Essential Soft Skills for Data Analysts | EduBridge India

Would Mahatma Gandhi drive the nation to independence, if he wasn’t able to communicate effectively? Possessing the flair to communicate may have emerged as a given, but it was pretty much unsaid when he decided to lead India to freedom!

Over the years, we’ve laid so much emphasis on education and garnering the requisite domain skills, that we have totally discounted the importance of soft skills. Presently, the workforce demands for multi-skilled professionals. By doing this they don’t only emerge as an asset to the enterprise but witness the required acceleration in our career graph, that can indeed take us places. Let’s explore the kind of Soft Skills for Data Analyst to enliven their profile.

• Communication skills
  How would you convince the higher ups about your finding if you did not posses great communication skills? Communication is key for every good data scientist. Being able to address the findings is just one side of the coin. The other aspect should involve listening and absorbing information with a patient ear. This will help them to desirously steer the finding to the advantage of the enterprise.

• The ability to question
  The correct term to elaborate this point would involve the use of the word ‘scepticism’. A healthy doze of skepticism, will help a good data scientist to question the findings, and incorporate a more fitting algorithm to suit the requirements of the enterprise driving it more profitably.

• Passion
  This trait should perhaps top the charts. If a data scientist isn’t driven they will not be able to cope with the advancements of machine learning, and deal with the growing demands of their peers on a routine basis. Being a good data scientist will require a drive to come up with creative insights and solutions to the problems posed by the findings.

• Open mindedness
  A data science should be living by the dictum, ‘Learn to UNLEARN’. After meeting with probable challenges posed by onlookers it requires a great deal of empathy and open-mindedness to look out of the rule-book and come up with creative solutions that will incorporate a holistic solution for everyone. Open-mindedness would also involve understanding the insights of your peers and everyone in the hierarchy, to support a fruitful outcome.

• Keen business acumen
  To manoeuvre your thoughts and creativity making a beeline to the profitably benefitting the enterprise, and simultaneously enlivening your growth in the organisation. All the findings should boil down to growing numbers that will drive advancements in almost every sphere.

Soft skills are innate figments of talent that are already possessed by an individual since birth, or are developed or honed over a period of time. It’s the harmonious marriage of these underlining and unwritten skills coupled with technical or domain insights that drives the professional growth of the individual. This doesn’t only hold true for a data scientist but is relevant to every professional essaying any profile.