How I’m building a job board for Data Analysts, Update #05 - for May 2023
Hi all,
on Dec 19th I launched DataAnalyst.com - this is the fifth update.
Want to make sure I document the journey, and keep myself honest, so each month I will be making a post about the statistics, progress, some thoughts and what are the next steps I want to be focusing on.
Early stages vision is to become the #1 job board for data analysts - hand-picking interesting data analyst job opportunities across industries.
Where I would like to see this going - my long term vision, is building a community of aspiring and professional data enthusiasts. A place for those who love data to collaborate, share, learn and develop their careers.
So, let’s dive right in.
Statistics
1. General Observations
Stats
DataAnalyst.com has been online for just over 5 months and we’ve brought over 1,250 hand curated data analyst jobs onto the site - all of them including a salary range.
There’s now 1,200+ people subscribed to the newsletter, and I can’t thank you enough for your support and for joining us on the journey.
While in April the site grew to just over 5,000 monthly visitors across 26,000 pageviews, in May we’ve been able to cross the 5,000 visitors yet again, with over 28,000 pageviews - not only that, we registered approximately 4,500 data analyst applications being started from the site!
Additionally, I’ve also had multiple people reaching out, both in comment section of my previous updates, but also in DMs, sharing that they have found the site to be extremely useful in their job search, and that they were able to get interviews and onboard new roles through the site - I absolutely love this, and even if the venture doesn’t end up being commercially successful, I’m super happy to hear that it has indeed helped people when needed.
Google impressions are over 50% up, albeit the amount of people clicking through to the site remained flat.
On the positive note - the site has finally ranking for all the major target keywords:
“data analyst jobs / data analyst job / data analyst / data analytics jobs”
Pumped about this, as having multiple channels is crucial to long term growth and protecting the site and traffic from algorithm updates.
Things that happened
Expired Listings - There’s feedback regarding some of the jobs on the site already expiring and leading to non-existing listings. I am trying to come up with a solution where visitors would be able to upvote/downvote and thus highlighting status for everyone else. For now, I went through job listings and marked those roles no longer open as “Expired”.
Product Hunt launch - Early last month I decided to share DataAnalyst on Product Hunt. The idea wasn’t necessarily to try and rank up to the top, but mainly get the site out there, and gain a backlink from ProduntHunt that’s going to help the site’s authority. Overall the voting process is extremely cumbersome, but we did end up with 36 upvotes which was more than I expected.
Expecting a summer slump
With summer, there’s typically very little hiring happening / it’s extremely slow as people are taking well deserved time off. I’m expecting activity on the site to decrease, and my main goal for this period is getting together a plan of action to start reaching out to companies in Q4 and Q1, educate them about the site, the value proposition and hopefully get a few partnerships on the books.
What that will look like, I honestly have no idea, but experiment, iterate and go again.
2. The Salary Guide
On a monthly basis, we’ve been utilising the data available to developing and sharing Market Insights - a deep dive into the data analyst job market, where we can have a look at the job openings and provide you all with insights on the latest hiring trends in the United States.
With these insights I’m trying to bring answers to questions such as: Which industries are hiring the most? Are we seeing any salary increases? And what about the remote working trend?
With that in mind, I’m excited to share that the first five months of insights were consolidated, and the The Salary Guide has now been published.
The data analyst salary guide provides the overview of salaries in various industries - and now also shows a more detailed view on each industry page, with a deep dive into how much entry level, senior and lead data analysts can earn depending on their experience.
This is only based on job opportunities on the site, and no external data sources are utilised. The plan is to have it updated quarterly, with the next update in September.
For the US, we’ve also released the May edition of Market Insights, you can see the full report
3. “Day in the Life” - a series of interviews with data analysts sharing their experience, thoughts and advice.
The third interview from our series has been published. In these interviews, we aim to share stories and experiences about the route to becoming a data analyst, keeping up with the skillset, recommendations to aspiring data analysts and much more.
Tisha, who is a data analyst at Tesla, has shared some fantastic insights, and I’d love to highlight couple of my favourite quotes from the interview.
On what she loves about being a data analyst:
“For me, the most exciting aspect of being a data analyst is the opportunity to unlock meaningful insights from vast amounts of data. I enjoy the challenge of uncovering patterns, identifying trends, and translating complex data into actionable recommendations. The ability to make a tangible impact on business outcomes and help organisations drive growth is incredibly rewarding.”
On her advice for those aspiring to enter the industry, she shares 6 points that everyone should focus on:
- Acquire a strong foundation in SQL. This is an essential tool for data analysis and manipulation.
- Familiarise yourself with data analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, or Alteryx. Demonstrating proficiency in these tools can enhance your employability.
- Seek out internships, projects, or volunteer opportunities where you can gain hands-on experience with real-world datasets and analytical challenges.
- Continuously enhance your skills by staying updated with the latest trends and best practices in the field. Online courses, webinars, and industry conferences can be valuable resources.
- Showcase your skills and projects through a portfolio or personal website. This allows potential employers to see your capabilities and the impact you can make.
- Network with professionals in the data industry through events, online communities, and LinkedIn. Building connections can lead to valuable opportunities and mentorship.
We’ve also touched upon the Question of the Year: Is AI/Chat GPT a threat to data analysts?
Highly recommend reading the full interview
Things in the pipeline
- New data analyst jobs, added daily
- Actually launching the weekly newsletter with the pick of best jobs directly to your inbox (yes, I know…)
- Monthly US data analyst market insights
- Improving the overall site experience (this one is a never ending activity)
- Continuing to bring you Data Analysts across their experience levels, to share tips, tricks and their thoughts
- Keep breaking a feature that would allow visitors to report an expired job posting
3 ways you could help
- Looking for a new challenge? Check out the website - I’m adding new jobs daily
- Looking to hire a data analyst to your team? Do you know anyone looking to hire? Shoot me a message at alex@dataanalyst.com, and I’ll upgrade your first listing for free!
- As I mentioned, we have an ongoing “Day of a Data Analyst” series. For those of you who are open to do an email based interview about your data analyst career journey, please just send me a message and we’ll organise something - would love to get you featured and share your experience with our readers!
If you have any questions, concerns, come across glitches - please just reach out, happy to chat.
Thank you all again, and see you in a month.
Alex