Good with Numbers and Business? Consider Becoming a Data Scientist

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Data scientist -- it’s been called the sexiest job of the 21st century. As companies in nearly every industry strategize how to use big data for competitive advantage, professionals who can sift through and make practical sense of this information are becoming some of the most sought-after hires. Unlike some technical roles, though, this job is a multidisciplinary one. If crunching data sets and championing business decisions sound sexy to you, consider becoming a data scientist or at least adding some of the skills to your set.


Data Scientist, Explained
Simply put, a data scientist’s job is to solve business problems using information derived from data the business collects. It’s a relatively new type of position made possible by the age of digital disruption. Companies amassing vast amounts indonesia phone number library of data from multiple sources -- everything from customer purchasing activity and sales figures to financial market data and weather statistics – know that this information can be a goldmine if properly processed. That’s the data scientist’s job, to organize and analyze these data to yield useful information for decision-making.

Data scientists must be broadly talented: success requires strong skills in math, computer programming, problem solving and communication. Their work runs from managing huge amounts of unstructured data to making predictions and recommending actions based on what patterns they find. It’s where data mining meets business strategy, and a company’s bottom line increasingly relies on a data scientist’s valuable work.


Ready for Fat Pay?
It’s the simple law of supply-and-demand. Data scientists are a small, highly-educated bunch – almost 80 percent hold masters or doctoral degrees – and there aren’t nearly enough of them yet to fill the voracious demand from tech companies and other data-driven organizations. Although the number of data scientists has doubled in the last four years, demand still way outpaces supply, according to a 2015 MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS study.