelors. You're probably going to ask, are there any jobs that don't require degrees? And the short answer is yes, there are. They are less common, but they do exist. I actually made this playlist here with some interviews of people who were able to land jobs without degrees. It'll be right here on your screen, or if you're an audio listener, it'll be in the show notes down below. And the other half of you are probably going to comment in the comments, you know, where do I start? What skills should I start with? What should I be focusing on? And I have a great episode for you here. That will help you get started learning your tech skills, where to actually start. So just click right here, or you can find it in the show notes. Thanks for listening.