How to Become a Business Analyst 2021 (New Grad) — Background + Skills

Part 1 of A New Graduate’s Guide to Becoming a Data/Business Analyst

Contents

What degree should I have?
What experience should I have?
Skills (to be continued in the next post)

Introduction

This is the first blog in a series titled “A New Graduate’s Guide to Becoming a Data/Business Analyst”.

This series is written to help recent college graduates learn how to become a data or business analyst, particularly ones who are graduating during the coronavirus pandemic. Rather than being comprehensive, this guide focuses on the tips that were most useful to me and that I either didn’t see at all or didn’t see much on the internet when I was looking for a job.

I followed most of the advice in this guide. If I had spent 1+ more months searching for a job, I would have followed the rest.

I’ve split the guide into 5 digestible parts and linked to each at the bottom of each post. There are many things I didn’t include — among them, how to write a connection request on LinkedIn, how to learn Python, or what you can get out of attending online networking events. While these things are important, I trust that my readers will find good advice on this on their own.

I spent a lot of time reading blog posts and going to events that promised to tell me how to find a job…