How to Get an Analytics Job
Welcome to How to Get an Analytics Job, the podcast where you build the foundation for your dream career in analytics. The goal of this podcast is to tackle the shortcomings of modern education in the analytics space by giving you advice from those actively practicing the art and science of working with data.
Our guests have included data professionals from Google, Amazon, Home Depot, PlayStation, Nordstrom and Truist (just to name a few) spanning roles from entry level, to senior, manager, VP and even a few CEOs. This has enabled us to keep a close feel for the pulse of the analytics space.
How to Get an Analytics Job
How to Get an Analytics Job Podcast ep. 135 | Featuring Liam Morris, Analyst at Cogent Analytics
Liam, thanks so much for coming on, of course. I mean, I know it's a super far walk from where you're living now. So Liam's still living just a block away from campus, 30-minute walk, but yeah. So I guess, to kind of catch things up, so you graduated in May of last year, Correct? And I guess let's start with like where, what, what's the story? So, like you, you got, you came into my class and you got the internship and then like what, what's happened so far?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean never really had any experience with analytics until junior year I think it was In your first class. It just kind of got pitched to me. The business analytics minor Sounded interesting but I didn't really have any knowledge about it and those first couple classes we had, uh, with the power bi and tableau and those kind of things, I really started enjoying it and, um, the big project that we did.
Speaker 1:but then, so can I apologize. What did you enjoy about like working with power bi? Was it a project or was it the tool, or was it that it's like it was both okay, yeah, um, I had never touched power bi or tableau before that.
Speaker 2:Um, so just kind of I like learning, so learning the tool, kind of learn how it works. But then also there's some data manipulation that we had to do. Um, so that was interesting as well, so just being able to kind of see the data, like we manipulated it in Excel and then we transferred it to Power BI and then we could kind of build visuals out of just numbers and columns Right.
Speaker 1:It's almost like a much more three-dimensional version of Excel. Yeah, are you using in your current role Excel much? Yes, so like well, first, all it's. It's kind of crazy, like how much you learn, how much more you learn on the job than in class it is like so you're just in excel, you have a tight deadline. You know the use case like yeah, and that's what?
Speaker 2:uh, the majority of my internship was just Excel. I had a couple classes where it was Excel and you know you get graded but if you clicked in the wrong square, in the wrong sequence, you're going to get points taken off and I don't really know if that's the best way to learn Excel. Yeah, so through that class I didn't really know if that's the best way to learn Excel. Yeah, so through that class I didn't really learn Excel. But then kind of once I was given tasks in my internship like figure this out. There's really like no set deadline or anything like that, just figure it out. And there's multiple ways. There's not one correct way, there's two or three different ways.
Speaker 2:So I think that's what really helped is just being able to be free and creative and you know, if you mess up you can go back in and fix it, but just being able to kind of critically think through okay, what do I need to do, what's the problem and how can I solve the problem right and it's, I think.
Speaker 1:I think what I kind of did subversively was kind of introduce you to like uncertainty. Yep, like you have to make assumptions, yeah, and it's not going to be perfect all of the time because you know. Like, for example, one thing that I do is I build out forecasts and it's a nine figure business and think about all the things that impact that. So, like the hurricane that came through Right, like when's the last time that we had a hurricane impact north carolina? It completely knocked out our asheville store. Yeah. So like creating a forecast that included asheville sales all of a sudden, that's wrong, yeah, but it's like you're, you're good enough that it's within a the ballpark to make a decision, right, but okay. So you found out about the analytics class junior year Then. So first semester of senior year you came into Case Studies and Business Analytics, correct, then kind of got the bug. That's when you found how did you find your internship?
Speaker 2:A recruiter came to Greensboro College at lunch one day.
Speaker 1:That's so cool because I don't think you would have even gone probably to that event if you hadn't even been introduced to analytics and had that interest sparked?
Speaker 2:Definitely not. And it was like I mean I had just heard about it in the class, they were going to be there at lunch. I had just heard about it in the class, like they were going to be there at lunch. I had just heard about it in the class before I was in like slides with no socks on and ball cap with a bunch of clothes that didn't match. I was like I'll just stop by and see what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it sounds like you really hit it off with the recruiter?
Speaker 2:We did. Yeah, we had a really good conversation. We were able to sit down. They really good conversation, we were able to sit down. They were getting ready to to leave. My class ran a little bit late and I was kind of catching them as they were wrapping up, but we sat down, had a brief conversation at a table and got her contact information and just went forward from there gotcha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, because I remember we met over a cup of coffee and helped you prep for like the actual I, I guess was that that wasn't the phone screening, that was like the behavioral portion of it there.
Speaker 2:it was a two-part interview um, I wouldn't say they were really I don't think any of them were really what people typically define as a um tactical, but it was kind of just a brief Zoom meeting with the recruiter that came to Cogent and that's kind of like just you know, feeling my personality out, see if I would be a good fit for the company, getting to know me a little bit of my back story. And then my second interview, which we had that cup of coffee and prepped for. That was a little bit more on the technical side it was the guy I would be working for and kind of just a breakdown of what they do, you know, a brief story about kind of their day to day tasks and kind of the vision of where I could come in and support them a little bit.
Speaker 1:That's kind of incredible, thinking about the timeline of that. So how long had you been learning about analytics before you had that interview?
Speaker 2:It wasn't a full year, it was probably six months.
Speaker 1:Okay. So was it mainly the Excel stuff that they were kind of talking about, or was it also like the power bi and the tableau stuff that you were working on? I think so. Okay, that's. That's interesting because it's it seems like a it's. It's a lot lower of a bar than I would have expected.
Speaker 2:Well, but it is an internship though it's an internship and um the position that I was interviewing for, um the guy that I was I was working for at my internship, um their role is kind of more on the business side, like processes and those kind of things, and they use Excel to support them. So it's not necessarily like their role is Excel.
Speaker 1:It's just a tool that can but I mean that's kind of the main lever they use to get their job done Correct, the main like felt, like the lever they use to get their job done correct. Like you, you need to kind of understand the business use case and the decisions and like what, what, what metrics of influence, what decision you make right.
Speaker 2:but yeah, from the technical standpoint, um that the excel yeah, the ideas and the processes that they're putting into place. It needs to be visualized for the clients so that the clients can see it and get a full understanding of it.
Speaker 1:Gotcha Okay. So quick question If let's say that someone who is a sophomore or junior in college is listening to this right now and they're interested in getting a similar, what was the specific name of your internship? Was it just marketing analyst, analyst?
Speaker 2:no, it was just a a general data analyst internship.
Speaker 1:Okay yeah, so if someone was wanting to get a similar job or internship that you got, what are the key things that they would need to know from excel? That's a good question, um and I know the the conversation was like a year ago at this point, but like I'm kind of curious I would say the biggest thing is um kind of the, the willingness to learn.
Speaker 2:That's really big um, because excel there's always something. Even now there's. There's stuff I still need to learn. Um, I can always be better in something, so that's the big thing, but it really helps to have a basic understanding, like the, the formulas, like x, look up, v, look up those kind of things, and um, when to use. You know the right formulas in the right scenario. So just a doesn't have to be super in depth, but um, I would say just enough to where, if you're given a couple of different tasks, you at least have an idea or enough to be dangerous, so to speak.
Speaker 1:Right enough to be dangerous? Um, okay, that's interesting. So you said that you're you're you're building out visuals. Were you doing that with like pivot charts? Are we doing that just out of like the chart functionality within excel?
Speaker 2:I never really use pivot for pivot charts or are we doing that just out of like the chart functionality within Excel? I never really use pivot charts because they're not super dynamic like the charts or the data that you put in that pivot chart. You can't really have formulas to dynamically change. Okay, so it's more of just just building charts. Usually within every workbook there's always a tech tab that you know. If it's client-facing, you'll probably hide that sheet just because it's a bunch of data. But you'll put all that data in the tech tab and then just kind of play with it from there. Very cool.
Speaker 1:I mean that's so cool because we were just talking off air that you're now building visualizations in Tableau, Starting to Learning. So Excel is kind of the natural evolution, or Tableau is an evolution from Excel in terms of, like, building out that pivot chart functionality. It is Making it dynamic.
Speaker 2:It is. It's more sophisticated in terms of their queries and their databases. Tableau is always going to be completely automated, for the most part Right, Whereas Excel, if you're most of the time, the data that you're going to be putting in there is going to be some kind of export or something manual. So it's kind of interesting the difference between Excel. It's an interesting transition going from Excel to Tableau, because in Excel, if you need the data, you just make it and you create columns. You create a table, something where you can format the data how you want to, Whereas Tableau it's a little bit different.
Speaker 1:It's more rigid from a data structure standpoint.
Speaker 2:It is, it has to be a certain way. You can't really manipulate the data as easily as you can in Excel, but that could also be because I'm so new to Tableau.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, two things. I think it will get easier as you get on. You may. Also, tableau is built on I believe it's no sequel um, which is just a type of sequel um. So you may want to get deeper in a sequel to understand kind of how all that which sequels just kind of like very similar to the formulas that you learn in excel. I feel like a lot of people get hung up on, including myself. I kind of avoided SQL for years because it just seemed like I don't know super tedious. It seems like a big mountain to climb.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then, kind of, once you start typing some things out, you realize how similar it is yeah, well, okay.
Speaker 1:So it's funny because we're almost in an opposite track in terms of the relationship to Excel and Tableau, in that, you know, I ran my own agency for eight years working mainly with Power BI and Tableau, but now I've taken on a full-time job and I'm working in Excel and the thing that's frustrating to me is that they're like sometimes I make little mistakes that I just would never make because of how rigid that structure is within tableau or power bi, right, so you don't have to tell yourself you don't want to, but how accurate was your work? Or, like, if you don't answer that question, what level of accuracy do they expect from people working in Excel?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think, especially within Excel, there's always going to be something. Just because of how Excel is built, especially when you start to get into the macros and stuff, you know, one comma in the wrong place, something like that it can tend to, you know, mess things up.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I would say there is a kind of expectation and knowledge that Excel tends to be a little bit more fragile than Tableau.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the best thing about Excel is that, like you said earlier, you can completely customize it. Correct? The worst thing about Excel is that you can completely customize it, because you might manually type in an O instead of a zero, and then your whole formula is broken.
Speaker 2:Right, there is there's. You know, nobody's perfect. I've made plenty of mistakes and I'm going to in the future. But the big thing is you know if you make a mistake are you able to go back in there, know what you did, why you did it and learn from it to work.
Speaker 1:Factor into my work more, now that I'm in a different type of role, is the accuracy of it, as opposed to where I was just kind of building out infrastructure before. It's like here's, here's what your data is telling us. Now I kind of have to take more ownership of, like what the what the data is if it's wrong. Going and investigating and figuring out you know what's going on specifically with it. Um, yeah, I guess. I guess it's just a maybe a trade-off or the difference between doing consulting work versus, like being a full-time analyst embedded within a company. But, okay, so you came to my class, found out about analytics, found an internship. Then how did that internship go? So that was kind of the first semester, the fall semester, then over winter break you came back, then you started the internship, right, correct? So feel free to tell us a little bit about that. Like, what kind of work did you do? What were the challenges?
Speaker 2:Yeah, little bit about that. Like, what kind of work did you do, um, what were the challenges? Yeah, um, so kind of. I think I had the internship for three months, um, so I got back in january, um three to four months, maybe five months, something like that, because I know I started in january, worked through the summertime partially, um, but the the main task of the internship was supporting the APDs. The APDs, that are people that are talking to the clients. They're communicating what the tools do, why they do, how to use them and training the clients how to use those tools, gotcha.
Speaker 1:I like strategy more than being super in in the weeds personally, but continue.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so that was a that was a big part of it. There were a couple renovations that they wanted made to the tool, some like new features added in, so I got to help out with those. The guy that I was working for into my internship he was very good at Excel too, but, um, the big thing was his capacity Like he didn't have a lot of time to go in there and add some things into the tool. So, um, I got to work pretty closely with him to um, make those additions and add that stuff in there. So that was that was a learning experience. There was a lot of stuff that, um, I was really unfamiliar with, like I had. I really had no experience with macros before that.
Speaker 1:You probably know more about macros than I do. I don't really write macros.
Speaker 2:It's interesting. It's not technically coding, it's very close and it's very similar to the Excel formulas, but they do have their differences.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what? What do you use? Macros? For my understanding of it and it's probably not 100 accurate, it's like is it mainly a formatting thing, or is it?
Speaker 2:it can be. The big thing that macros are used for is is automation. Um, there's a couple, there's a couple limitations within excel that you just can't really make something without. Uh, macros one of the big things big things that the tool used macros. One of the big things that the tool used macros for was to automate financial data history. So they'll go through, they'll fill out a month or a year, whatever time period worth of data, They'll click save and it goes into a database.
Speaker 2:And then it will refresh itself, clear itself. So the next month or the next year, whatever they can go in and and refill that without having to like copy and paste the data somewhere. Yeah, and then we can build those charts off of that database that it gets copy and pasted into okay, very cool, so it's.
Speaker 1:I didn't. I didn't realize that was a use case where it's like you can write a macro to help. Is it pushing it to a database or like a flat csv file?
Speaker 2:that's just huge no, it's pushing it into another excel sheet. Oh okay, so like there's usually like the tech tab and then there's probably a data tab, um, that are both hidden, just to what's tech tab?
Speaker 1:you said a couple times.
Speaker 2:I'm not quite sure if that is, it's a very like is that where you put like your scratch work? Yeah, basically where you're putting all the data tables, that kind of stuff, where not necessarily if it's a client-facing tool that you want the clients to see, because it's just a bunch of numbers and stuff like that, but it's just a sheet where all the data is collected.
Speaker 1:It's almost like you have your engine and that's the tech tab, and then you close the hood and that's you hiding it in Excel, right yeah. And then you close the hood and that's that's you hiding it in excel, right yeah. Because, yeah, you don't want the client necessarily to go and see the inner workings of it.
Speaker 2:that are just kind of would would be super confusing to them, right? And yeah, it's not necessarily that you something that you need to see. If you're super technically savvy, it's interesting to look at, but otherwise it's just a bunch of numbers on a white sheet I got you.
Speaker 1:So what were the major lessons that you feel like you learned through that internship?
Speaker 2:I think the the biggest thing is just being open to learning. That was, you know, just absorbing everything, and that I could. You know, if I had to give advice to anyone, it would kind of be to go out of your way. You know, ask for work, ask for stuff to do, stuff, to learn, to help people out. If you're at an internship, something like that, and kind of just sitting at, I guess, move forward into a full-time position which was taking the initiative to build the tools, ask for work, seeing where I could fit in and help out.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it sounds like you took full advantage of the opportunity in front of you Because you could have just kind of coasted through it and done the bare minimum. But another way of reframing up what an internship is. And, granted, not all internships lead to jobs or lead to a job opening, but it's almost like an opportunity for you to have a three to four month interview where you get to learn a little bit about the company. You get to learn about how do I interface with this manager? Would I want to work for this manager? What about the work? What about the technical skills?
Speaker 1:Like it's a really kind of safe way to go about vetting from both sides, if you think about it. So it's like you know what, what are? What is liam? Like you know, because people could kind of lie in an interview or deceive, um, or kind of come off in a way that maybe isn't true to who they are day to day. Um, but also it's kind of safe for you because then you get to instead of having I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about right, like you, you have an interview with the company. I mean sure, sure, you can look them up, but it's like you have like three or four conversations with one or two people. I mean, that's kind of a gamble, right there.
Speaker 2:It is. Yeah, I wouldn't have very grateful for how my experience and having the internship kind of just just getting a foot in the door kind of, I would say, easing your way into a full-time position, so I am grateful for for that opportunity well then also, too, you kind of start like a few months ahead of somebody else starting in an entry-level role, because you know, you know people right, you've access, you've got access to the data.
Speaker 1:but you also understand the like what? What's our product placement in the market, who do we serve, what are the main benefits of that, what are the risks? So you can kind of navigate a little bit more savvy than somebody just walking in fresh Right. Okay, so how long was that internship? Three months, four months.
Speaker 2:Three to four months, maybe five. It started in January and I believe I transitioned to full-time around June.
Speaker 1:July. So what was the transition from internship to working full-time? Was that it was. It was significant, right it was Because it's a lot more work than it is.
Speaker 2:I was working about 20 hours, yeah, a week as an intern and uh, transferred to 40 hours, so it was a big flip. Um, I would say it was more of trying to think how to word. This wasn't necessarily like a a big flip, it was kind of just getting adjusted to being there from from eight till five and um so it was more of like an expansion, right then like a brand new, novel thing.
Speaker 1:So it's like, okay, it's just more of what I'm, which, honestly, that sounds a lot less, um, stressful than you know. I feel like a lot of college students are going months now without landing a job. So, like you graduate, then you apply, you apply, you apply, then you finally get an interview that leads to a job and then you take that. It sounds like your experience from school to full-time work was pretty seamless.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think I got lucky.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I definitely think so.
Speaker 1:That's true, because it can be tough. I mean, back when I was an undergrad I went from getting a degree in economics to working full-time in a commissioned sales role, so that was a super rough transition.
Speaker 1:Well being in a commissioned sales role just exposes you to so much rejection that I feel like you just don't get typically Like in school. You might, you might like, get you know some feedback on like a test or something or an essay, but it's not no, no, no, 20 times a day, five days a week on in Vermont's NEARS, right. So would you have any other thoughts on like that transition?
Speaker 2:It wasn't necessarily, you know, it was more of. I went in the internship as a data analyst and then my full-time position now is a marketing KPI specialist.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So I, you know I had taken a couple marketing classes like digital marketing. Okay, so I, you know I had taken a couple marketing classes like digital marketing. So it was interesting, kind of adjusting to a different environment. There are there's a lot of terminology, a lot of things that I had touched over in school, stuff like that. But you know, when you're actually looking at like real numbers and those kind of aspects, it's a little bit different than you know. A a digitally um create an environment in class or something yeah, well, also, it's.
Speaker 2:It's so much more dynamic because, like getting a textbook, that's marketing 101, you know there's the five p's or whatever, or digital prints, email, like focusing specifically on one organization or you know one vertical within that, like there's, there's so much complexity within that there is, there's and there's so much data to back it up to that you can look into and um, you know, the thing about the marketing classes is that you know you, you do an ad campaign or something like that and you have to do this keyword at a certain price, or you know it's not going to do very good and it's not really. You know how it works. Marketing is is always evolving. There's always um environmental, political things that affect marketing, um, and it's constantly changing. There's not typically like a right or wrong answer. Like I said before, it's there's two or three different ways to solve a problem and they they're all right yeah, it seems like a theme that we kind of keep coming back to is it's?
Speaker 1:it's almost like being a lawyer, like you need to just come up with a good justification for what you're talking about. Yeah and um, and and this seems like a pretty big difference between being in school versus being on the job. In school it's almost like, you know, the teacher sits standing in the front and you're sitting down and you need to kind of make the right answer versus like I'm not sure if this is how it works with your manager, but with my manager he'll be like hey, we've got this problem and then that's pretty much it. I've got to go and solve and like fill in the gaps. Sometimes I even have to like interpret what he's saying, um, and then there's a trade-off there of like okay, I can ask for clarifying questions, but if I ask for too many, then he starts to get frustrated. But if I don't ask for enough, then it's like why didn't you ask for more clarifying question? There there seems to be a lot more um. It's just net more nebulous working on the job it is, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know it's not. It's not black and white, it's not like there's a go, do this this way and it's like you were saying it's there's a problem. Um know my managers, they do a really good job of kind of explaining what the problem is and then this is what I think is causing the problem and this is how I think it could be fixed. But I need you to go and figure it out. So you're completely right in the aspect of you know it's not necessarily a right or wrong, it's just go figure it out actually this might be an interesting question.
Speaker 1:So what are the differences, or what is your difference, between how you relate to professors or teachers and managers? Because they're both kind of similar, right like they're, they're both somewhat of an authority figure in your life. I mean, the manager is definitely more serious because it's like, all right, I've got bills to pay, money coming in, but I mean, still, a professor can fail you if, like you didn't, you didn't show up, you know at least in my experience.
Speaker 2:Um, you know with the professors just kind of like, like read this so you can learn that and get a good grade on this test, whereas, um, you know, with my manager just kind of, hey, let's, let's brainstorm this together, let's work together and and try to figure this out okay, so it feels much more collaborative.
Speaker 1:It does okay. That's cool, because I feel like a lot of that is not the typical experience for a lot of people getting their first job. They feel like they're more so, like just an order taker, like there's, hey, we have this, give me this, give me this, give me this, um, so that's awesome. It sounds like you've you've kind of found yourself in a really like you. It seems like your, your thoughts and your opinions are are heard.
Speaker 2:They are. Yeah, it's a very positive and encouraging work environment.
Speaker 1:That's great. So do you have any thoughts on what's next? Are you wanting to go more down the marketing space or are you wanting to go more technical and learn Python or dig into AI or any kind of stuff like that?
Speaker 2:I'm not super sure I've been this way my whole entire life. It's kind of just go with the flow and see where I end up. You know, I find I'm very grateful because I kind of have the opportunity to work in marketing, but then I also do a lot of work outside of marketing for more of the like internal consulting side. So I kind of get a taste of a little bit of everything that coaching has to offer and um, I was actually talking to someone about this the other day but they all kind of supplement each other.
Speaker 2:Like on the internal side, you know, you're building tools, um, helping create stuff that maybe tracks internal employee production, something like that. Um, and there's there's not a whole lot of client facing conversations and stuff like that. Um, whereas my position in the, in the marketing department, I do get to, you know, hop on meetings and have KPI reviews with clients, so, um, I think that is a it's. I think that was very um important to me at least, cause that was one of my struggle points coming out of college was, you know, I learned a lot of stuff, but when you're sitting talking to a CFO of a, of a company, it's the community like how well, can you communicate the data that you've collected for them?
Speaker 1:so is that where you want? Do you want to spend more energy that way, or was that more of a? I feel like this is a weakness of mine that I wanted to overcome it was. Are you enjoying that, though?
Speaker 2:I am, yeah, I kind of view it as a challenge and, um, I'm trying to, you know, get better at it every time that I that I'm on a call with a client. But, um, it was definitely a I don't want to say fear, but it's kind of like a, a mental block almost.
Speaker 1:um, well, public, I mean public speaking is it's not easy? No, it's. I mean I remember when I first started teaching, it was well, it was in the middle of COVID too, yeah, so like I was wearing a mask, which I'd never really had to do before, yeah, so that, yeah, it was kind of a double whammy there. Yeah, that's cool. So it sounds like the kind of the key thing that you want to get is communication and maybe influence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, communication influence and just being able to. There's a difference between communicating and effectively communicating. Like you don't want to sit there and talk to a business owner that has 25 other things on his head and just keep blabbering to him. You want to tell him what he needs to know and tell him in a way that he can make decisions and then save his time.
Speaker 1:Well, it kind of makes me think of it. Kind of makes me think of it. Kind of makes me think of, like you know, tableau or Power BI, like have you ever done a level of detail calculation?
Speaker 2:Don't know if I've ran into that.
Speaker 1:So it's a little bit of a complex topic. But it's like you can write an LOD calculation and if you're pulling, you know location, you can set it to be at state, or you can set it to be at zip code, or you know region or whatever, and it and it lets you kind of dictate what level of granularity. So like when you're talking to the cfo, you don't want all of the weeds. It's just like roll this up into kind of what is the main thing that I need to get out of this? So what factor?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what does?
Speaker 1:this mean. To me it's almost like kindergarten math. It's like you know, this square is bigger than this square, so you should do this decision, which is so funny. But because I don't know, I've had this conversation before and some people are like, well, that kind of makes like the executive sounds stupid. And it's not even that they're stupid, it's that they have so much going on that they run from like 30-minute meeting to 15-minute meeting. So you've got to get like, you've got to prioritize. Like what am I communicating here? Right, if you're talking to someone else on your team, yeah, you can go super into the weeds and like, yeah, actually that's what you should do. You should kind of figure out okay, well, here's the problem and then go and figure that out. If you're talking to your manager, I mean you could still get into the weeds in some situations, but not all of them.
Speaker 2:That's what I was about to say. And you know there are some you know business owners that are they still like to. You know, even with all the daily tasks and struggles that they go through, they still like to see the granular detail. So I think it's the conversation I was having the other day is, you know, showing what they need to see first and then, if they need more information, you can always dive into that afterwards. But if you bore them with the small things before you get to the big factors, they might miss the big message that you're trying to communicate to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't want them to tune out, right? So good, that's fantastic. I feel like working on communication is going to be huge for you. It is, I feel, like the technical side. I feel like that's going to come somewhat natural to you.
Speaker 2:It is. It's just, it's always a learning process. I mean, the more time that you spend on something and you know there's always going to be something that you run into. Even the other day, I ran into an issue and I had absolutely no idea how to figure it out, took a little break, came back to it and I was able to solve it. So it's just kind of just mess around with it and find out. There's another term for that.
Speaker 1:Are you using AI at all?
Speaker 2:Not really. There's a couple times with formulas or know formulas or maybe just a more of a spell check. But I try to stay away from AI as much as I can.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Why? Just because it's You're scared of it? I don't know. At least with my experience, there's been a lot of inaccuracies with AI. Yeah well, Maybe some of the more advanced AIs are a little bit different, but the AI that I've kind of used more often than not is ChatGPT. In that there's a lot of inaccuracies and errors within the stuff it spits out.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing that I'm starting to get deeper into is working with databases and specifically altrix. Have you heard of altrix? Have not? So it's. It's an etl tool, so it allows you to connect to multiple data sources, manipulate the data, create calculations, you know. But there's a, there's a ton within that suite, um.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like the um transform data button or power query editor within power BI. It's like that, but it, I would say it's more expansive cause it's, I mean, that's the main focus of the tool Um. But one thing that has been interesting is there's like an internal meetup group at the company I'm working at and literally on wednesday of this week, what the guy who's been working with altrux for like 15, 20 years like walked through a whole use case where he used, uh, specifically, isn't there an ai with X Twitter that they're using? And he wrote out like 20 lines of code using the AI prompt and then optimized it and, yeah, there were a few little tweaks that he had to make to it, but I'm starting to see this AI stuff can be transformational.
Speaker 2:It is and it's super helpful. And if you use it, um like very loosely, like hey, I got this issue, uh, maybe it's a formula or a line of code that um you're you were talking about, if you just use it loosely, like I got this um issue, what are a couple of different ways I could solve it? You could take the overall um message that it spits out and kind of type your own code or formula in with that, but it definitely kind of helps you open your your mind to a couple different ways to solve the issue. That may be more effective.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just it's so fast and it, I think what it, what it does a really good job with are like closed systems, so like sequel, I mean. I believe that's a closed system where it's got all the logic laid out within it. There's reference manuals, specific parameters yeah. So it can go through documentation and figure things out. Right, that's cool. So any other closing thoughts. So we've met what?
Speaker 2:We've met a couple times. No, I'm saying when did we meet Like a year and a half ago when we first met. I think it's close to a year and a half ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, liam, you've come a super far away since, like the shy kid who showed up in my class Still working on it. Yeah, I mean you're shy, but like you know what I think it is, I think you're a lot more confident now I think so like and I. Where do you think that confidence came from?
Speaker 2:really I think it was, uh, you know, with the internship and um transferring to full-time, just being able to be around a lot of intelligent people and you know everyone.
Speaker 1:Like holding your own.
Speaker 2:Holding your own and you know, realizing that there's a human factor Everyone makes mistakes.
Speaker 2:If you're going to make mistakes. You can't avoid it. But it's how you, you know, handle those mistakes and how you handle yourself within those time periods where time periods where you, you know, you know you made a error or something like that Do you kind of sit down, talk about it, talk about it, or do you pick yourself up and keep moving forward. So that was that was a really um helpful factor is just seeing other people you know have their, their human mistakes along with me.
Speaker 1:You know, have their, their human mistakes along with me. Your voice keeps cracking dude, I'm sorry all right, that's it folks.
Speaker 1:No, I'm kidding. Um, all right, lean. Thank you so much for coming on. Let's kind of close this out. We met, I think, roughly what a year and a half ago, close to a year and a half ago, and I just got to say, like you've come super far away from, like, the shy, timid kid who walked into my classroom. Thank you, what do you think has kind of like brought you out of your shell? Thank, you.
Speaker 2:What do you think has, kind of like, brought you out of your shell? I think you know being around other intelligent people and getting to work closely with them and learn from them has helped, but also you know being able to see the human factor, that everybody makes mistakes and it's just about how you handle those mistakes and how you handle yourself within those time periods.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Yeah Well, I feel like you're just so much more confident than you were, and I guess the way you build confidence is through demonstrated performance, right.
Speaker 2:It is, yeah, and it's completely. You know how you handle yourself. If you know what you're talking about and you sit back in a corner and, you know, mumble it or something, people are less likely to listen well, it's not convincing.
Speaker 1:It's not convincing, you're not saying. It's like I don't believe this.
Speaker 2:It's like right, very, very timid and well, I was reading a uh a book the other day and um, it was saying you know, within communication, I think it's around 80 percent of um tone and body language and 20% the message that you're trying to relay.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, Liam, I gotta say I'm proud of you. You've come super far away. It sounds like you're killing this job.
Speaker 2:I appreciate all the time and effort that you spent in those classes with the Power BI and Tableau and setting up those real-world projects that we worked on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course. Thanks so much. Yeah, alright, that's a little bit better than Wubba Lubba, dub Dub.
