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The odds are stacked against you for remote data jobs. I show you how to flip them in your favor.

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🆘 Feeling stuck in your data journey? Come to my next free "How to Land Your First Data Job" training 👉 https://datacareerjumpstart.com/training

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🗂️ Build Your Own Portfolio 👉 http://mydatafolio.com

⌚ TIMESTAMPS

01:21 – Remote jobs are 17% of the market

02:06 – Try hybrid first

05:45 – Learn the right skills

08:03 – Build a portfolio

09:30 – Network your way in

12:33 – Search smarter

🎯 Remote First Companies: https://findadatajob.com/companies-hiring-remote-data-analysts

💼 Remote Job Listings: http://premiumdatajobs.com

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https://datacareerjumpstart.com/daa

All right, I got to admit that landing

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feels virtually impossible, and most

people listening will not succeed.

3

But there are five things that you can

do to give yourself an unfair advantage

4

in landing a remote role, and I will show

you all five of them in today's episode.

5

But first, why does this

feel so gosh darn impossible?

6

And the answer is because

it kind of low-key is.

7

If I'm being honest, the odds are

stacked against you, and really

8

what it comes down to is math.

9

There was a study done in

10

workers want to work from home.

11

They want to work remotely.

12

And I get it, working remotely is awesome.

13

I love working from home.

14

It's the best.

15

But that means when you're applying to a

remote data job, you're not only competing

16

with the people inside of your local city

or inside of your county or your state

17

or even the country, you're competing

with people from all over the place.

18

And so the odds of you being the

best candidate just kind of go

19

down with the number of applicants

that are actually applying.

20

And even if you are a great applicant,

the odds of your resume and you

21

actually getting noticed through the

applicant tracking system is so low,

22

so it virtually feels impossible.

23

Now, you might be thinking, "Well, if

everyone's applying to these remote

24

jobs and I can actually apply to

any remote job, then I have lots of

25

jobs that I can apply for, right?"

26

Well, and the unfortunate truth is there's

not a lot of remote data analyst jobs.

27

Despite what the courses tell you,

despite what the influencers tell you,

28

here is the raw number from my job board

that I've been running for 18 months.

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17%.

30

That means about 2 out of every

10 data analyst jobs are remote.

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The remaining 8 out of 10 are not remote.

32

So if 98% of us want to work remotely,

but only 20% of the jobs are remote, this

33

is a huge supply versus demand issue.

34

And basically, what it means is those

remote jobs are incredibly competitive.

35

They get 5 to 10 times more applicants

than its normal counterpart, and it

36

feels impossible to land these roles.

37

And actually, in my corporate life, my

W2 data jobs, I never had a remote role.

38

In fact, I barely had a hybrid

role, if I'm being honest.

39

Now, obviously, since becoming

more of a consultant educator,

40

I get to work from home.

41

So with the odds stacked

against us, what can we do?

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Well, here are five things that you

can do today to increase your odds of

43

landing that data analyst role remotely.

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The first thing you can do to land a job

more successfully, and hear me out here,

45

don't stop listening, don't hate me, is

to, one Not go for a remote data job.

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And, and let me explain real quick.

47

Please keep listening.

48

I think that there's something that you

actually want that you have a better

49

chance of landing that will get you most

of what you are actually desiring, and

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I'm gonna call it an 80% remote job.

51

It's not 100% remote, it's 80% remote

job, and another term for this is hybrid.

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And hybrid roles are actually

more common than remote jobs.

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There's about 22% of all posted

data analyst jobs that fall

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into this hybrid category.

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And the cool thing about hybrid

is you have a lot of the perks

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of working remotely, but you

have way less competition.

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Because unlike 100% remote jobs, you're

not competing with everyone in the

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entire country and the entire world

for this role, it's only the people

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in the area of the actual job office.

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This means it's gonna get a lot

less applicants, it's gonna be a lot

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less competitive, but you're still

gonna have the opportunity to work

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from home at least a percentage.

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Now, hybrid is a spectrum.

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Sometimes hybrid means that you go to

the office four times a week and you

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work from home one day a week, but it

can also mean the opposite, that you

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work from home four days a week, and

you come to the office one time a week.

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Heck, I even have some students who

graduated from my accelerator program

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who are hybrid, and they have to come

to the office once a month, and I have

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one that has to come to the office

once a quarter, which is insane.

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That is basically remote to me.

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But the job that she applied

for was labeled hybrid.

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So answer me this, are you okay

potentially going to the office one

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to two times a week if it was going

to help you land a job a lot faster

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and probably have a higher salary?

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Would that be worth the trade-off for you?

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And while I have you thinking

about this, I'm gonna suggest one

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more thing, and that is that you

actually go for an on-site job.

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Because as you can see, 61% of data

analyst jobs are posted on-site.

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This is the majority, and these

are less desirable than the

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remote and the hybrid jobs, right?

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So they're gonna be way less competitive

because people don't wanna do it.

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There's also a smaller applicant pool just

because you're not going to be competing

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with people from all over the country.

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But let me also point out, if you're

trying to land your first data job,

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another two reasons why this in-person

job might be a really good bridge for you.

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Number one, you have no proven

experience of being a data analyst, and

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when you're going through the hiring

process, the hiring manager is thinking,

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"Is this person a risk, yes or no?"

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When you have no experience, you're

already kind of by default a risk.

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Let me tell you that corporate and

managers see people working remotely

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often as a risk as well because

they can't see you, and they can't

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keep track of what you're doing and

if you're actually working or not.

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Now, does every manager think that way?

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No.

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But corporations do think

that way, I promise.

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And working remotely, you are

a risk to a lot of companies.

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So no experience risk and working remotely

risk, you're just not likely to get hired.

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The second reason you might wanna

consider an in-person job is you're

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gonna receive way better training.

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I love working remotely, I love working

virtually, but I can't disagree that

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you get better training with a human

right next to you than you do on Zoom.

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I promise you're gonna learn

a lot more in the office.

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You're gonna make more friends.

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You're gonna have better

visibility opportunities.

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You're gonna be seen by the manager more.

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Honestly, you're probably

gonna get more promotions.

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I'm just telling you, I hate to say

it, I wish it wasn't the case, but when

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you're in the office, good things happen.

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Now, before all of you guys accuse

me of being a corporate wog in the

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comments down below, I don't like

going to the office When I worked

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at Exxon, I was working hybrid.

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It was during COVID.

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It, it really is an in-person job, but

I decided I didn't really want to go to

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the office, and so I didn't go to the

office for six months, and I promise

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you, that hurt my growth at the company.

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So step number one to landing a

remote data analyst job is to first

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not land a remote data analyst job.

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I know, kind of wonky, kind of meta,

but it's something I actually really

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believe in, and it's honest advice coming

from someone who's been in your shoes.

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But if you want to ignore all that

and say, "Avery, I'm going for

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the competitive 17% remote job.

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I want it.

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I need it," then okay, step two, three,

four, and five will help you become the

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best candidate to stand out in that pool.

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Let's start with step number two,

and that is the obvious one once

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again, and it's to learn the skills.

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You can't become a remote data analyst if

you don't have good data analyst skills.

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Now, I've made a lot of episodes in the

past talking about this, but my philosophy

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is you shouldn't try to learn every single

data skill out there, every single data

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tool out there, because there's way too

much to learn, and it's way too hard to

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learn them all, especially at the same

time when you're just getting started.

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So what skills should you actually learn?

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Well, for me, I think there's two factors.

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One, how in demand the skill is,

and two, how easy is it to learn?

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Now, what's the most

in-demand data skill there is?

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It's Python, right?

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That's what everyone says.

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That's what all the Influencers

say that's what the course is.

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No, it's not.

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It's Excel.

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It's boring freaking Excel, you guys.

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And if you don't believe me, I actually

analyze all the job descriptions

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on my job board, findadatajob.com,

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and I created this graph right here

that's actually live on the website,

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updates automatically to show you

what skills are most listed in the

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job descriptions for a data analyst.

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So you can see that Excel is basically

mentioned in half of all data analyst

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jobs, followed by SQL at 38%, and then

the business intelligence tools of

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Power BI and Tableau are on that 24 to

25% mark, followed by Python and some

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more complicated tools down below.

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So what's in demand?

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It's Excel, it's SQL, and it's

a business intelligence tool.

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And in terms of ease of learning and

using, most of us have already used Excel

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before, so it's a great place to start,

and it's really not that complicated.

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The next easiest in my mind

is the business intelligence

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tools of Power BI and Tableau.

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If you can figure out how to make

a PowerPoint presentation, you

158

can figure out how to make these.

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And then I think SQL is a lot easier

than Python because there's a lot less

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coding involved, and there's really only,

like, 17 commands you need to know to get

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started with basic SQL for data analysts.

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So those are the three skills I

would focus on in the order of

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Excel, Tableau or Power BI, and SQL.

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Now, you might be saying, "Avery, those

are the best skills for data analyst jobs.

165

What about remote data analyst jobs?"

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And the answer is the data

doesn't really change that much.

167

On the website, findadatajob.com,

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you can look at this report and actually

filter by remote jobs only, and you'll

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see that the top five are still the

top five, although SQL and Excel do

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change place, and SQL is required

in 48% of remote data analyst jobs.

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So SQL might be a little bit more

important for remote data analyst

172

jobs, and so that might be something

you wanna focus on a little bit more.

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But even if you've learned these

skills, you're still a risk to the

174

hiring manager because you have

no proof, you have no experience.

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So you need to actually figure out

how to create your own experience.

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And that leads me to step number

three, which is creating your own

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experience by building a portfolio.

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Once again, if you're going to be

hired remotely, you are a risk.

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They haven't met you in person probably.

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They won't be able to walk by your desk

and see what you're working on day to day.

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You'll probably have less

conversations with the people

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on your team and your manager.

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You are a foreigner and you are a

risk, and so you need to build up every

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single ounce of evidence that you can

actually analyze data to present to

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the recruiter, to present to the hiring

manager, that you can actually be a

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productive data analyst on their team.

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And in my opinion, a portfolio is the best

way that you can present this evidence.

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If you've never heard of a portfolio

before, it's basically you do pretend

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work, and you call it a project, and

you publish it online somewhere, so

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it's very accessible for them to,

like, read through your case study

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of how you actually analyze data.

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And it's basically like, "Hey,

look, this is what your job

193

description says that I need to do.

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Here's evidence of me doing

this for a different job."

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It could just be a job you make up,

whatever project you're interested in.

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And it proves to the hiring manager,

oh, this person's actually capable.

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So in terms of where to host your

portfolio, I have a new favorite, and

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it's because I'm extremely biased, I

built it, but it's called mydatafolio.com.

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And it's really what my solution

was to portfolio making.

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It used to be hard, it used to take

a long time, it used to be ugly.

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I think this is the fastest and easiest

way to build a data analyst portfolio.

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So you can get started for

absolutely free at mydatafolio.com.

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But here's the catch.

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Even with a portfolio, even with

the skills, that's not gonna be

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enough to make you stand out in

this huge pool of applicants.

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In fact, I suggest skipping the

applicant tracking system altogether.

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And how do you do that?

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Well, it's easier said than done, but it's

step number four, which is networking.

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The ATS applicant tracking system is

a complete mess for these remote jobs.

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They're getting 200, 500, 1,000

applicants for these remote data

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analyst jobs, and you have to stand

out in this applicant tracking system.

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You have to stand out to a computer,

and so really all it really has is your

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resume and sometimes your LinkedIn.

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So you obviously wanna make sure

that those things are up to snuff,

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as optimized as possible, that they

have all your listed skills, and

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a link to your portfolio as well.

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Also, if you can actually show that

you've worked remotely before on

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your resume or your LinkedIn, that's

bonus points because, oh, look it,

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they actually have done this before.

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We trust them.

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If you haven't worked remotely

before, then you can give some sort

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of bullet points that you can be

dependable, and you can communicate

223

clearly, and that can be, uh, suffice.

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But in my opinion, you really wanna

skip this whole applicant tracking

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system if you can, and you can do that

through networking in two different ways.

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Number one is by getting a referral, which

I know is easier said than done, but a lot

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of aspiring data analysts don't even try.

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They just think, "Oh, I don't know anyone.

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How am I ever going to get

a referral at a company?"

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But false.

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You know lots of people.

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Look to your left, look to your right.

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There's people around you.

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And if you're by yourself, re-listen to

this in like, I don't know, eight hours,

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and you're probably next to someone else.

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My point here is you have neighbors,

you have friends, you have family, you

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have cousins, you have soccer teammates,

you have pickup parent buddies.

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Like, there are people around you

who could refer you to a job that you

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just aren't thinking about right now.

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And the key part here is they don't

have to be a data analyst They

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just have to work at a company

that would hire data analysts.

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Start talking to them.

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Start talking about what you're looking

for, start talking about your work life

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when you see them, and just like, "Hey,

this is the job I'm kind of going for.

245

I want to become a data analyst,"

and you'll be amazed what happens.

246

I promise you, there's miracles.

247

I've seen so many people in my program.

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In fact, we've had one, uh,

lady who talked to her friend

249

and got hired basically with,

like, a 15-minute interview.

250

She now works remotely as a

data analyst in Houston, Texas.

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She was an esthetician beforehand,

no technical experience, and now

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a remote data analyst, all because

of one person that she knew.

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It was her friend's husband

who knew someone, I think.

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So just open your mouth.

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On your girls trip, start

talking, and you'll be amazed.

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The other thing that you can do to

network is actually network with

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the recruiter or the hiring manager

that is responsible for this role.

258

And you might be thinking, "Avery,

I have no clue who this is."

259

And you're right.

260

For most jobs, you don't know who the

hiring manager or the recruiter is.

261

So what do you do?

262

Well, a lot of hiring managers and

recruiters will actually post on LinkedIn

263

about the job that they're hiring for.

264

And if you find these types

of posts right here, you can

265

actually figure out who they are.

266

So r- in this instance, Tyler

says, "My team is hiring.

267

We're looking for a digital analyst

to join Urban Outfitters," which

268

is, like, the cool clothes company,

right, "uh, analytics team to

269

help run our A/B testing program."

270

Sounds really cool.

271

I like that job a lot.

272

I'm very interested.

273

And so I could actually comment on this

post or I could reach out directly to

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Tyler on LinkedIn, send him an InMail, uh,

and say, you know, "I'm really interested.

275

Here's a project I've done

with A/B testing previously.

276

Like, I think I'd be a really

good fit for this role.

277

Let me know if I'm a good fit," or,

"What advice would you have for me?"

278

Or whatever question you want to ask.

279

You can send some sort of a cold message.

280

You could also leave a

comment saying the same thing.

281

Now, how do you find these types of posts?

282

It's a little bit difficult.

283

I've made a video in the past about

how to actually do this step by step.

284

The easier option is just let me find

them for you and give them to you.

285

So I created a second job board

called premiumdatajobs.com.

286

That's literally only these types of jobs

that have a LinkedIn post where the hiring

287

manager or the recruiter has posted them.

288

You can comment or send an InMail to

them directly and skip the ATS altogether

289

and become one of the first names

that they actually see in their inbox.

290

I specifically hunt for jobs that

are posted within 24 hours and that

291

are good fits for people like you.

292

If you want to check it out, you

can go to premiumdatajobs.com,

293

which that actually brings me to step

number five, which is to search smartly.

294

Now, obviously, you can just go to

LinkedIn Jobs and turn on the remote

295

setting and apply for jobs that way.

296

But that's kind of what

everyone does, so here are a few

297

suggestions that I can give you.

298

Number one, try a different job

board that most people don't do.

299

My free job board, findadatajob.com

300

is a great place to start.

301

We have a remote filter

there that you can test out.

302

Number two, there's a bunch of

remote first job boards, like

303

Remote OK or Remote Rocketship.

304

These post only remote jobs.

305

They're not data specific, but they have

good options for you to check out, and not

306

a lot of people are checking those out.

307

And number three is to actually find

remote first companies, companies

308

that- actually care and do remote work.

309

Then you go to the jobs available

and careers on their website and

310

apply directly on their website.

311

Oftentimes, you might notice a job faster

than other people, or you might have a

312

better chance of g- doing well in the ATS

if you apply directly from the website.

313

Now, I made a list of 50 remote-first

companies right here that'll pop up

314

on the screen if you're watching this.

315

If you're listening, obviously you

can't see it, but companies like GitLab,

316

Zapier, Buffer, Basecamp, HubSpot.

317

These are remote-first companies,

and I'll have a link in the

318

description down below so you can

see all 50 remote-first companies.

319

You guys, it's really hard to

land a remote data analyst job,

320

but I promise that you can do

it with these five cheat codes.

321

I hope this helped.

322

If it did, I will see

you in the next episode