 Hello, I'm your host Alex Friedberg and this is the Alex the Analyst show. Thank you so much for joining me today. We are going to be talking about data analyst salaries and everything that comes along with it. The salary is obviously a very large part of your total compensation, but there are other things that you really should be considering and thinking about when you're accepting a job offer. And so for all those people out there who you know are looking for jobs or you know getting interviews and they're about to accept a job, I really hope that this will be helpful to you so that you can kind of focus on the things or know about things that I had no idea about, especially when I was first starting out. Some of the things that we're going to be focusing on today are my past salaries as well as my current salary. We're going to be looking at salary expectations and then other things that are kind of included or you know are part of that total compensation that we were talking about like 401k, bonuses, tuition reimbursement and ESPP, which is Employee Stock Purchasing Program. These are just a few of the things that might go off on some tangents. You know you guys have watched this show you understand. So let's start off with you know just my salaries where I've been and where I currently am at and we'll just go from there. So you know I know I have a whole video on this so I'm not going to go super in depth into this. I promise you but to start really quickly my very very first data analyst job was at a nonprofit. I was making 47,000 and the benefits there were pretty bad. It was nothing to write home about. It was kind of bottom of the barrel, really expensive insurance, not super great. My second job as a data analyst and this is what I would consider my first true data analyst position was at a healthcare analytics company. I was making 63,000. The insurance there was still it was still pretty expensive. I think it's double what I'm paying now and I wasn't even on the best plan at that at the healthcare analytics company. I was on like the third best plan. It was still double the plan I'm on now and the plan I'm on now is really good. It's the best plan I can get. So you know something to consider. The next job that I got was at a Fortune 500 company. I was making 76,000 a year and but that was I was getting paid hourly and so I think I was making like 32 dollars an hour. Something around there maybe 35 dollars an hour. I can't remember 76. I think actually if it's 76,000 I believe that's 38 dollars an hour. I keep changing it up somebody look that up for me because I don't know. I can't remember but I was making 76,000 but it was an hourly position and that was a junior data analyst position. So I took a data analyst position and I actually took a title cut if you want to say it that way to a junior data analyst position. I was just trying to get my foot in the door to a larger company. Then I got a promotion from that junior data analyst position. They brought me on full-time which is what I was hoping for. They gave me a promotion to a data analyst two position so you know it was 92,000 a year with an 8% bonus and I just recently can update this because I just had my conversation and signed off on the paperwork for my merit increase which was 3% so now I believe I'm at 95,000 with that still an 8% bonus each year. So that's where I'm at just to be like super transparent with you and I think you know that's really going to play into the salary expectations going into this which is the next thing I want to talk about and then I think you know I genuinely think the next part of this which you know salary expectations it's pretty straightforward. The next part of this which is on all these other things that I was talking about the beginning are things that I just had no idea about maybe it was just because I was really naive about real life and work because maybe I was just like really stupid and it was only me. It's very possible that this was just me who didn't know about these things because everyone who I work with now knows this stuff but it could just be me but hopefully if you didn't know it it'll be useful to you but salary expectations so you know I've made dedicated videos to this but I want what I want to say is your expectations on your salary should be pretty low when you're first starting out. There is you know kind of an expectation or a belief that you can make a lot of money right away in data analytics which can be true in certain industries. Now I'm not discounting that at all and especially if you live in specific places like you live in a very large city or you live in a you know like California like the Bay Area you're much more likely to make more than you know other places but in terms of salary expectation one thing that I would mention is you really need to do your research like your research is it's very important and before I get into that too much I'm going to take a sip my coffee I recorded last week's video a couple days ago and I'm releasing this one the week after last week's video probably doesn't make sense but I had asked for feedback I said hey if you can hear me drinking my coffee I'm not going to do it anymore. I haven't released that video yet so I haven't gotten feedback on it so I'm going to keep doing it then if I if you give me feedback and say you can hear it I won't do it anymore but you know take that into consideration if you are watching this and I'm still doing it it's because I haven't released that video yet and honestly I really need this because when I get talking a lot my throat gets completely dry and so I really do need this so salary expectations you know you need to do your research uh research is extremely important you need especially for where you live because every place is different you know the middle of nowhere in Kansas is going to be very very different than you know Dallas Texas which is where I live very different you know maybe in the middle of nowhere Kansas 30k is like you know it's a pretty good salary I don't know but if you have 30k in Dallas Texas you are it's like minimum wage and I've been there I know what minimum wages is like and so uh you know you really need to do your research so again location is very important also the industry that you're going into is very important if you're going into a non-profit you should not be expecting you know the pay of a large tech company I think that's very obvious because of that comparison but a lot of people think oh well I'm going into healthcare that's got to be the same or you know similar to tech or it's got to be the similar to same as finance or banking or or any of these other fields in there it's just not it's not the same the kind of work you you do may be slightly different depending on your domain the specialties that you may need to get the credentials that you may need to get are all different based on your industry and so domain knowledge and the industry that you're going into it it makes a huge difference in what you should be expecting uh the other thing is is if you already have a data analyst job you know you need to know your worth you need to understand how much you're getting paid and how much you should be getting paid which is probably for the most part you're typically making less than what you're supposed to be paying when you first start out right uh you take that job to get your foot in the door making 35,000 45,000 maybe 50,000 um whereas you know you have a master's degree or or a phd who knows and you should be making like 75, 80 at least but you don't know that or you know those jobs just weren't really readily available at the time so you didn't take them again salary expectations should very much be a specific thing that each person needs to look into i hate generalizing it um which i'm about to do i hate generalizing it because um every single person in every single city and location and industry is different so what i'm about to say i hate saying it but i'm gonna say it anyways a general salary when you're first starting out is anywhere from about 45,000 to 55,000 ish it can go upwards of 65 and go lowest of like 30 um and again all those things need to be considered and looked into before you you know start getting upset about your local job market all right if you live in the middle of nowhere in kansas expect a lower salary it's just it's gonna happen so you know in general you shouldn't be expecting more than about 65,000 right when you start out and you know i don't think i was expecting anything more i was super happy to be making 47,000 when i first started out at a non-profit that to me was like i was like oh my gosh i'm making so much money i was like i could keep this job forever i could see me growing old in this job just riding it out getting a 2 increase every year for the next 20 years i could see it and then i started to realize what i was actually worth with new skills like sequel and tableau and i was like whoa i'm worth a lot more than 47,000 i need to i need to jump on this and figure this out um and so knowing your worth knowing your industry knowing your location extremely important one place that i go um that i personally have found that you're pretty accurate not everybody agrees but i personally found is almost spot on for the jobs that i'm applying for the domain i'm applying for is glass door and i'm i'm sure a lot of you guys have heard of glass dorm um it's just a website that is like a it's a job postings website but they have a salary calculator on there um as well as you can like look up um you know average salaries in certain locations or in industries and there's like drop down for it i have a whole video on that so you can go check that out um you know if you're curious about how to use it i think it's just called like data analyst salary in 2020 i don't remember exactly what it was okay i want to move on to the section that i think will take up the most time which is um other things that are included in your total compensation so other things that are i'm i'm going to list them out and then we'll kind of talk about them 401k bonuses tuition reimbursement espp which is the employee stock purchasing program okay so the very first one is 401k if you don't know what a 401k is it's it's important okay it is important to have a 401k that is what you you set aside a little bit of money each month it's capped out um you there is a certain amount that you can put in every year that the government kind of sets um it's like i believe is a percentage based on your income or your tax bracket or something like that i can't exactly remember i don't max it out so i don't know um but you set aside that money and you basically are investing that money into lots of different things um most people just do it into some like stocks or or some you know i think it's like mutual funds or something like that i am not an investment pro so you know take that take it for what it is but you you set aside money and over time it compounds on itself it grows and you end up um you know say you invest a hundred thousand dollars and into it over the course of 30 years now it's worth like a million dollars completely random numbers made up but it is a big increase from the money that you set aside and it's supposed to be something that you do long term to build wealth over a long period of time while you work that's what a 401k is now some jobs have something called um a 401k match uh my company does up up to three percent they do a hundred percent match so if i put three percent of my salary away they are going to match that and put three percent of my salary away as well so it's three percent free money of anything i put away so say i put a hundred dollars um that's three percent of my salary a hundred dollars into my 401k they will match that hundred dollars um after that they'll match up to five percent at half a percent for each so if i put in an additional hundred dollars for those last two percent they're gonna put in fifty dollars so they'll match half of it so if i put in two hundred dollars total they will put in a hundred and fifty dollars now you know that doesn't sound like much but again this is a long term investment strategy to build wealth over the long term for your retirement for you to pass off to your future generations right so that's what 401k is and 401ks are very important i have quickly learned and that's why i've started investing in it myself um for the past couple years so you know it's really it's kind of almost i don't want to say this in a i don't want to say it's in a bad way but stupid not to ask about these things in a job interview um and it kind of seems crass you know you're like you want to say you want to look like you're taking that job because you like the work and you love the work and you are there for the job which is could be a hundred percent true but you're also there because of money because if their money was involved you would not be there and so when you're asking about the salary you can ask about other things rather than just the actual salary you can say hey you know i see this is the salary do you guys have any other added benefits on top of that things like i you know some of the things that i'm interested in are things like tuition reimbursement 401k um you guys do a bonus program anything like that and you just ask you can throw it out there and they can be like oh yeah we match 401k up to five percent it's a super easy thing to ask they will not stray away from it and be like oh we don't we don't talk about that here all right 401k is those are that's privileged confidential information it will never happen it's very common to ask about and it's it it kind of is something that if you don't ask it it's like you know you're missing out on potentially free money is what i'm trying to say um so that's 401k again you probably know about it already but if you don't that's what it is that's what you're supposed to be doing and you should ask about it next thing is bonuses now full disclosure i got my very i got my second bonus ever um my very first bonus was at a previous job that was at the healthcare analytics company was making 63 000 and there was no bonus written into um into like my job description or my paperwork that i signed there was no bonus was written in there but the CEO came around said we had a good year and handed me a check for 500 bucks and it was i mean i went home to my wife and honestly i was like babe i got 500 for free like this is amazing i was like this is why i'm working here i'm like i'm staying here forever uh i quickly realized 500 bucks isn't that much but i do remember just feeling that is amazing um a bonus just feels like a little added extra perk it it feels good i hope that if you've never experienced what it feels like to get a bonus that you feel what it's like because it is exhilarating i was like i didn't work for this money but i got it anyways um that's kind of how it felt although it's not true as part of their their process um for a lot of these companies it's like the bonus is written into your contract that's part of your total compensation they know all the numbers on the back end um i just i haven't thought about it that much and so it was like a huge thing for me the bonus that i got this year was my very first bonus at my current company it was substantially larger than uh the previous bonus is around 7 000 uh again and this time i was i took it a little bit more like a professional i was like i was like yep that sounds great thank you so much i really appreciate it you know if we've had a really good year glad to have it um that was with my boss and so much more professional because when i got it i was like wow five hundred dollars this is amazing um again i just didn't have much experience in the job in in like being a professional um and so you know i look back and i i just um it wasn't that long ago but i just i think you know i was a little i was a little naive a little ignorant of certain things that i wish i had been more um i wish i'd been more aware of right things that we're talking about now i did not know about three four years ago so hopefully again hopefully these things are helpful so bonuses are important you can ask them if they have any type of bonus program if they have any type of merit increases per year like um and that's i didn't write that in but along the line of bonuses is typically a merit increase so every year you get a merit increase if you're coming as well my company does up to three percent and so i got a three percent increase this year because we did well i also performed well and so with those two things combined they give you the increase so they they sign off on that increase so bonuses and and um merit increases are things that you can absolutely ask about in an interview um things that are important those are you know set structured things that they should have written into their company let's move on to the next thing i'm gonna do a time check really quick because i don't know how far okay i'm doing doing okay on time i need to i might need to speed it up a little bit tuition reimbursement uh tuition reimbursement is something that i've never had before i still haven't even used to be honest and it's free money sitting there that i absolutely need to use um it's just with covid and everything going on and working from home and not having much time with myself i haven't been able to use although honestly i need to use it tuition reimbursement is something that some companies have where if you pay they will reimburse you up to a certain amount of money for anything related to your your higher education so most of the time that's related to like a master's degree or a bachelor's degree some type of accredited institution um and if you let's say you go to harvard you you enroll in some harvard classes and you pay five thousand dollars well your your company may say we'll pay up to five thousand dollars and we'll reimburse you if you make a certain grade that's what my company does at least i maybe not every company but if you make a C or above we will reimburse you the entire amount for anything books um tuition parking anything up to five thousand dollars anything after that that's you and that's totally fine um i think this one you know may not be something that you actually ask for in an interview you don't have to but if they do have it that's free money i will 100 be using this at my current company um i i absolutely want to go back and get a master's degree if if anything else i just want to walk through the process of going through the enrollment get a few classes in and then you know eventually over the next couple of years get my master's it doesn't have to be all at once um but at least start using that money because it's free money and they will pay me for it i guarantee you i can i can make a C or better i'm very confident in that so that's what tuition reimbursement is really cool program that a lot of companies do have the last one is employee stock purchasing program espp this is for publicly traded companies um so they if they have an IPO your company may have this program where you can buy stocks um for that company at a lower price so my company i believe does 85 percent so i can buy so say it's a hundred dollars currently at the stock um or the stock price is currently a hundred dollars i get to buy it for 85 dollars and then if i sell it back uh if i sell that stock i can sell it at that hundred dollars so i'll make 15 per um stock that i purchase that is really really in a in a nutshell what it is and it's not super hard it's just you get a discount on stocks it's super super easy um and so if you're going to a large company or fortune 500 company or any company that has an IPO they should or most likely have something like this and so you should ask about it because you know again it it's something that they will absolutely answer and they'll be just kind of impressed that you even know what that is um at least i'd be impressed and that may may not mean anything to you um but these are all things that you can ask about right in an interview that's kind of where i'm going for um all that being said i want to wrap this up and then we'll go on to some few other segments that i find enjoyable because i need to i wasn't around out of time is you know salary is super important you would not be going to work if you were not getting a salary that's my guess that that's the truth for me if i was not getting paid i would not be there and so you know ask about things research things everything that we've discussed today are things that i wish i had done when i was first starting out i just didn't have anybody to tell me that this was important i didn't know my worth i did not know about bonuses um salary expectations 401k i just didn't know about those things um and so hopefully you know this has been helpful and and you'll take some of these things to heart and look into these things and then you'll be well more better equipped and more prepared for your next job interview or next job in in general so that is that let's move on to the next segments but before we do huge shout out the people over at patreon supporting this channel supporting me supporting everything i do you guys make all of this possible you guys are my favorite people out of all my subscribers you guys are my favorite and that's not a that's not a dig at everybody else i think currently let me check at the filming of this video we just hit 17 000 um subscribers which is way more than i ever thought i would get to be honest um and i have about 25 that support me on patreon and you guys are my favorite so very small percentage and if you want to be part of that percentage if you want to be somebody who i like more than everyone else go support me on patreon i would appreciate it i really would um we are getting into a time of the show a segment of the show that i thoroughly enjoy um and i may have to speed up a little bit i'm running long today which is strange for me i'm not much of a talker um the question of the week is a very good one and i'm gonna have to keep it abbreviated in my response but it's a very good question it's from Fauston Gashakamba and he asks i'm assuming he he asks what the heck is the fuss about tableau i am learning r and think its data visualization is enough do i need to learn an additional data visualization tool tableau why do i recommend it why does it what's all the fuss that's what that's what Fauston wants to know the fuss is and and i'm going to answer all your questions in like a few sentences or a few main thoughts is that r is a very good thing to learn if you have the ability to learn it go for it i recommend python over r but if you're learning r fantastic it's still very very good you don't need to learn tableau if you know r but i would still recommend learning tableau if you know r and here's why marketability a lot of companies do not use r a lot of companies don't use tableau but if you know both you open yourself up to a larger market that's why i know both tableau power bi and python pretty well because i can find the job a lot more easily or a lot easier because i know these things tableau is very well known is established it is used in a lot of companies and it shows that if you know tableau you know the basics of data visualization whereas you know other skills you may r is is definitely data visualization heavy of course but you know if they use tableau r may not be useful to them and so you kind of cut yourself cut yourself out of that job you they won't hire you because you only know r so again it's just about marketability it's about and tableau is not hard to learn if you know r you can learn to have low very easily it's my opinion so again marketability um the very last thing of the show very last segment if you have stuck around the very end uh kudos to you i think this is a long episode um may not be i think it's like 27 minutes i i'm i'm i'm getting hyper focused on the time genuinely um and i apologize for that i'm like i keep checking it and i don't often do that but when i'm running close to time i kind of get a little fidgety um because i try to keep these under 30 minutes that is my goal i don't want to go like 45 minutes an hour this is to me is too long i wouldn't want to listen to that and like my morning commute or like my morning podcast or you know whatever you're doing uh so i'm trying to keep it under that so i apologize if i'm like annoying you with my focusing on that if you watch until now if you stuck around all of my ranting at the end like i normally do you have come to a place that not many have ventured to and because of that you now have the ability to write in the comment section below a very specific keyword keeping it vegetable based of of course uh is mushroom if you want to put in the chat below or in the comment section below mushroom you run a very elite squad of people the mushroom squad that's not a thing but i just made that up on the spot all that to be said is you made it and i appreciate you sticking around you guys care about your salary you guys care about how much money you make and in your future more than everybody else who dropped off or way earlier when i started talking about nonsense or slipping slipping my coffee you guys are better than them i'm actually not going to drink anymore because i have like 30 seconds left but all that to be said is i appreciate you i appreciate you watching i appreciate you joining the show always means a lot to me there are a lot of people that join um uh not this far but there's a lot of people that join i appreciate you thank you so much for everything genuinely uh have a good week i will see you next week on the next alexander show and goodbye