Career Switch to Data Analytics - How difficult is it?

[tcyeric]

Just a little background on myself, I have had quite a few years as a Business Analyst in the hospitality industry.

Sadly the local hospitality industry is quite "backwards" when it comes to the title of a business analyst and thus I am nowhere near the definition of what a business analyst is in today's context. While i do analyse figures, I do not use the current softwares like R/Python/SQL etc, my best claim will be that I am rather decent at Excel when it comes to analysis.

Given the decline in the hospitality industry in Singapore it is a matter of when I will lose my job and i was thinking of doing a "career change" to that of data analytics.

While I have attempted at applying via the Professional Conversion Programme I have had no success nor updates on any possible company(s) hiring. I at the meantime have done up quite a few courses on R and Python to learn/upskill myself.

While looking for jobs I come to realise that there are not many (if any) roles for entry level data analytics, is it really that difficult for the switch or is it just another case of "fresh graduate welcomed but need X years of experience"?

Do hope that anyone reading this and is from this line be able to advise on how I can make towards a successful transition. Thanks in advance!

TLDR: Sooner or later will be redundant in a suffering industry, finding it difficult to even get 1 foot into data anlaytics despite doing courses

Originally Posted by tcyeric

Just a little background on myself, I have had quite a few years as a Business Analyst in the hospitality industry.

Sadly the local hospitality industry is quite "backwards" when it comes to the title of a business analyst and thus I am nowhere near the definition of what a business analyst is in today's context. While i do analyse figures, I do not use the current softwares like R/Python/SQL etc, my best claim will be that I am rather decent at Excel when it comes to analysis.

Given the decline in the hospitality industry in Singapore it is a matter of when I will lose my job and i was thinking of doing a "career change" to that of data analytics.

While I have attempted at applying via the Professional Conversion Programme I have had no success nor updates on any possible company(s) hiring. I at the meantime have done up quite a few courses on R and Python to learn/upskill myself.

While looking for jobs I come to realise that there are not many (if any) roles for entry level data analytics, is it really that difficult for the switch or is it just another case of "fresh graduate welcomed but need X years of experience"?

Do hope that anyone reading this and is from this line be able to advise on how I can make towards a successful transition. Thanks in advance!

TLDR: Sooner or later will be redundant in a suffering industry, finding it difficult to even get 1 foot into data anlaytics despite doing courses

I can only offer you an insight.
Data analytics / machine learning is a hot trendy thing.
LinkedIn etc machine learning dev ops hottsrt job.

So my corporation, one of the big tech in Singapore... The top management direction also want to explore this field.. How to use data analytics to improve bla bla bla.

So existing people have no idea how to do. But was appointed the role to lead. So my boss hire and interview for people for this role. We have no idea how to verify the legitimacy of the candidate. Some are so fake just know theory. End up just debating theory and concept of data analytics with nothing to show for. Others have some experience but not sure what is the industry standard etc.

All in all, the team failed. Didn't meet the kpi. In the end the management abandoned the team.

So yeah. This is a trndy field but Singapore doesn't seem to have any real talent in this. So most just fake it.
Most who take up this role also expect high pay but lacking in skills.

In the end the boss just assigned the data analytics to a programmer. And the programmer just follow some simple guide R or python to just do some simple analysis.

So yeah.

[tcyeric]

wah that is quite depressing to learn about :|

then again from a career change standpoint also don't know what to do before i become redundant, data analytics seemed like a more "relatable" field given my years of doing (revenue management) analysis =\

cham ah!

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I can only offer you an insight.
Data analytics / machine learning is a hot trendy thing.
LinkedIn etc machine learning dev ops hottsrt job.

So my corporation, one of the big tech in Singapore... The top management direction also want to explore this field.. How to use data analytics to improve bla bla bla.

So existing people have no idea how to do. But was appointed the role to lead. So my boss hire and interview for people for this role. We have no idea how to verify the legitimacy of the candidate. Some are so fake just know theory. End up just debating theory and concept of data analytics with nothing to show for. Others have some experience but not sure what is the industry standard etc.

All in all, the team failed. Didn't meet the kpi. In the end the management abandoned the team.

So yeah. This is a trndy field but Singapore doesn't seem to have any real talent in this. So most just fake it.
Most who take up this role also expect high pay but lacking in skills.

In the end the boss just assigned the data analytics to a programmer. And the programmer just follow some simple guide R or python to just do some simple analysis.

So yeah.

If they know the theory at least, they were probably not fake just inexperienced. On the other hand, it is weird to say someone has experience when he has no knowledge of industry standards.

I agree that experience is important and there is a lack of experienced data science professionals in SG, and actually everywhere.

Another common cause of failure is that the organization/stakeholders lack the will and understanding to embrace data centric work processes. Most people do not like to rock the boat, so it requires a lot of pressure from the right people to make things happen.

[tcyeric]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If they know the theory at least, they were probably not fake just inexperienced. On the other hand, it is weird to say someone has experience when he has no knowledge of industry standards.

I agree that experience is important and there is a lack of experienced data science professionals in SG, and actually everywhere.

Another common cause of failure is that the organization/stakeholders lack the will and understanding to embrace data centric work processes. Most people do not like to rock the boat, so it requires a lot of pressure from the right people to make things happen.

so if there is a lack of experienced science professionals in SG, then in a way no local people to fill up the vacancies i see on job portals?

so (a) no one willing to take the risk to groom newbies, and (b) not many experienced professionals in local workforce. aren't we setting ourselves up for failure regardless of the gov identifying it as a key growth role?

[SamNelson]

I am in the middle of a career swith now. Getting into front end software development and taking a look at React Native and Ionic browsing through articles like https://www.aivanet.com/2020/10/reac...ic-comparison/ . It's not tough so far but when I'll get more into it I know that it will become a struggle. But if you really want this change to happen, it's possible to handle it.

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Originally Posted by tcyeric

so if there is a lack of experienced science professionals in SG, then in a way no local people to fill up the vacancies i see on job portals?

so (a) no one willing to take the risk to groom newbies, and (b) not many experienced professionals in local workforce. aren't we setting ourselves up for failure regardless of the gov identifying it as a key growth role?

Sg company try 3 years no returns will shut it down

Doesn’t help ppl see data science / ML thing as a $$$ rather than integrating and transforming business processes

Yes it is a popular trend even my big corporation want to adopt it and setup a data analytics team etc.
We ofc don't have the skills so we hire / outsource.

One thing we realised is that those looking for this job also have no experience.
Alot of impostor syndrome..

So we hired 2. One graduated from mathematics degree in NTU. Alot of theory we don't understand but we Google also found out he ********. So all talk no result.

The other one we hire is a self taught software graduated from cybersecurity but pursuing machine learning. That one can code but just follow tutorial can't understand the maths theory.

So they both ebrryday is just debating arguing.
At the end of the day, our team need to show / demo some application to senior management to show progress.

Guess what? Both of them quit. Why? Both ashamed by their impostor syndromes...
As a result, the senior management decided to shut down the team and just move on to another project for show....

Yes its trendy but don't really have much applications
Things like not enough data.
Or data collected is not relevant to the model.

So yes. ******** pseudo science.