Feeling frustrated as a junior who has never worked with other analysts or had a senior analyst to learn from.

[u/lemonbottles_89]

I've started my career in nonprofits and only worked in nonprofits until now. 3 times now, I have ended up in roles where I am the ONLY analyst on the team. Everyone I work with is either data adjacent, or not an analyst at all. I'm the only person ever working on analytics work, and I have no real life gauge/context on how to do things better in a real world context. I google things all the time, I take courses, but the advice is too generalized and doesn't go deep enough. I need people I can bounce off of. My biggest hope starting as an early career data analyst was that I'd be able to learn from other analyst and fill the gaps in my education with knowledge from mentors.

Instead, I have people looking to me to be an expert in analytics just because I'm the only one available(as if I'm not a junior). Very few opportunities to learn from actual analysts and get experience from them instead of the generalized advice from Youtube or online courses. I feel like I'm being stunted, but its incredibly hard for me to find roles that are placed in analytics teams, or where I'll be working under a senior analyst (and not just a VP or project manager). Have I screwed myself? Why is it seemingly harder to find analytic roles that work with other analysts?

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[u/my_peen_is_clean]

nah you didnt screw yourself, nonprofits just love hiring one underpaid analyst and calling it a “team” lol. try joining local meetups / slack communities and discords, do code reviews there, maybe small freelance. hiring into proper analyst teams is weirdly rare now, everything is “lone data person” coz it’s cheaper. finding an actual team to learn from is stupid hard in this marketactually my resumes never reached humans, they died in the filter. i got interviews only after a tool rephrased them for each job. the tool I used is jobowl.co

[u/BrittanyBrie]

Same thing happened to me with nonprofits. I didnt find a true data scientist mentor until I went to a large corporation, and even then, I was just a data cleaner and data analyst. The funny part is, I really didn't learn too much more in the corporation with a mentor compared to how much I learned in a nonprofit.

You may not realize this now, but depending on the scope of your work, you're gaining way more experience in a small nonprofit than on a corporate team. I basically was the database manager at the non profit, and didn't realize the workload I had was under bordered around data science rather than data analytics.

The work I did in the NP was basically high level financial auditing, executive auditing, and department auditing. The knowledge I gained there was way more than what was offered at the corporation. I was just auditing program sales and click through metrics for the corporation, and performing sales audits. In the NP, the CEO and CFO were requesting my analysis for their decisions on a monthly basis.

Thanks to the NP, I can now walk into any organization and not feel like a junior analyst when talking to stakeholders, even though in the NP I was just a junior analyst on paper. Dont put too much weight on finding a mentor to guide, they most likely will not show you nearly the same level of work the NP will throw at you. Far better to grow a network of similar minded people rather than find a boss.

[u/Emergency-Hurry947]

Some people call this job security.

Buy 2-3 books off Amazon and go through them all, they can be pretty comprehensive and you’ll learn a lot.

[u/nayeh]

I have dealt with the same background in my past 3 years of professional experience. Just keep trucking on and learn from what others can instill into you. There was an early start-up role where I was considered the entire Data Analytics team and had to pull together everything I could to create meaningful output. I have also been apart of an organization that had 2 or 3 teams of analysts.

Usually I have a handful of people I could lean on for business/industry knowledge. Then there were Data-adjacent people I could pick at for understanding the organization's data infrastructure. Finally, I might be lucky to work with someone that specializes in IT, software, or data work.

You would be extremely lucky to find an analytics mentor. Treat your sources as your mentors.

[u/EcstaticQuality7031]

that solo analyst trap is real, especially in nonprofits where they hire one person and expect a whole data department. you didn't screw yourself but you're gonna have to job hunt with a laser focus on orgs that already have an established analytics team, even if it means taking a lateral move or a slight step back in title to get that mentorship

[u/ArielCoding]

Raised by wolves.

[u/RandomCat-]

If you have access to AI, you can also ask how an experienced data analyst would handle x, y, z. Depending on the model, you could get some useful responses.

[u/PB0351]

Sounds like you're not a junior, congratulations!

[u/MrSquigglesWiggle]

I'm working as a database admin for one of the largest non-profits in the world and for some reason, I'm also the analyst expert for the whole division.