I recently had the opportunity to learn a little bit about the CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship program, a relatively new offering from data analyst, YouTuber, and career coach Chris Shupe. This is a program for people looking for a career change and interested in exploring a data analyst role. Data analysts specialize in retrieving, gathering, and organizing data to reach meaningful conclusions. According to Chris, switching to a career as a data analyst is an attractive proposition for many people for various reasons. First of all, the role is in high demand by employers and commands respectable salaries. Chris himself started at $70,000 USD per year at his very first data analyst role. Senior data analysts with a few years of experience can make well into the six figures. It’s also a flexible job with plenty of work from home opportunities, and the nature of the work makes it a perfect springboard for advancement into even higher paying careers in data science or corporate management.
Chris sees data analysis as a great career path, not only for the salary, freedom, and room for growth, but also because getting hired at his first job as a data analyst was a pivotal moment in his own career. Naturally, he wants to show others the same path that made such a dramatic impact on him.
Chris graduated from high school with decent grades, attended his local college for four years, graduating with a degree his elders painted as a ticket to a guaranteed “good job”. To his dismay, the college education that promised a “good job” never delivered, landing him into a job-hunting struggle whilst he worked as a waiter’s assistant. He spent the next 12 months submitting applications to companies without much consideration about the wage or job type. He would have accepted almost any full time job.
Still working as a waiter’s assistant and unhappy, Chris felt driven to make a change to his livelihood, so he began looking for ways out of his rut. Eventually, he discovered spreadsheets and databases. He then set about teaching himself how to retrieve, gather, and organize data–more because he found it enjoyable than anything else. His first efforts to learn these skills paid dividends as they helped him land his first full-time job with the Nielsen Company, earning $38,000 a year. He says it was a basic office job that didn’t really require any special skills at all, but he got the position because the hiring manager liked his data skills and his initiative. While working at Nielsen, he continued to develop his skills, and just 11 months later landed his first job as a data analyst, with a salary of $70,000 per year. He nearly doubled his salary after less than a year of his first full-time job. He has since applied his talents as a data analyst with multiple companies, working wherever he pleased, and travelling to and living in various countries, including Colombia, Brazil, Canada, the UK, Spain, Switzerland and Hungary.
Such career success inspired Chris to found the ‘CareerHacker’ movement, which he describes as a community of people of all ages and backgrounds who reject society’s expectations for them, and instead create the careers they desire for themselves, whether that be in data analysis or anything else. His vision is one of a thriving community of individuals just like him, who have the desire and drive to create careers and businesses that would support the life they truly want to live – instead of the life that’s handed to them. Much of the action happens in his Facebook Group, which is free and open to anyone who shares his vision and would like a supportive community to help them create their perfect job or business. Many choose to follow the data analyst track Chris suggests and join his CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship program, and many others choose other career paths that are more suited to their interests and abilities. Chris actively encourages both, since he says every person is unique, and the perfect career for one person may not be a good fit for another. Chris also has a thriving Youtube channel, where he gives advice and strategies on a variety of topics ranging from “How To Find A Remote Job” to “How The School System Programs You To Fail”.
Of course, changing one’s career to become a data analyst has its challenges, like any other career change. As the old saying goes, “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It’s difficult for someone with no experience in a field to figure out exactly what skills are important, what exactly impresses hiring managers, what the competition is like, and how to stand out. Recognizing these challenges, Chris decided he would use his experience to fast-track the process for others and help them avoid the costly mistakes he made along the way when figuring it out for himself. Thus the birth of his “CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship” program.
Here’s a few details about the CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship program:
Who is it for?
Chris says his program is for people who are dissatisfied with the career track they’re on and know they’re capable of better. Many of these folks are bored at work, they don’t feel fulfilled, they’re not paid enough, they don’t have much freedom, they’re not appreciated amongst their peers, many are working hard physical jobs that put a lot of stress on their bodies, or they work in high-pressure environments that stress them mentally. In short, this program is for people who are fed up with working jobs that are below them and need a change. For Chris, becoming a data analyst solved all these problems.
What is it?
The “CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship” is a personal mentorship program designed to get students hired at a fulfilling and challenging job as a data analyst as fast as possible. Students work directly with Chris to begin their career as a data analyst. When asked what sets this program apart from other data analysis programs, Chris says: “Our focus is on getting you hired, NOT on learning new skills. Learning new skills is an essential part of the process, but it’s only a means to an end. It’s not the goal.” Chris’s program is structured with the end in mind. It teaches students what they need to get hired.
Unlike other programs that try to pack in as much information as possible, Chris’s CareerHacker program takes the opposite approach: it teaches the minimum that students need to get hired. Once hired, Chris recommends his students continue learning and expanding their skillset, which helps them get promotions and advance in their future careers. But he believes that it’s best to learn as much as possible on the job and get paid for it. That’s what “career hacking” is all about.
How can students get hired if they have no experience?
This is the biggest hurdle for new data analysts, according to Chris. One of the core goals of his CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship program is to help students win the trust of hiring managers despite not having direct on-the-job experience. Students do this in several ways. One is by creating portfolio pieces that they can show to employers to prove that they have the skills to be successful in the position. Chris’s students also learn how to apply their new skills to their current jobs, or to freelance work, so as to create real on-the-job experience that they can present on their resumes and in interviews. Chris has strategies to fit every career background, no matter how seemingly unrelated to data analysis. Chris says he and his team understand what companies are looking for, so he can help his students get their resumes past the human resources office, into the hiring manager’s hands, and into the “call for interview” pile.
The final piece of the CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship process focuses on interviewing. Chris teaches his students a novel approach to job interviews, which he calls the “consultative interview method.” The premise of this method is simple: the job seeker goes into the interview imagining himself in the position of a consultant tasked with finding ways to make the business run better. So he asks questions to figure out what he can improve, makes recommendations, and shows how he can utilize his skills to implement those suggestions. This method is powerful, says Chris, because it proves to the hiring manager from the very beginning that the candidate isn’t just looking for a paycheck, but is actually able and willing to help improve the business. He says he’s used this method in his own career to get offers for almost 100% of jobs for which he has interviewed.
Does the program offer any guarantee?
While other programs offer “don’t pay unless you get hired” guarantees, Chris says these are highly misleading. He says he’s gone through the fine print and found that these guarantees require students to go through so many hoops in order to qualify, that they’re practically impossible to ever redeem. Chris regards such guarantees as “gimmicky, and frankly dishonest.”
Chris takes a different approach. His guarantee is that once he takes on a student, he will continue working with that student as long as it takes to get hired, at no extra charge–even after the normal course of the program. This fits closely with the core methodology of the CareerHacker movement: start with a clear goal, take steps to reach the goal, and do whatever it takes to overcome any obstacle that presents itself. In Chris’s words: “We guarantee you will reach your goal of getting a job as a data analyst, and we work with you until the goal is achieved.”
Bold claims, but Chris has the credentials and seems confident in his method.
Want to learn more about the CareerHacker Data Analyst Mentorship program? You can visit the website: https://careerhackerdataanalyst.com/