How I Became a Data Analyst (without a related degree) - YouTube

So how did I become a freelance data  analyst without having a related degree  

like computer science, statistics or econometry. In todays video I’m going to share my story  

and give you some advice if you  want to follow the same path. 

Whats up guys, my name’s Stefan and if you’re  new here, I’m a freelance data analyst currently  

working in Amsterdam, Holland. Funny  enough, I’ll be quitting my job later  

this year, but more on that later. First let’s get straight into it.

A little backstory about my life  before becoming a data analyst. 

I never knew I wanted to become a data analyst and  while studying the possibility of me becoming a  

data analyst hasn’t even occurred to me once. After I finished high school I chose to study  

something called Industrial Engineering &  Management. Basically a combination between  

Engineering and Business. part from And apart  from some subjects like Calculus, Linear Algebra  

and Statistics, it had absolutely nothing to do  with Data Science. When I finished university and  

got my degree, I still had no idea what to do with  my career… and my life. So what do most people do  

when they have absolutely no idea what they  want to do with their life? That’s right,  

they go backpacking in South East Asia to find  themselves, deep inside the Asian jungles. 

I went backpacking in South-East Asia as a  form of escapism. I was escaping the fact  

that I still had no idea what I wanted to do with  my career. So when I came back after 3 months,  

now really broke, I was faced with the  harsh reality, that I had to get a job  

as soon as possible. So I got my first job  that kind off matched what I was studying,  

and I became a recruiter in the tech sector.  But on my first day of that job I knew this  

wasn't for me. So after exactly 1 month, I quit  my job. That’s when I started this IT Management  

Traineeship in Amsterdam which was basically  the start of my career as a Data Analyst.

So how do you become a Data Analyst? To become  a Data Analyst there a few key skills you need  

to learn before picking up any online courses or  technical tools. The first skill you must acquire  

is having an analytical mindset. Being analytical  means to apply logical reasoning to find out  

more about something. It means you have to be  willing to ask questions, the RIGHT questions,  

to breakdown problems and issues to their very  essence so they might lead to further insights. 

For me personally this began when I  started my IT Management traineeship  

as a Performance Analyst and I got to  use Microsoft Excel on a more advanced  

level. I started building reports and dashboards  in Excel. I started using Vlookups, Pivot tables  

and even building some macro’s with VBA. I had no  prior professional experience with excel but got  

the hang of it pretty fast with the help of my  colleagues and of course, the internet. You can  

learn basically any programming language or tools,  for free on the internet. More on that later. 

I thank most of my analytical skills to  that first job where I got to use excel. 

And the second skill and probably the most  important one is you need to keep on learning and  

developing your data analysis skillset. This is  because the data science field is such a dynamic  

environment and new data is being generated at  an exponentially growing rate. Meaning new tools,  

new software and new programming languages are  developed almost every other day to keep up with  

the fast paced world of data analysis. Which brings me to the  

tools you need to get started. There are a ton of different tools to analyse data  

ranging from simple and low volume data to  complex and high volume data. For low volume data  

we use tools like Excel, VBA, SQL, Python and R.  And for high volume and complex data, we use more  

tools like Hadoop, Splunk, & again Python and  R. Now I know, this might sound intimidating,  

just make sure you pick one tool or programming  language, and stick with it, try to master it.  

I would recommend starting with Microsoft Excel  as well. Excel as well.. Excel is a very easy to  

use and intuitive tool that a lot of corporations  and organizations use daily. It’s a very basic and  

all-round data analysis tool with a very visualyl  focused user interface. Which can take away the  

abstract aspect of data analysis. In  simpler terms: you see what you build.

When I pretty much learned everything there  is to learn in Microsoft Excel I started using  

Power BI. Which is a Business Intelligence  tool. Because nowadays I see more and more  

Data Analysts acquiring business intelligence  skills and tools, because data visualization  

is a very important aspect of data analysis.  And PowerBI is exactly that, a way to extract,  

transform and load your data for you to visualize  it in interactive graphs, tables or other visuals.  

I can tell you, managers love these kind of  dashboards. Other popular BI tools are Tableau,  

Qliksense and Microstrategy. I would recommend  deepdiving into a BI tool of your choice,  

as soon as you feel comfortable with all the  advanced functions in Excel. I personally  

chose Microsoft PowerBI because it fits so  well with Microsoft Excel, because of course  

it’s the Microsoft stack. But you could go for  any of the other mentioned BI tools as well. 

Once I got the hang of PowerBI, I started  developing my Python skills. And I was lucky  

enough that my manager at that time offered the  opportunity to me and my team to take an 8 week  

Python course, to start developing our Python  skills. This really helped us understanding the  

foundation and basics of python and we actually  pretty quickly started using it in our day to  

day jobs. It’s a programming language that you  can use for Data Analysis but you can use it for  

so much more. So if you have the opportunity to  learn Python, wether it's trhough your job, or at  

home in the evening, do it. Convince your manager  of the value of knowing Python and see if he can  

actually pay any of your courses or certification  for you. Otherwise pay it yourself, because it’s  

worth it. I’ll drop a couple of resources in  the description to some online courses. Some are  

free and some require a payment. But see it as an  investment in yourself. It will pay out, trust me. 

Because it did for me. As soon as I developed  my Excel, PowerBI & Python skills and I had a  

couple of years of working experience as a Data  Analyst, things went really fast. I got hired  

for a big multinational where I got to develop my  Business Intelligence skills in a very dynamic and  

complex environment. I also started doing some  freelance data analysis projects on the side.  

After working there for almost 2 years I quit  my job and went full-time into freelancing.  

I now work full time as a freelance data  analyst, a freelance contractor. Freelance  

contractor!? A Data Analyst contractor. I’ve  now been working as a freelancer for almost  

2 years at one of the biggest banks in Holland. So my point is that, Data Analysis,  

Data Science and Busines Intelligence is a booming  market right now. And the demand for quality Data  

Analysts will only keep growing in the foreseeable  future. But to become a quality data analyst,  

you need to land that first job. So how how  to land your first job as a Data Analyst? 

So the way I got into Data Analysis  is by applying to an IT Traineeship.  

Traineeships are really becoming more  popular as they are a good way to grow  

your technical skills really fast. Traineeships  also serve as a perfect transition from school  

to work, or from one career to the other. Now another way that worked great for me  

is to use Linkedin. If you pimp up your Linkedin  profile correctly, this will be a great way for  

recruiters to find you. Make sure you add all  the certifications, courses & work experience  

related to Data Analysis. In the header, use  keywords like "Data Analyst", "Data Scientist"  

or "Business Intelligence Specialist" basically  anything related to Data Analysis. If you combine  

this with a very short description of you and  your backstory, and you can drop a couple of  

those keywords in there as well, recruiters will  start hunting you very soon. That’s what happened  

to me. Apart from that first job, all the other  jobs I landed were because recruiters approached  

me through Linkedin. Use this to your advantage. And of course, once you’ve entered the Data  

Analysis world, your network will expand as  well, and it will be easier to land future  

jobs and projects. So in conclusion: 

If you want to start this journey,  know that a career as a Data Analyst  

is both an interesting one and a rewarding one.  You will get to challenge and grow your analytical  

skills, while also having an outlet for your  creativity, as building dashboards and reports,  

sometimes really does feel like you have a blank  canvas in front of you for you to paint on. Which  

brings me to the fact why I am quitting my  job. Not only am I quitting my current job,  

but the plan is to leave my Data Analysis  career completely. Not because I don’t like it.  

But because I found something that I like more.  Namely expressing my creativity through videos. My  

Youtube channel basically. And I will be sharing  my journey of quitting my job, leaving behind the  

whole corporate office life and start traveling  the world next year, where I can fully focus  

on my new way of expressing my creativity and my  urge for entrepreneurship. If you want to follow  

me on that journey, or learn more about personal  development or personal finance then definitely  

subscribe. I also have an Instagram where you can  follow my journey through my photos and stories.

I hope you find this video valuable and  I wish you all the luck on your journey  

of becoming a Data Analyst. See  you in the next video, cheers!