1. Good Command on Excel:
Believe it or not, Microsoft Excel is still widely used in the industry for doing data analysis and it is perfect for small data sets. And if you have knowledge of Excel formulas, the VBA formulas, charting, pivot tables, different transpose techniques, etc., you will have an edge compared to your peers.
2. SQL(Structured Query Language)
It is called a structured query language. Now SQL you can do in MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle. There are different databases on which you can run structured query language to fetch the data to do different operations with that data. As a data analyst, you are often involved in data exploration, data collection, and all those operations. So having SQL skills will be extremely useful.
3. Data Visualization Tools
You should know at least one visualization tool such as Power BI or Tableau. These are the two most popular ones but there are many out there in the industry and if you have learnt at least one tool you can easily learn some other tools. So if you’re asking me for my choice, I would go for either Power BI or Tableau. But once you have learned one tool, you can learn other tools easily. These tools allow you to connect with the data sources, and you can pull that data into this visualization tool and you can build a lot of useful dashboards.
So once you build the dashboard, it will look more like an application. You can also export that dashboard as a mobile app. So when someone is looking at the mobile app, they can interact and they can use various UI controls to fetch the data, to fetch different reports and different visualizations dashboards. So visualization tools nowadays are extremely important.
4. Communication and Presentation Skills
When you are becoming a data analyst, you are often talking with your business manager, your engineering groups, and different stakeholders. Your job is to communicate the requirements or, let’s say, gather the requirements effectively and offer creative solutions. You also need presentation skills because as a data analyst, you are telling your data story. When you are building a dashboard, let’s say for sales insights, you are building a story around sales declining in a particular region or they are increasing in other regions and what is the reason behind this decline or the growth.
So telling the data story is important and presentation skills are something that you need to master. you should not get your audience too bored with your presentation and you should have an effective and engaging presentation. So that’s very important.
5. Domain Knowledge
Often, if you’re looking at a data analyst job position, they will say financial data analyst or retail data analyst. What it means is if you have a degree in finance, or let’s say if you have done a master’s or specialization in retail, that domain knowledge will be extremely useful. If you have specialized, let’s say you have done a Bachelor of Commerce or if you have a degree in finance or let’s say in retail or some industry, then that domain knowledge will be beneficial because as a data analyst, you are solving problems in a particular domain. And having that knowledge helps you effectively do data analysis.
6. Knowledge of Programming Languages
Many companies do not ask for this skill in programming. So nowadays Python and R are two very popular programming languages. If you’re just starting, just go with Python. Having programming knowledge will give you an edge over the competition.
Suppose an employer hires a data analyst, and he has two resumes Exist the same skills, but one of the resumes has Python or R programming languages. He would just go with that person who has programming knowledge because programming knowledge is not a must for a data analyst, but it is a plus. So if you have that, it will help you.
7. Mathematics and Statistics
When you’re doing data analysis, you are looking at your data distribution. You need to know what is normal distribution, standard deviation, and two standard deviations, how to remove outliers. So you need to have basic math and statistics knowledge. You should know the basics of inferential statistics and descriptive statistics. You don’t need to be a super genius in math and statistics, Just have basic knowledge and as you work on solving real-life problems you should try to enhance your knowledge in mathematics and statistics.
8. Problem-Solving Skill
Now this is a common-sense approach. It’s a general skill where you need to be street-smart and you need to be offering different solutions for a given problem. So there is no one silver bullet that we can tell you or no one magic trick that we can tell you to improve your problem-solving skill but it’s a general smartness that you need to have.