I am ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶a̶l̶y̶s̶t a Principal Analyst.
You’ve surely seen me before.
Close to the American definition of privilege: Bachelor of Psychology from a prestigious liberal arts college. Graduated with less sense of direction than when I started. Majored in nueroscience because it was “interesting.” Took the first job out of college just to have one. Hated it. Took off for a year (or more) to “find myself” in various developing countries. Returned and was hit with the harsh reality of the capital world coupled with a load of guilt from my parents who sacrificed everything for my education…
You’ve surely seen me before. I was your “chill," racially ambiguous friend in college who offered up thoughtful intellectual discussion over cheap small talk in the smoking section of the bar. I was the one who got really into religion classes because they were “heady.”
Yet it only surprised me that I started my career later than you.
After wandering this world with a self-justified sense of purpose for three years, I realized I could put together some semblance of a narrative for my professional story, and started to apply for “real” jobs.
First order of business: identify my unique set of “skills.”
It turns out that a mash of various interests, plus the fact that I was once considered “good at math,” led me and many like me, to what could not be a more perfect fit: Analyst.
I’ve had the great opportunity to be an analyst for five years now, and this is longer than most! I attribute part of that to the fact that I transplanted and had to “start my career over” when my husband got into grad school in a different state, but who knows. Maybe I could have had self-assurance-mixed-with-a-hint-of-entitlement to spread my wings from “Analystdom,” but I didn’t. And I digress.
Now that I’ve been an analyst for five years, climbed the ladder from “associate” to “analyst” to “senior” and finally, “principal,” and assured myself a solid reputation at a solid tech company, I’d like to share a list of characteristics that I believe all analysts should have to master the role:
- Did curiosity really kill the cat? It definitely didn’t kill the analyst when she invested the extra hour to write choppy SQL because she just had to know which reps were perpetrating the comp plan loophole. If you’re not curious, analytics just isn’t for you. It’s that simple. You need to want to analyze things if you want to be an analyst.
- Calculated laziness. It’s the 80/20 rule in practice. It is the foundation upon which to avoid burn out. You should never spend the additional calories if you already have what you need to make a decision (you’ll know whether you have this from skill 4).
- Hubris. As an analyst, you need to be kind of cocky. If this doesn’t come naturally to you, whether it’s the President, CFO, or the junior analyst on the team, when someone asks if it’s “possible” to identify/find/quantify, just remember that song, “Impossible!” from the Brandi version of Cinderella (sorry for the dated reference) and say, “everything is possible,” knowing with complete confidence that you, if anyone, will be the one in the room who can achieve it.
- Pessimistic skepticism. Question absolutely everything. We’ve all been in a presentation before when someone asked, “well, did you control for Y?” and we know the distinct scent of nervous sweat when we have to admit that we didn’t. Likewise, we’ve all done a ton of work for a stakeholder who was asking the wrong question to begin with — if we had only clarified her goal/objective/problem statement, we wouldn’t have had the immense scope creep that resulted in hours of wasted weekend work and an eye twitch for nothing. So question everything you find and question everything you’re asked.
- Pretend it’s your money. This is one you’ve likely heard before: think like an executive. But, I’ve found the best way to anticipate questions is to actually think about what you would want to know if it was your money saved, spent, or being drained.
So there you have it, to be an effective analyst, you need to be a ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ curious, ̶l̶a̶z̶y̶ efficient, ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶h̶u̶b̶r̶i̶s̶ confident, be ̶a̶ ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶k̶e̶p̶t̶i̶c̶ questioning, and ̶c̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶n̶y̶’̶s̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶o̶w̶n̶ obsess over EV.