October 8, 2020 at 3:48 pm
Hi Guys,
I'm hoping for a little advice and please delete if this is not relevant here. I've been involved in Data analytics and MI reporting for quite some time but predominately I have used SSMS, Excel, Access as my main tools.
I'm very keen to upskill and I was wondering if someone could give me some advice. My company are starting to use 3rd party CRM's where a lot of the data can only be pulled either by exporting CSV or API's. I was thinking maybe Python or R programming may be useful going forward?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
October 8, 2020 at 8:17 pm
It depends. Are you looking to change jobs/careers or stick with your current position?
If you are sticking with your current position, see what the company expects of you. Talk with your manager and determine the path they want you on and see if that meets with your interests. If the company wants you learning SSRS and SSIS and building a data warehouse (for example) and you are more interested in getting in to the coding side of things such as Python, you may end up wanting a new job. On the other hand, if the company is wanting to do more work in other platforms like Python or R, showing initiative on your end may be a good thing.
If a new job IS what you are looking for, then pick something interesting to you and research it and get training in it. It can be paid or free training, but get training on it and practice and build up a portfolio.
I would advise against picking a random tool to learn for advancing your career unless there is benefit to it at your workplace OR it is of interest to you for a potential future job. Python and R are good tools for certain tasks.
The above is all just my opinion on what you should do.
As with all advice you find on a random internet forum - you shouldn't blindly follow it. Always test on a test server to see if there is negative side effects before making changes to live!
I recommend you NEVER run "random code" you found online on any system you care about UNLESS you understand and can verify the code OR you don't care if the code trashes your system.
October 9, 2020 at 1:04 pm
If you're looking to expand your analytics skills, I'm going to pile on and say R or Python. Great choice.
Otherwise, man, this whole data management, data analysis, etc., business is massive. There are opportunities all over the place and in all sorts of disciplines. It really comes down to chasing what excites you. You can get paid and enjoy what you do. We're in a great industry.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
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