141: The ONLY Framework to Become a Data Analyst in 2025 (SPN Method)

Avery: 00:00:00

On YouTube, there's lots of data advice given to you every

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single day by lots of great creators.

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And I don't know about you, but me

personally, I watch a lot of videos, but

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I'm not actually sure that I take a lot

from them that I can concretely follow.

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The general ideas are great, but I find

it really hard to take the knowledge

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they're giving me and apply it.

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So that's why I created something

that's actually concrete that will

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help you land your first day at job.

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It's a framework that you can follow

and it's really easy to remember

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because it's just three simple letters.

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SPN.

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The SPN method is the fastest and the

simplest way to land your first data job.

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And if you follow it,

success is likely to ensue.

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It's how I got a data job.

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It's how hundreds of my students

have gotten data jobs, and

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honestly, I hope it's the way

that you get a data job as well.

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What is the SPN method?

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It's really a simple philosophy,

and it's the idea that.

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But skills alone is not

going to land you a data job.

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Your technical analysis, your

data skills, your technical

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tools, those are the bare minimum.

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Those are the checkboxes that

you have to be able to check to

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even be qualified to land a job.

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But it's never what

actually lands you the job.

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It's not what sets you apart.

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The truth is there's probably someone

who's less skilled in SQL, who can't

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make as good of a data visualization,

who maybe can't even program.

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They're less of a technical

candidate than you are, but they're

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landing a data job over you because

they're following the SPN method.

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We live in a world where for better

or worse, it's not necessarily

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how skilled or how technical

you are that gets you the job.

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If you're the best sequel programmer

in the entire world, it's not like

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you're going to get paid the most.

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You might, but you probably won't.

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There's probably people who

are less good at sequel who are

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actually making more money than you.

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So basically that's to say that

your salary and your skills

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are not directly correlated.

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Is there some correlation?

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Sure, but it's probably something

closer to like 5 than a 1.

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0 correlation.

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So what does matter when you're

getting hired and how fast you

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get hired and how much you get

paid if it's not just your skills?

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Well, it's how you are appearing

and it's how your personal

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brand is being presented.

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If you're trying to land a data job,

you have to convince a hiring manager

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or recruiter that you're not high risk.

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That you can actually do

all the things that they're

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requiring in the job description.

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And these hiring managers

and the recruiters, they're

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busy to be perfectly honest.

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They have a lot going on and

they have families like you.

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They have hobbies like you.

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They're really busy at work.

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And so your job as a job candidate is

to make their life as easy as possible.

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And you'll do that by

following the SPN method.

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So what does the SPN stand for?

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S stands for skills.

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Of course you have to have the skills.

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But you also need the P and the N.

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The P stands for projects, or a portfolio,

and the N stands for networking.

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You'll need all three to land a data job.

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My guess is you understand

why skills are important.

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To be honest, most people do.

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In fact, most people over index on skills.

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They think skills are super

important, the most important thing.

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But in the job landing formula, skills

are only 33 percent of the actual formula.

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The remaining 66 percent are going

to be your projects and your network.

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Projects are important because they are

very easy ways, tangible evidence to

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show to hiring managers and recruiters

that you are valuable, that you can

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actually bring value to a business.

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Like I said, hiring managers and

recruiters, they're busy and they're

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going to read through resumes.

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After the ATS screens through a

bunch of them, but once they actually

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get to the actual resumes, they're

going to be like, okay, who can

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do what this job description says?

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Who can I trust?

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And if you don't have much of a data

background, if you don't have much of

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like a STEM background or didn't go to

school for data or something like that,

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what evidence can you provide to them

that, yeah, I can be a great data analyst.

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If it's just listing your skills

on a project in like a list,

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Python, Excel, Tableau, Power

BI, that's not very convincing.

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You're going to have a hard time

convincing hiring managers and

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recruiters that you are worth hiring.

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But if you have tangible evidence via a

project and you can say, Hey, look, I know

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you're looking for someone with Tableau

experience who can analyze marketing data.

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Here is a project I did in Tableau

where I analyzed marketing data

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to find the top customers and

top campaigns for the latest.

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You know, marketing campaigns that our

company did that is really powerful.

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And I said our marketing company,

but I really just meant any marketing

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data you can get your hands on.

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If you can create these projects from

scratch and almost replicate as if

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you are working for the companies that

you want to work for, that is like the

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most powerful thing for hiring managers

and recruiters to see because all

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of a sudden it's so tangible and so.

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Oh my gosh, I actually understand

what Avery can do as a data analyst.

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Here's how he took this raw data

and transformed it into this amazing

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report with really great insights.

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I would love for him to

do that at our company.

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Avery, you're hired.

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And that's the power of projects.

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Maybe a way that you can think

about this is let's say you're a

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hiring manager for the Fast and

the Furious, the action car movie.

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That's coming out soon.

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And for this particular role, you're

looking for a stunt double, someone

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that can do stunts really well.

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In fact, in this case, they have

to be able to jump over a car.

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Let's say you post the job on the

internet and you get two applicants.

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Applicant A has a resume and on the

resume says, Yes, I can jump over a car.

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And applicant B also has a resume

that says, I can jump over a car.

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But in addition to that, sends in

a video of them jumping over a car.

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Who are you more likely to

hire, person A or person B?

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It's the person that's

in the video, right?

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And why is that?

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It's because they provided

tangible evidence.

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They made it themselves less of a

risk for you and then made it really

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clear, oh yes, I totally see how this

person can be of use in this role.

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Well, it's the same way

as data analyst jobs.

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You want to make it as easy for the

hiring manager to make their decisions.

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Most people over index on how

important skills are, and they

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obviously are important, but they're

only one third of the equation.

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I think a lot of people Enjoy learning

and so they really spend a lot of time

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actually doing the learning But you have

to remember your purpose in watching this

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video in your self studying and in your

upskilling is really to land a job It's

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not to just learn right when I was an

undergrad in college I studied chemical

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engineering And there was a week where

we had like a career week where we had

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the career fair and we had all these

recruiters Coming and all this stuff

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and it was also During midterms as well.

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So we had all these tests that we

were supposed to be studying for

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and taking and acing, and we were

supposed to be doing all this job

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fair application stuff as well.

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I remember seeing one of my

fellow students and she was

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studying a whole heck of a lot.

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And to be honest, I really wasn't.

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She was really focused on learning

and actually getting the fundamentals

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so that she could ace this test.

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Instead of studying, I was

spending my time talking to

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recruiters, hiring managers, going

to the career fair, trying to.

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Get hired.

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And the midterm for a really hard

class came up that week and she got

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an A on the test and I got an F.

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Literally 46%.

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I failed and she aced it.

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But by the end of that semester,

she had no prospects for a job

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and I had a six figure offer.

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It's really important to make

sure that you're studying.

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Not to ace the test, not for

studying's sake, but you're

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actually studying to land a job.

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You have to remember that's the focus.

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And so you shouldn't spend all

your time on studying and learning

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the skills, because that's

only one third of the equation.

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So if you find yourself taking mini

course after mini course on Excel or

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Tableau or Excel, and you're not getting

any sort of job bites, The answer is

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because you're not really working on

landing a job, you're working on upskill.

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And those two things are related,

but they're not directly correlated.

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Another note is when you're trying

to land your first day at a job,

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you have to realize that there's

over 2, 000 different data skills

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you possibly could be learning, and

you're never going to learn them all.

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Just like, forget about it.

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No one's ever going to learn all of those.

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And so instead of just trying to upskill

from one skill to another skill to

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another skill to another skill to another

skill It's important to reflect and be

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like, what skills do I actually need?

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And if you're trying to land your

first data job, trust me, Excel,

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Tableau, SQL, those are the only

three you really need to use.

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That means for going Python,

which is probably touted

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as the data skill to learn.

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And it's a lot of fun and

it's used quite often.

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But the truth is, is it's used in

under 30 percent of data analyst jobs.

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And it's really hard to learn.

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So it's going to take

you a long time to learn.

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And it's not used all that much.

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So.

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Honestly, it's probably not

worth focusing on right now.

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In today's economy, there's just way too

many job applicants for all these jobs.

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And you really have to think

about how you stand out.

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95 percent of candidates

won't have a portfolio.

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So you can be a top 5 percent

candidate by simply having a portfolio.

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It's like these fish

right here on the screen.

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Which one of these fish out of

420 really stands out to you?

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It's the pink one, right?

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Because it looks different

than the gray fish.

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That's what having a

portfolio can do for you.

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And that's actually what

happens with my students.

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This is a direct message from one

of my students, who landed a data

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analyst job without a degree.

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Not even any sort of

bachelor's degree at all.

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This is what he said.

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Thank you, I am legitimately

doubling my current salary.

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It's amazing what doing some projects

and having a portfolio can do for you.

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And this quickly too.

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Projects are the cheat code, you guys.

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It's what makes you stand out.

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And it's tangible evidence to

hiring managers and recruiters

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that they should hire you.

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Now, that was the P

part of the SBN method.

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Let's talk about the N.

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The networking.

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And in this crazy economy with inflation,

how it is, and the amount of job

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applicants where it's at, you really

have to know someone to land a job.

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Once again, it's all about trust, right?

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These hiring managers and

recruiters, they're taking a

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risk when they're hiring you.

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Are you actually smart enough?

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Are you actually going to work hard?

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Are you actually like an honest, good

person that's going to help the company?

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Are you a team player?

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It's all about if you can create enough

trust for that person to be like, yes,

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I believe that Avery is going to be

a good addition to our team and help.

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I trust in him and I'm going to hire him.

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Well, who do you trust?

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It's honestly the people you know.

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And so your network is huge when

you're getting hired because

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that's just your circle of trust.

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Those are the people who trust

you and they're more likely

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to hire you than anyone else.

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But you're probably thinking, oh crap.

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Well, I don't really know

anyone, so I'm screwed, right?

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And the answer is No, you're

not screwed because there's two

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things that you could do today.

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Number one, you can realize you probably

know more people than you realize.

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And number two, you can

get to know more people.

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My first tip is just to literally

go through your phone and look at

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where data analysts might work.

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Go through every single contact and

just write down where that person works.

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Ask yourself, does that

company hire data analysts?

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Yes or no.

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If yes, shoot that person a text

and say, Hey, do you know any of

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the data analysts at your company?

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Just start the conversation.

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You're not asking for a million dollars.

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You're not asking for a referral yet.

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You're just starting a conversation.

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That conversation could lead

somewhere quite fruitful down the

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road, but it doesn't have to yet.

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You're just making a connection.

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Number two, you can meet new people.

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One of the easiest ways to do

that is via LinkedIn by creating

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content and commenting on LinkedIn.

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It's something that I teach and

ask my students to do inside of

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the Data Analytics Accelerator.

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It's scary for sure, but

it leads to great results.

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Another thing that you can do to

stand out is send hiring managers

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and recruiters cold messages.

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These are messages that just explain who

you are and why you might be a good fit

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for the role that they're posting about.

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95 percent of job seekers don't

send these, so just you doing

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so puts you in the top 5%.

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Another thing that's easier said

than done is to really optimize

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your resume and your LinkedIn.

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If you're applying for jobs and you're

not getting any bites, you're It honestly

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probably could be because your LinkedIn

and your resume aren't optimized.

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These are the two tools that the ATS,

the applicant tracking system, look at

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to see if you're a good candidate or not.

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If you haven't set it up correctly,

you're not getting past them.

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You're not even getting a chance

to get rejected by a human.

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You're just getting auto rejected by the

computer, which is super frustrating,

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but there's some simple things that

you can do to optimize both of those.

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That's also part of the end.

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All this is to say, if you're struggling

to land the data job, It's likely

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because you're really fixated on the S.

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But just remember that's only

one third of the equation.

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You have to have projects,

you have to have a portfolio,

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and you have to be networking.

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If you ignore the other two

factors, the P and the N, you're

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going to have frustration.

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You're going to feel like you're

stuck in tutorial hell, or you

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feel like you're making progress

because you're learning new things.

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But, you have to remember that

learning doesn't equal earning.

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The combination of the learning

with the portfolios and the

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networking, that equals earning.

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If you want to learn more about how you

can follow the SPN method, I send out a

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free weekly newsletter explaining how you

can follow the SPN method step by step.

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So go check out the show

notes and sign up for that.

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I wish you the best on your data journey.

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And if you need another episode,

I suggest this one here or it's

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in the show notes down below.

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