5 Great Places to Find Entry Level Data Analyst Jobs
So you’re looking to find entry level data analyst jobs? You’ve come to the right place.
I’ve scoured through the internet to find the best 10 places for you to search for to land an entry level data analyst job. This list will cover most of the places where employers will go to find data analysts.
Maximizing your chances of landing a role
Before I dive into where you should look for a role, I want to note a few things that are important when searching for a data analyst role. If you’re a new graduate or looking for a career change, there are several things you can do to stand out. This includes:
Certifications
Since there’s not a set degree requirement to be a data analyst, your major won’t keep you out of a data analyst job. Having a certification or any other formal training that indicates your competency in data analysis is very important. Some of the top data analysis certifications include:
- Microsoft Certified Data Analyst Associate
- Cloudera Certified Associate (CCA) Data Analyst
- IBM Data Science Professional Certificate
- Associate Certified Analytics Professional (aCAP)
Getting one of these certificates will help you stand out from other applicants.
Portfolio
Another important factor in your ability to land a job is your experience. Your experience is likely the biggest factor in determining how attractive of a candidate you are.
Since data analysis is a very hands-on career, your employer wants to know you are competent and can succeed with projects.
You don’t need a ton of examples on there, but having a working portfolio will take you a long way. The portfolio is a vote of confidence in your ability to be a competent data analyst.
Alright, enough of the intro. Let’s go through the best places to find entry level data analyst jobs.
1. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is by far the best place to build your network and it’s an awesome place to find jobs. The great thing about LinkedIn is that it’s built completely around networking and finding roles.
There many ways to find entry level data analyst jobs on LinkedIn. Some methods you can try include:
LinkedIn Jobs:Â You can search directly for jobs on LinkedIn. If you search for the term “data analyst on LinkedIn, you can filter by jobs and all of the jobs on LinkedIn will show up.
When you click on the job, you can see this:
This helps you see how many people applied for the role, if you have any connections, and the size of the company.
I would try reaching out to a connection at a company if I had one or sending them an email on their website.
Try to stand out. If you send in your application with the other dozens of applications, you will need to have the best qualifications to get an interview.
Getting a warm intro to a contact within the company can increase the likelihood of success significantly.
Building your network:
Directly applying to jobs is probably the fastest way to land a job, but building your network can be a a good way to land a role.
Building your network takes time, but it’s necessary in order to build your professional profile. When an employer is interested in you, they will check out your LinkedIn profile.
This allows them to gauge your network and gives them a first impression. If you have a network of 10 people, I probably wouldn’t trust you, forget about an employer.
This is because it indicates you are pretty new and inexperienced. Building your profile to over 100 people within data science is a good way to have a professional online presence. Doing simple things like commenting on someone’s post or liking it can help build a lead to getting a job.
I don’t mind if you don’t apply for jobs directly on LinkedIn, but you must have a LinkedIn profile and start to grow your network. This is basically the first thing an employer sees when they search up your name online.
2. Indeed, Monster, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor etc.
I place Indeed, Monster and ZipRecruiter all in the same category because they are job boards. These 3 job boards are the primary places where most people will go to search for entry level data analyst jobs.
Each of these platforms have their own pros and cons, but they generally follow this format:
- An employer posts a job
- Thousands of visitors on the site see it
- Hundreds of applicants apply to the role
- Less than a dozen applicants are interviewed
- 1-2 people get the role
Since it’s designed for the employer to maximize the number of applicants they can get, you have to really be qualified to stand out.
In my personal experience, I maybe have had one interested company in all of the dozens of applications I’ve done for Indeed.
What I found to work better was to search the company on Google and contact them directly. This helps me stand out from other applicants and allows me to actually connect with someone from the company.
You will probably find a lot better success emailing the companies directly instead of being another applicant on these job boards.
It’s honestly a number’s game. If you apply to enough jobs, you will hear back from someone. Starting with Indeed, ZipRecruiter and Monster is a great way to see how the market looks like.
These sites will have the vast majority of entry level data analyst jobs on the internet. Spending a few hours every day applying, contacting companies directly, etc. is a great first step to landing a data analyst role.
3. Twitter
Yes, I’m serious about finding a job on Twitter.
If you can unfollow/avoid all of the meme pages, Twitter can be an even better platform than LinkedIn for professional development.
You can follow the meme pages, but be careful about what you retweet/like because an employer can see it.
You can find work on Twitter in several ways, these include:
Direct messages
Twitter allows you to reach decision makers on a platform where they don’t have as many direct messages.
Many employers have their DMs open, so you can literally just send them a message saying you’re a data analyst looking for a role. Make the message short and sweet and you can send that to tens, if not hundreds of companies.
I’m a freelance writer and I found a client for a $7,500 project directly via Twitter DMs. I made a quick message template and looked up CEOs in my niche. Once I made the template I made it customized to the person I was sending it to.
A sample template you can use is:
Hi (name),
My name is (your name) and I’m a data analyst. I was wondering if (your company) is hiring data analysts at the moment. Happy to send you my resume, samples of work and anything else necessary.
Thanks,
(Your name)
Send this message to hundreds of managers, CEOs in your desired workplaces and you’ll find some success. Doing this will set you apart from 99% of other applicants.
Search feature
The search feature on Twitter isn’t only for stalking your ex and looking for subtweets, you can find a lot of roles that people and companies are hiring for.
Let’s do a quick example of me searching for a data analyst job.
I just searched for the terms “data analyst hiring”, this is what I got:
This tweet is just 4 days ago, so the amount of applicants for this role will be much less than anything you find on Indeed or other job boards.
If you click on the profile of this employer, you can see that their DMs are open.
Once you apply, you can send them a quick follow-up message to stand out from other applicants.
Here are a few other tweets I saw for hiring data analysts:
