Hiring a Data Analyst? Here’s what you need to know!

27 September6 min read
Hiring a Data Analyst? Here’s what you need to know!

In day-to-day life, you often come to one point where you are making a decision on the basis of your experiences. You analyse your past experiences, present scenario and upcoming chances. For example, you will decide your month expenses based on past month, current changes and future month plans. And yes, you will collect whole data and move further with your decision. That is Data Analysis. For monitoring the growth rate and interpreting the results is what you need in data analysis. The extensive data calculation and its management is crucial to understand your business growth. That is why, you always need a data analyst who can give you the crisp and clear image of business through data interpretation. Hence, hiring or outsourcing the data analyst is very beneficial for the company. 

Before hiring, you should know a few key points to look at while employing a data analyst. But first, let’s take a glance at what is a data analyst and what does a data analyst do?

What is a Data Analyst?

A data analyst collects and reviews data to identify key insights which can help the business to solve problems. The specialization is based on business. The greater the analytical data, the greater the role of the analyst. He uses numbers or statistical data to interpret company values. In simple words, data analysts analyze raw data to identify meaningful insights and turn them into a better solutions for the company's own benefit. Well, analyzing the productivity of your business is a part of a data analyst's job. A data analysts move forward with five phases: 

  • Identify the data needed to be analysed
  • Collect the required data
  • Clean the data in preparation for analysis
  • Analyse the identified data records
  • Interpret the results of the data analysed

With such data interpretation, a single data analyst can bring the best outcome for your company’s growth. And considering all the responsibilities, the role of data analysts is quite crucial and beneficial. Then what should be the criteria to hire the best analyst? What points should you actually consider while hiring the data analyst? Let’s find out and narrow your search.

Need of hiring a data analyst :

Now you know what a data analyst is and what they do, you should also be clear with the fact that why you need a data analyst. Well, in the business market we sometimes face challenges with large numbers. Like you have tons of data but you don’t know how to utilize data records and embrace the quality of production or you want to amplify those records to be more competitive in the market. And, here in either situation, a professional data expert can help you to fulfill such demands. A data analyst can help you build systems by collecting the right amount of data from your business and analyzing it to find better optimistic solutions for companies' benefits. Those analytical data will then be beneficial for you in the competitive market. 

Key factors to hire a data analyst :

Before hiring a data analyst, you should consider a few points on which you can rely on analysts with your business data and records.

1. Job Description and requirements

The data analyst is an interpreter who is responsible for giving the statistical solution based on the provided data. It is the core responsibility of the analyst to identify the ups and downs in numbers and provide the answer on how to increase efficiency only by looking at the data charts. Thus, while hiring or outsourcing the analyst, you should be clear with the role requirements and the responsibility he/she has to take over in the field of data analytics. Some of the crucial responsibilities for the roles are:

  • Mining data from the original sources, just to reorganise the data in its structural format.
  • Prior knowledge of automated tools for extracting the primary and secondary data sources.
  • Removing corrupted data or records which are invalid and doesn’t make sense from a business perspective.
  • Performing analysis for collecting quality data records.
  • Preparing data reports, charts and qualitative representation of prioritised business using relevant data.
  • Filtering data by reviewing reports based on the performance from past and present scenarios.
  • Collaborating with programmers, managers or engineers to identify any opportunities, propose modifications and develop improved policies with the help of numbers.
  • Building the final analysed report, to make data processes understandable by stakeholders.

2. Required skill sets

There are various things that a data analyst can do. Since it is a role of playing with the numbers, the analyst needs to have adequate knowledge of mathematics, coding, and good experience in analyzing the data from a bigger picture! That’s why you should keep in mind a few key skills while hiring the analyst :

  • Should possess good knowledge of mathematical computation and calculation to measure and analyze the given data.
  • Exposure to query or programming languages like SQL, NoSQL, MATLAB, or Python.
  • Experience in creating technical reports, database design development, segmentation, and data mining.
  • Knowledge of data visualization software or tools like Tableau, and Qlik.
  • Ability to build and use optimized algorithms to datasets for finding better solutions.
  • Adept in statistical tools like Microsoft Excel, SPSS, or SAS.
  • Should pay attention to details and provide accurate data.

3. Project Experience and Evaluation

When it comes to hiring a data analyst, experience matters most. Because you don’t want to take risks with the calculation of provided data numbers of your company. An experience in data analysis is something that helps in evaluating the problems in a more efficient way. The proven experience and expertise of a data analyst will boost the company’s growth. As it will help you to create more structured data based on the current and past statistics and help in avoiding the mistakes done in the past. Moreover, the data will be more optimized and built in a presentable way to make it more understandable as per the stakeholder's requirements.

4. Good Communicator

Although, analyzing the datasets and interpreting the final report on how to tackle and achieve good numbers is what a data analyst does. But after all these skills and technical proficiency, you still need someone to be a good communicator who can represent the statistical differences in an understandable way. That’s why the analyst should also be good at communication where he/she can effectively interact with the clients or stakeholders and can explain the analyzed report more easily. You should always consider the analysts who are more interactive and can communicate effectively to find the solution with the team and pitch the same in front of clients. Before telling data stories, it requires understanding your business and the market realities. After all, communication is a key pillar for each and every company’s growth.

Want to hire a data analyst, head to the Amplifyre OpenBench. You can filter data analysts based on their experience, role, and expertise. Once you find a data analyst that fits your requirements, just click on the 'Contact' button to get in touch with the software provider for further discussions!

Closing the Deal

Now that all you know about the major points and importance of the data analyst, you should hire or outsource the expertise in your organization. Most data analysts in the market are aware of the top demanding skills and expertise which means your recruitment or outsourcing process should be approachable along with their needs to match.

A well-experienced data analyst will definitely stand up to your expectation by giving precise results in data analytics. You should keep in mind these factors and give the analyst a proper roadmap before hiring them. Well, the choice is not that complicated unless you know to put the effort for hiring analysts in the right direction. With clear requirements, the organization's data can be more transparent and uniquely presented by your next data analyst!

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