Let’s face it; the majority of your top business decisions heavily rely on data analysis. And for that reason alone, investing in the best data-driven strategy bears an invaluable benefit to your business. But even as you devote your resources to the best systems and tools to capture data, you also need the right skill set to extract insight from the collected data. These five soft skills for your data analyst can help your business benefit from high-performing data analysis.
Problem Solving Skills
Data analysis requires more than knowing your way around technology. This is especially important, given technology will never always be perfect. For instance, data analysis processes are prone to setbacks like inaccurate algorithms that require top problem-solving skills.
That’s why you should invest in a data analyst that understands a problem when it arises. Moreover, they should be capable of troubleshooting the problem to capture all that’s required efficiently. Problem-solving skills also come in handy when working as a team to solve issues through data analysis.
Communication Skills
Even though your data analyst’s work is digging through raw data, it doesn’t help if they lack communication skills. This specific skill needs to go beyond writing alone, though. It should transcend further into data visualization such as using eye-catching and high-quality charts when highlighting findings.
When hiring the right talent that’s more diverse in tech, you may also want to consider presentation as another valuable communication skill. However, bear in mind presentation skills often don’t come naturally to everyone. Regardless, your ideal data analyst needs this skill to tell the rest of the team about their findings.
Research Skills
To communicate effectively and solve the problems at hand, your data analyst needs to possess more profound knowledge of their field. But while having knowledge at their fingertips helps, they also need to get the most out of the collected data. That means having a solid research foundation and the desire to learn even more.
Research skills will help your data analyst stay on top of industry trends and understand essential insights from the data. The skill will also help when presenting findings and defending their stance on every meaningful recommendation they make.
Critical Thinking
Sometimes it’s never enough to look at data and draw conclusions. You need to figure out more on how to expand its impact beyond the algorithms and stats alone. Critical thinking as a soft skill helps your data analyst think analytically about data. It also helps them identify patterns and extract actionable insights from the available data.
Even more, critical thinking will allow your data analyst to commit to data reviewing instead of only processing. For instance, it will aid them to establish if they can add meaning to your company’s available data pattern. Essentially, critical thinking skills are instrumental in ensuring effective data utilization.
Adaptability
Besides data analysis, adaptability is a highly sought-after soft skill in arguably every career. The skill may be soon a must-have, given the pace at which technological innovation is growing. Your company is no exception, and it needs a data analyst who can rapidly adapt to the latest technologies.
The analyst has to remain on their toes and in time to respond to varying business trends. They must be capable of adjusting to any new developments in data analysis—that includes adaptability to new data analysis software and all other arising data analysis techniques.
synergy systems
Soft skills are a valuable asset to any profession. The skills are even valuable to your soon-to-be data analyst to ensure a perfect data science performance. What’s more, these skills are special since you can’t quickly lose them. Well, if you want to access a pool of data analyst talent with all the right skills for your company, Synergy Systems should be your one last stop.
