@Corry – I like the triathlete metaphor, and having one discipline with which one starts and then expands into the other two disciplines. For me, this needs to ‘balance’ out their initial skill sets with other skills makes web analysts far more rounded.

@Laura – Thanks for your response, and agree that this is often requires flexibility, humility and the need to constantly adapt. Keep on data hoarding.

@Avinash – Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, your right – superman/superwoman doesn’t exist and that’s why Andrew’s point at looking at some surprising sources (burned out bankers) might be a way to increase the size of the pool. When demand outstrips supply, we have to, as you say, cut back to the fundamentals of what we are looking for.

Thanks to all for commenting.

Doing all of this at once and without having a rigorous testing process would be a sure-fire way to have a immediate change in career.

It was a while I wrote my post on this subject and as my professional experience grow my view of the world change accordingly. Having worked on different levels as a web analyst it keeps amazing me how versatile one has to be in this role. You have to know a little bit about everything.

If you work in a pure online environment you probably have specialist in several areas like SEO, social media, PPC, usability, email marketing etc. Each of these areas is a profession of itself demanding many different skills.

As a web analyst you have to know a lot about each area. To understand what type of data you are looking at and to come up with a recommendation for further improvement you have to dig deep into what each of your specialists are doing almost becoming a specialist in each area.

I nowdays find the jump to become for example a ppc, or social media expert fairly small. They all have the same basics, measuring and optimising your numbers.

Of course the end game is that as a web analyst you need a long list of necessary traits, some more important than the others. I think the points you mention is right on the money. Depending on how junior or senior you are or how high in the organisation the role is you need more or less of certain skills.

I can say a lot about hiring managers and their view of web analysts, but I agree with Avinash that one needs to find the “wants” and “needs” in a web analyst for that particular organisation.

Thanks for adding your thoughts on the topic.

Theodor

My worry with these posts (including mine!) is that if we sum up the skills outlined by all of us a hiring manager ends up looking for a Superwoman/Superman/Purple Elephant. They sadly don’t exist. Or maybe they do and I’ve just not bumped into them!

Lesson learned. I’ve tried to be a lot more aggressive, like in my latest post, about distilling down just the critical skills and throw away the nice to have. A good example of this is the hyper stress on core analytical skills and de-prioritization of tag implementation skills.

My hope is that that gets hiring managers to know what to prioritize higher and what to put in the “not mandatory so don’t struggle to find the purple squirrel but hey if you do bump into a purple squirrel then sure hire them” category.

Just as a fun exercise I was trying to rank order your table at the end. It is a tough exercise, but necessary if we collectively are to add value to hiring managers and aspiring analysts.

Thank you so much for adding an immense amount of value to the conversation.

Avinash.

What has always been interesting to me was when Avinash Kaushik said he was less interested in hiring number-crunchers than people who are curious and delight in learning new things. For me that made analytics less of a burden and more of an adventure!

One other thing I think I’ve noticed is the importance of having a great deal of patience (which probably goes along with perseverance!). You will have people telling you what data they want you to pull without really understanding what data is needed to address the underlying question. So, ultimately, a web analyst needs to have patience enough to get to the bottom line question.

I’ve also been aware that web analysts need to be flexible because the questions and data needs necessarily change over time. This supports the importance of continuing to learn from others, to play with new tools and new ways of pulling data, and to find better ways of highlighting action needed based on the data.

Finally, I haven’t decided whether or not data analysts have to be data hoarders. I’ve got a series of spreadsheets that I regularly update and am thankful that I have built-up a history of data that I can look back over to determine growth and changes in trends over time. While not all the data is needed on a regular basis, I still think you shouldn’t pass up an opportunity to collect it – provided you have the time, energy, and budget.

(My weakness is technology!)

Most triathletes start as specialists in either running, swimming or cycling and then develop competence in the other disciplines.

Digital analysts have to act like triathletes. If they start out their careers as specialists in any one of these corners, they have to push themselves to cross-over and become competent in at least one other.

Companies can hire tech guys, quants and marketers, but the value comes from having minds that can cross over and communicate with all stakeholders.