 Hello, everybody. I am your host, Alex Friedberg, and this is the Alex the Analyst Show. Today, we are going to be talking about how to get promoted as a data analyst. And there's a lot that goes into this and there's actually a lot of different things that I want to talk about that maybe you haven't thought of before. But once you become a data analyst, I hope that you want to get promoted, right? That was one of my biggest things that I kind of got into tech for as I was like, I'll get promotions and I can become a mid-level and a senior level and a manager and all these different things. There's actually a lot more that goes into it. And so I'm going to kind of talk through how I was promoted, how I got these different promotions, as well as my kind of progress through my career. I give a lot of really tangible advice on, you know, exactly what I think you should do as well once you get an interest level job. Let me pull out my notes real quick. I don't know why I didn't have them pulled up. Let me go over here. Here we go. Now I want to start out. I don't know why I said it like that. I'm going to start off by talking about just promotions in general in my career. My career has been out what I would say is abnormal. And most people who look at my career would also say that even if you go on my LinkedIn, like you can see the progress. The progress was really, really fast. Most analysts that's not going to be the case and I want to kind of give some, I want to say that up front because I don't want to give you this like false impression that everyone should be able to do what I did because I just got, there were times where I got lucky. There are times where I just positioned myself well. And again, I think luck was part of it. And so you're not always going to get super lucky or be in that type of company or be in that position. But you know, I definitely think wherever you're at, you're able to make progress and kind of climb that ladder and make more money, get better job opportunities, get better job offers and all these things are really, really important for the longevity of your career. And so I'm really excited about this topic. I love talking about advancing your career and just getting better at what you do and helping people do better. And I think that's where I can shed a lot of light on. So we'll see how this conversation goes. If you haven't watched these before, this is my long form content. I don't know how long it's going to be. It could be 20 minutes, could be an hour and a half. Who knows how long I'll talk, but it should be really fun. So I'm going to start off by talking about my career path, how I kind of, I'll say my career path. Then I'll talk about how I made those jumps, the things that I did to get promotions and then throughout, I'll give lots of hopefully really tangible advice because a lot of people will go in and they're just like, well, if I do my job, I do my job well, I'm going to get a promotion. And then maybe true at some companies, but that's not necessarily true at all companies or most companies, I would say. I think there's a lot more that goes into it. So I started off as an entry level data analyst. I actually actually was a data collection specialist and analyst at a nonprofit. Then I became an entry or I became a data analyst. It's actually really interesting. I became a data analyst at a healthcare analytics company. Then I took a demotion but a pay increase at a fortune tent company, it was called Amerisource Bergen. Now it's like Contaso or they changed their name, but like a global company. I don't know why they did that, but Amerisource Bergen is what used to be called and I was an, I wasn't an entry level. I was a, oh, what's it called? I'm blanking on it. A junior, junior data analyst. I think that's what it's called. I'm blanking on, I apologize. But I was a junior data analyst. So I took a title decrease, but I took a pay increase. And so I went up to $78,000 in that job, which was like insane money for me because I'd been making $47,000 before that $63,000 and now making like $78,000. I was like, this is incredible. Again, like an entry level role is what it was positioned for. Six months after I got that job, they gave me a promotion to a mid-level. I was making 90, this is 90,000 with a 10% bonus. So I was making like 100,000 essentially. Two years after I got that promotion, I then became a manager of data analytics. So within like five years, I went from getting my very first job as a data analyst to becoming a manager. My title was actually manager of operational analytics. And that was over the whole IT department. So that's cybersecurity, that's IT operations, that's help desk, that's a bunch of other things, right? So I'm now like in charge of a team that's doing data analytics for internal. So like a ton, like 100 plus internal people and then like 10 different teams. And I'm going to talk about how I got those, I'm going to talk about how I got to each position and how I got promotions into each one. And I'm hoping, I want to preface all of this by saying, I'm not trying to give myself a pat on the back here. I really am trying to use this as like education of here are some of the things that I did. I didn't know it at the time that it would do so well. Looking back though, I can now, you know, I've hired people, I've promoted people when I was a manager. Now I can like look back and I'm like, that's why I got that promotion. That's why I did those things. I did it on not intentionally, but I didn't know I'd get a promotion from it. And so I want you to like think about this and be like, okay, here's how he did it in my job. If I do these things, I'll have a much better chance of getting a promotion or getting a different job. That's going to be a promotion. And so you can then do these things intentionally and say if I do these steps, I do these things. I will set myself apart. I can get these promotions and I want you to get those promotions. I want you to just like really thrive in your career. So all that context. I just I don't want you to think I'm praising myself because trust me, that is not that's not me. That's not my thing. Let me check my just was checking my phone because my wife was texting me this morning and I never texted her saying I went in. I was going into this recording and sometimes I don't text back for like an hour and a half or two hours and something important. So I'll try not to text her unless it's really important. So my very first job. Data collection specialist and analyst. Now I knew nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean they literally hired me because I had been working inside the nonprofit as a caretaker. Essentially, I got to know everyone really well and they all really liked me. And then when I applied, I was the only person who applied. And so, you know, because it wasn't for much pay and so I but it was a raise for me. But I did really well just in my normal job and that set me apart and where they were like, we really did want you to apply for this job. They asked me to apply and my wife pushed me to apply. They were like, Hey, you should apply for this. All the work was was Excel. It was this crazy old lady. She was like she had been like 8590 and he had been there for like 25 years. The only person who ever touched the data and they the data was like for grants and stuff. And so I learned Excel there. Well, at the very end, I was learning. I learned that we had a SQL database, but I wasn't the one who was using it. It was some like finance department or something. So I didn't get to touch it, but I learned that SQL is really important. And so I was like, Hey, if I want to advance my career, I need to learn better skills in just Excel. I can't get far in my career just knowing Excel. Maybe I could get another job, but I want to go far in this. So I started teaching myself SQL started. That job went downhill quick. So I was like, I just wanted to get out of there. I wasn't looking for a huge promotion. I was just looking for a different job. But the SQL ended up being the skill that I need to know. And it still is like the skill today. Highly recommended. So, you know, I learned SQL. I got a promotion to an actual data analyst. That was mostly for my domain knowledge. So that's something I look back on. And I'm like, if you are out there and you are wanting to get promoted, you want to land a job, domain knowledge is actually really important. And I've talked about it on the channel several times, but I don't talk about like in every video when I talk a lot about skills, hard skills you have to know, but applying those hard skills to like domain knowledge and understanding how things work in a domain. For example, healthcare was my thing. That really set me apart from other candidates and got me that job because I knew healthcare. I knew EHR systems because I'd used them at hospitals before. I knew the lingo and like the terminology of doctors and nurses because I had worked with them before. And they really valued that. And so throughout my career, I have found that domain knowledge has gotten me a lot of promotions. And I'll talk about that in a little bit, especially to the manager position. That got me probably the farthest way. But in that position, I got the healthcare data analytics position because I a new sequel, which again was lucky because I just started learning it like two months before. And then I had that domain knowledge. And so knowing the right skills and being good at them really, really useful and really important. Now those are just that's just like the that's not really getting promoted. I would say it's just like me transitioning jobs. I'm going to talk about promotions when I get into that Fortune 10 era because I got promoted one. I got a job that I got promoted that I got promoted within three years all the way up from entry level data analyst to a manager was just just really funny to me. So I worked at that healthcare company for a year. Now they I really excelled in that job. I really, really think I know I did really well in that job. And by the end of it, there was I'm going to talk about the reasons why I left, but there were reasons why I wanted to leave, but they wanted to keep me on make me the director of data analytics, which was my boss's job and promote him to like VP of operations or something like that. That was what they had told me as I was leaving. They're like, no, no, no, don't go. Here's our plan for you. And I'll tell you why I didn't accept that specific promotion in just a little bit. But here's what I did in the job to really make myself stand out in that position. One is I had been learning my sequel. That job used Microsoft SQL server. I was not familiar with it. So I went home and every single day for like months, I mean, like four months straight, I was just learning Microsoft SQL server. I was, I didn't want to be learning it all in the job. I was like, I need to go home and I need to learn this. So I was really pushing myself at home. They also use Excel and Tableau. So those three skills, I was like, I was like, these seem like skills and I kept researching them. I was like, these skills seem really important to know. I didn't know they were, but I just, they seem really important. So I really focused on that. So just the technical side, I really pushed myself hard to learn it. And that job was super hands on as a really small company. And so I was one of the only people really using SQL a lot. And so they really relied on me. And so I had to learn some really advanced stuff. Really quickly, even looking back at the beginning of my career, some of that stuff was more advanced than some of the stuff that I was using as like at the Fortune 10 company. That stuff was really tough. So I had to really push myself and I learned it very quickly. And so my boss always recognized that he always was like, Hey, you're doing a really good job. He's like, you're really learning this fast. And I was like, I appreciate that. I'm working really hard to get up to, you know, your level because that's where I needed to be. The next thing that I did. And this is what I think was the most important. The next thing I did is I started building relationships. It was a small company. There was 50 of us at the company, but in the office in Dallas where I was, there was only like 10 of us. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yeah, it was like 10-ish. And so I got to see the CEO every day. I would chat with him. I went to lunch with him one time. We also had a holiday party at his house. So, you know, really building those relationships, but specifically I built it the strongest with my boss. We would go out to lunches. I'd, you know, ask him to, to go to lunch. We were working together every day. So, you know, I got to know him as a person and got to like know his life and where he came from. And I just really focused on building that relationship because one, I would like, I wanted to do that. Two, I definitely saw it as something that would be good for me to do in my job, like getting to know people that make sense to, to, you know, to do. The third thing that I did, and again, I didn't do this on this one, I didn't do on purpose, but this is something that looking back, I'm like, okay, I need to, I should do that. And I started doing that in the future on purpose. I started taking on projects that people didn't want to take on that were important, very difficult, that people were like, I don't want to spend the time doing that. I took that on cause I was like, one, I just wanted to impress them and like do well on my job. But looking back, I'm like, that was really important. There was specific projects I can think of that were very important to certain clients that we had. There are some of our big clients and genuinely, I'm like, looking back, I'm like, that was so important because I was, I got to work on a project that the CEO was asking questions about. I got to have direct access to the CEO and talk about actual work. I, it was something that was generating revenue for the, for the, for the company. So this is like a multimillion dollar contract and I was the point person in connection with the client. So I was building a relation, relationship with the client as well. And so throughout that year, cause I worked there for a year. I started doing that like three months before I left that project, I mean, was really important for for us. And so I was the lead person on that. So I became, I don't want to say invaluable because I wasn't, but I became much more important to the company. Like I started being a person that was known by the client and geez, I didn't fill out my water. When I talk for a long time, I get, I get a dry mouth. Excuse me. So those three things really stood out when looking back. I'm like, those three things were the most important things I learned the skills and just kept at it and kept at it and kept at it. Like I didn't just like, you know, kind of learn it. I was like pushing myself really hard to learn really more advanced stuff. Building the relationships and then taking on projects that were really important or just nobody wanted to take on because they're really tough, really time consuming, not fully in their wheelhouse and but somebody had to take it on. It was me. So those three things are going to be patterns that you'll see. Excuse me. Those are going to be patterns that you'll see throughout this conversation. Those three things are very important. So if you want to stop here, I'm not going to blame you. I would say just from that alone, you're going to learn 75% of what I'm going to talk about in this video. I'm going to save you some time. I'm being honest, but I have a lot of other anecdotal stories and good vibes and conversations. So if you want to keep on, you know, stay on, it's going to be good stuff. So the reason I left that job and this part is was not fun. I really liked working there. I actually really saw myself working there long term and the the reason the issue that I had was my wife had a job. I had a job, but now my income was like half before it was like a third. My wife was making way more than I was, but now I'm making more money. And if I lost my job, that would be a bad thing, right? Well, I become important to the company, but the company was having cash flow issues. And so I wasn't getting my paychecks on time. I had to go in. I'd be like, Hey, did you guys get paid yesterday? They're like, No. And so I go to our HR person who are our accountant. I can't remember what to say. Hey, I didn't get paid. Is everything okay? They're like, well, we're just, we didn't get paid from this client yet. And so we can't pay you yet. And I'm like, that's like a red flag. I was like, wait a second, that's not good. Um, cause we should have money in the bank as a reservoir in case clients don't pay on time, which happens in business. That was kind of a red flag. Well, that happened one time and it happened two times and it happened three times. And after the third time I was talking to my wife and I'm like, it just, if we lose a client or we do that, like our company could go out of business. I was like, that would be really bad for my family. So I had to make a really tough decision to start looking for other jobs. Even though I didn't want to, I really liked working there. Well, once my boss went off on a vacation. It just coincided. It was really unfortunate timing, but he went off on a vacation like two weeks during that two weeks, I had got a job offer at this fortune 10 company. Um, as an junior data analyst. Well, when he comes back, I told him, I said, hey, listen, I was like, while you were gone, I accepted a position at another company and here's why. And I told him, I said, it's because of these cash flow issues. Like it's, it is cause for concern. Just doesn't seem like the company is super stable. It's not your fault. I, you have been the best mentor, the best boss. Really appreciate working for you. And he's like, well, listen, it's like, I hear you. He's like, how much are they paying you? So I told him, I was like, you know, I think it was, uh, I think I said 80,000. Maybe I exaggerated a little bit. I was like 80,000 with like a 10% bonus. It's like 90,000. He's like, we will pay you. And this is what he said. He's like, we'll give you a hundred thousand and we'll make you the director of his job. I think it was the director of operations was the title. Um, and I told him, I think about it, but I went home and I thought about it. I'm just like, if I took that, there's a few bad things with that promotion specifically. One, I don't know if the company is going to be here in a year. That's the problem. That's the biggest problem. Two, getting promoted that quickly, um, to that level doesn't leave a lot of room to grow. Right. So then I, okay, I'm the director of analytics or operations or whatever the title is, but where do I go in two, three, four years? Like you're not going to hire a 24 year old VP of data analytics, uh, to a company that's just not going to happen. So I also saw it as like a career growth thing. If I'm making 90,000 with my bonus at the large company as a junior data analyst, then I have a ton of room for growth. But if I accept that position, I'm not sure if the company is going to be there and I'm not sure if, um, you know, if that's a good progress for my career, excuse me, I am, I am having all the issues of my, uh, my voice right now because I didn't get water. That's, that's my fault. But genuinely, that was the exact thing that happened and it was tough cause I really liked working there. Um, give me one second. I'm going to cough. Excuse me. That really is it. Um, and so I got the promotion now. Here's where I think in a lot of this is going to be similar stuff, but now I have like, this is more like my career really took off. Um, and I started my YouTube channel shortly after getting that job. Um, so I've been doing YouTube for three and a half years. So it was like six months into the job, maybe eight months into the job. I started my YouTube channel. So, you know, this is like four years ago. I was a big, an entry level data analyst. Um, I started my job as an entry level data analyst. I was a contract to hire. The contract to hire means I had a six month contract. If I did well, they had the option to hire me on and they told me upfront, Hey, we really would like to hire you on if you do a good job. And I was like, okay, great. Um, so I worked my butt off to put it, to put it nicely. I worked like I've never worked before and they had, they use Microsoft SQL server, which was again part of the reason why I got that job. Although my healthcare experience was really important because this was a pharmaceutical company, but the division I was working in was working with doctors, working with nurses, working with hospitals in their advanced pharmacy solutions for specifically oncology, uh, which is cancer and then, um, uh, hematology, which is blood. So those are my two like specialties. So, or now it is now I really know those things. So when I got in there, I was entry level, you know, some tasks in SQL, some small tasks in Excel, and then they use Power BI. That was their tech stack. Um, and they were just transitioning into Azure, like just migrating some of the data over to Azure, just putting new data sources in Azure. I never used Azure. Didn't really even know what it was. If I'm being honest. Um, so here's what I did when I got into that position. One is I did everything. I any, any project that came across the, the, I was like, give me that project. I was taking on every project. Um, the second thing that I did was is again, I went home and I learned Azure. I just opened up an account, their free tier and just learned it when in there. I was like, I need to know data bricks. I need to know PySpark. I need to know, um, uh, I could use Python, even though my job didn't use Python at all. And then I'll get to that in a second. Um, but I was teaching myself all these things while learning it on the job. So that when I got into the next day, I had an idea of what I was supposed to do instead of just learning it on the job and going really slow. So I really progressed again in my skill level really quickly because I was spending all my time on the job and I was spending all my time, um, at home learning that as well. Let me check one thing real quick. Okay. Perfect. So those are the two things that I was like hyper focused on is taking on as much work as I could. Cause I wanted to become really invaluable to them. I wanted them to be like six month mark. I wanted them to say, well, if we let Alex go, someone's going to have to pick up all that work and that's a lot of work and we would just rather hire Alex on than, uh, you know, hiring on someone else or hire getting a new contractor and he has too much. He does too much. He does too good of work. That's what I really wanted them to say. So at the six month mark, I just wanted to get hired on as an entry level data analyst. That was my goal at the same rate. If I can make 78,000 at the same rate, I would. So I got into the, I got in there and they were like, Hey, listen, this is my boss. My boss was like, you came in and you have just excelled. And I'm again, I'm not saying this by myself in the bag. It's just what she said. She was like, you have excelled. You've taken on so many projects. You do. You're doing so well and everybody really likes you. Like this person likes you. This person likes you. This person likes you. And that's really important for us and we're really, really excited for you to join our team. So we want to actually offer you a promotion. The promotion was to a mid level analyst. It was a data analyst to in the company, um, in the first level one, I was a junior, then there's a level one, then there's a level two. So they offer me a title of two promotions, essentially, and then a page up to around 90,000 with a 10% bonus. So, um, of course, I was like absolutely like, I really, really appreciate you recognizing that and seeing that in me and giving me this opportunity. And so, um, that job, that was the biggest leap in my career by far that well, for the most work up until then, I was by far the biggest leap. So I was an entry level going to a data analyst too. And if nothing else, it was through just sheer hard work. Um, and I do think if I like looking back, if I had just kind of played it casually and just gone about my day and done my work, I don't know if I would have gotten that promotion. Um, just like doing my work and then going home, coming back, doing my work, not really putting in time to get to know people, not putting in time to take on those extra projects or learn those extra skills. I don't know if I would have, I don't think I would have got promoted. Um, but again, I was in a position in my life where I needed that promotion. I needed that job to provide for my family. I didn't have any other option. So I was putting my all into it. And so that, that was how I got that promotion. Now fast forward two years. Two years later, um, I'm in my job and I have egg. This is another really interesting scenario. I start seeing, you know, I've been there for two years. I'm like, I want to, I want to promotion. I do. And I'm starting to tell my boss this. I was like, Hey, you know, I've been here for two years. I'm thinking maybe at the end of the year, I'm asking for a promotion just to put that on your radar because I really think I'm doing a great job. Um, and I really like the company and I like, you know, I want to stay here at the same time though. I was also applying to other companies, some of our competitors McKesson Cardinal Health or global fortune 10 companies as well. Um, that, you know, I thought, I thought would really value my experience and hire me. So I started applying to those positions for like even things like I was applying for BI developer data analyst positions, business analyst manager positions, and then a position opened up internally. Now internally, um, they do things a little bit different. So you have to tell your boss if you're applying for an internal position. So when I, I had to really think through, do I want to apply for these jobs or not? Um, and so I decided to do it. I was like, Hey, listen, I really want to work with you guys. I'm really excited to, but these other positions are open to the company that I'm interested in. I'd like to apply. You know, is that okay? Is like, are you okay with, you know, what do you think about that? We had a good discussion. She's like, totally open for it. Thank you for telling me. Well, the one job was in a different department as a senior data analyst and the other one was for a manager of operational analytics. The reason that I applied for the manager position was not because I fully felt super ready for it. Um, it was because, let me pull my notes, not because I need red notes. I just wanted to get back to him. Um, it was because I felt that the job description really fitted where I wanted to be. Not where I was. The job description for the manager position was like, Hey, we're right here, but we want to migrate everything into Azure. Well, serendipitously for the past two and a half years that I've been in my previous two positions at that company, we had been doing everything in Azure. I had what I felt become very, very good in Azure. Um, I had felt like I knew Databricks, PySpark, um, Azure Data Factory, data warehousing, uh, uh, just databases, um, data lakes. I felt like I'd learned those really well. You know, at that time I was, um, I was working a lot with the data engineers and the data science team. So with the data engineers with data collection, it's all data sources, bringing them in, cleaning and transforming data, putting it into a usable format, migrating data from other systems. So I was helping with all of those things. Um, not as a data engineer, but I got a lot of exposure to it and I got to help a lot with it. And so I, my skills grew immensely over those two and a half years in Azure and Databricks. Um, and SQL, I got way better at SQL. And at that time I was just making really, having really good relationships with all the people, even up to like the VP level that I was, uh, sometimes working with. And so I felt that position fit me pretty well. So I was like, I just want to apply. I was like, her name is Sabrina. I was like, Sabrina, I know it's kind of out there. I'm just going to apply, see what happens, right? I was like, I probably won't even get an interview, but you know, I'm just going to go crazy. Um, so I get an interview. Um, not for the senior data analyst one. They did for, didn't give me an interview, but for the analytics manager one. And I go through the initial interview and they were asking me about everything and I do my position. And I was like, here's exactly what I do. Here's all my responsibilities. Here's what, how I've progressed over the years. And here's how I feel like I'd be a really good fit for that position. Well, I really thought they were like, Hey, this guy seems to know really what he's talking about. That's a really good thing. Um, and it did not hurt that when they looked me up, they found my YouTube channel, which at the time I had like just two years ago, maybe a hundred thousand subscribers at the time, which will a ton of subscribers. And so we chatted about that and that didn't hurt me at all. Like I think that kind of impressed them that I was doing this on the side cause I really like this work. I really enjoy this field. Um, and so I think that helped. Now they had other candidates. I know they were talking to other people because they told me they were like, Hey, we have other interviews. So, you know, we'll let you know. Well, they came back and they offer me the job. Now this is like a massive promotion, mid level analyst to a manager of an entire team of like seven developers, dating analyst, business analyst. That's a big leap. Um, and so that was a three round interview, right? It wasn't just one. That was a three round interview and each one was someone higher eventually the CTO that was or the CIO chief information officer of this fortune and company was my last interview. Um, and he loved me and I actually worked with him a ton in that position. But they offer me the job and I go back to Sabrina in my case Sabrina. They actually offer me the job and she was not happy about that. I'm not like angry at me for applying. She was like she they had plans for me in my position for the future. They didn't want to let me go essentially. So then she was like, Hey, Alex, listen. I went to our team and here's what we can do in three months. We want to give you a promotion to I think it was manager of analytics or maybe it's her position, which was manager of something analytics. I can't remember. They were going to give me her job and she was going to get get a promotion. And I was like, well, can you guarantee that? Can I get a contract saying that I will get this position in three months? And so she went back and they were like, No, we can't. We went to HR went to legal. They said they can't but we can, you know, we will do that. Well, they also offer couldn't offer me a big pay raise. It was just going to be mostly entitled because of budgetary reasons. This other job was offering me like a hundred and fifteen thousand with a fifteen percent bonus, which was a lot more money. And so I really had to weigh my pros and cons. I was like, do I stay here and really hope and kind of trust that they're going to do that but not get a big pay increase but I get to grow there or do I take this other job with more money and I know I'm going to get more money. It's going to be a much more challenging position off to learn all new things. And in the end I decided to I decided to take the other job and it was a tough decision. I really went back and forth. Like I you can ask my wife. I went back and forth on that. And it was just it was it was really tough because I really like the people I worked with. I really, really did. But I that's what at that time that's what I wanted to do with my career. That's just what I wanted to do. Now, looking back, I wish I had gone the other way. I wish I had stayed looking back because the opera the manager position I took was not crazy technical. It was technical for the Azure part of it and I got to you know, write POWs and SOWs or statements of work and and proof of work. And I had to do all of this really high level stuff that like I got to work with directors and VP's and CTO's and CIO's and I it was a great experience but I was not my passion. Like it just wasn't. And so I really do wish I had taken that other one because in this is some advice. I think identifying identifying what really made me happy would have been helpful. I didn't identify it when I was there. I saw more money and I saw a career progression that I was looking for. Now, I wanted to be a manager. I wanted I wanted to progress my career. Eventually I wanted to be VP and CIO and CTO not of that company, probably, but I that's what was my career progression. So I was like, this is a faster progression to where I want to be. But it turned out it just wasn't. I missed coding. I missed hands on work. I missed figuring out these problems that I was doing already my previous job that I really loved and I thought that would transfer to this other position. It just didn't. And so looking back, I really wish I had taken their kind of deal that they had given me or that, you know, the do-do job offer. I wish I had taken that. But again, that was another position where I had positioned myself in my job where that part of the department didn't want to let me go. And the other one really saw my value even though I wasn't like already a manager and didn't have manager experience on the job description. They were they were looking for someone who already had five years as a manager. So I really had to sell myself and really had to point to specific projects and tangible things within my previous role, my role that I was in as to why they should hire me and why I'd be a good fit for that job. So some of the things that some of the ways that I got I did that as I was taking on really big projects. Again, similar to earlier what I was saying, I took on really big projects. I was taking on projects that other people couldn't do. So I had domain knowledge in this very niche area and nobody else really knew about it. And I was like, hey, I know that I did that on my previous job. I was like, let me take that project on. And so I was in charge of like that project working with three other people. So I would tell them, hey, here's what we need to do. And that was like a multi I saved our company millions of dollars because you have it's something called MIPS. If you've never heard of it, look it up. The end of the year hospitals have to submit these things, these measurable things as data to Medicare or Medicaid, whichever one that you're probably Medicare. You have to submit these things and track them in order to get reimbursed for certain things and make millions of dollars for some of these companies. Well, the people who were doing it before all quit. So they had nobody to submit data for like 50 or 75 hospitals. It was a bad. It was bad news. That's like 10s of millions of dollars for these companies. So I came in and I was like, hey, I know about that. Let me take that on. So my domain knowledge it really took over there. And I was like, here's what how we need to do this. Here's how we can collect that this data. Here's how we need to organize it to submit it on the on this platform. And I really sent myself apart. I was working when I took that project on. I was working with like the VP of analytics a VP of data science because that was the department that I was in and I really set myself apart because I had the domain knowledge. I had the experience and I took over the project and stepped up and did what I needed to do. And I've done that on many occasions. I had done that on many occasions in that job. And so that I think was pretty invaluable. Along with that, I have been building relationships a lot. We had a lot of company events that I go to. You know, I would go around and talk to people and I tried to be much more social. I'm not naturally super social, but I kind of forced myself to be. And that went a long way as well. Then my skills just like exponentially were growing. I was just getting better at everything I was working on and working with. Those three things really set me apart from other people in my department who were working on similar things, but we're not working as hard as I was. If somebody is listening who was at my department or working where I was working. Don't take insult to that. I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just that's how I perceived it. And that's what I was told by my boss and my boss's boss. And so that's just like I'm not trying to be insulting to you if you're listening to this. So then I got the promotion to the manager of operational analytics. Now that job was this is the this is where I decide to start my own business. But in the background, I've been taking on consulting. I started my own consulting company. Alex analytics LLC. I've been working with companies here and there and the business has started to grow and I was working in my full-time job along the at the same time. And so this is around the time where I was again, I'm going to I got to pull up something. Again, I was doing a really good job. But it was just very different. I was a people manager now. So I had people underneath me whereas before I never had and when you're people managing the way that you do well is you have other people do well. So my team is doing really well. I'm doing really well. And so I would enable them and help them and do everything I could to enable them to do good work. And so part of what I was doing is just trying to motivate them to take on projects and motivate them to you know, do good work and think outside the box and take certifications and learn and advance their career. And so I gave promotions to every single person within one year. Every single person that was on my team because except for one person who I fired and that's a different story. But these other people who are doing really good. I was like, you guys are doing great. You deserve a promotion. You haven't had a promotion in a year. You deserve a promotion and she was doing great. And so I gave everyone on my team a promotion. And so I was well liked by the team. But there was one person who just wasn't doing good work at all. And so he had to be let go. But that's just part of being a manager. And so then we were working on all this stuff to migrate over to a cloud based platform. I had to do all the research on that. All of the vendors had to come in give presentations. I had to do all the you know, financials for how much this would cost to future hires that we would need to make and then submit it in as a budget into a into I had to submit it for budgeting, right? So they can budget for projects that we're going to take on. They had been trying to get this done for I think about three years and no one had been able to make it get it done. I got in there in six months. We had a budget approved. And I just worked really hard to make it happen. I was like, we really need this. I was like, let's make this happen. Let's make this a priority. And I started talking to other heads of departments. I was like, here's what you'll get out of this. Let's kind of team up on this. Make this a priority for it. Not just me and my department. And so I got I got buy in from other departments and we all pushed for it to happen and we made it happen. So at this time I'm I'm like, hey, my consulting stuff and YouTube stuff is doing really well. Consulting had been kind of almost catching up to my full time income. I've only been doing like 10 extra hours a week. I was like, if I could dedicate all my time to doing that do 40 hours a week, I could make much more than my full time salary. And so it got to the point where I was like almost even and I was like, OK, I think I need to quit my job. And it wasn't like because of anything else. I was like, I just I'm more passionate about my consulting and what I'm doing there than my full time job. So I go to them. I'm like, hey, guys, I'm quitting. And they were like, no, Alex, don't go. Like like, what can we do to make you stay? And I just like, you know what? I really have enjoyed working. I really appreciate it. You guys have been amazing. I just I'm starting my own business and it's going really well. And that's the reason I was like, there's nothing you can there's nothing, you know, that we can do in the end. And so I left and I started my own business. And that was kind of even a self promotion because now I get to do all my own work and I have videos long form videos like this where I've talked about how I started in consulting how I built it up, how it works, the money I charge everything. So if you're interested in that, go check that out. But those of that's how I that's my career track and that's all happened. That all happened within five years. So I quit at the end of December of 2022. So and now I'm recording this right now at the end of December in 2023. So it's been a year I've been I've quit my job a year ago and it was the best decision I've ever made. It allowed me to focus so much on other things like Analyst Builder. Like if you haven't already checked out, check out Analyst Builder. I a whole platform for data analytics just for people like you has all full courses, a place to practice technical interview questions and we're having so many more things. And I was able to do that because I quit my job. I had no time when I had a full-time job. So it was a self promotion. So let me look at let me look I keep I keep not having to make my notes up or having to go to a different page. And so this is not the best. So let me recap. Now I'm not going to recap everything I just talked about. Let me recap some of the some of the high level things that I think were really important to note throughout that process and things that I think you should look for. We're looking to get promoted in your in your position. One when you're looking for promotions, it can either be internal or external. Internal positions tend to be more title based with smaller promotions. My company had a cap on promotions at 10%. I when I was getting the manager position because my position was offering me, I was able to leverage that and I got them to go to a accounting and ask for a special promotion of 20%. So I was able to do that. That was that was one one thing. But internal is typically harder to get. They usually have caps on how big of promotions they can give. So internal is usually a bigger title than it is a monetary external usually get more money. So you you're switching from a job using get 20 30% more when you're switching jobs. So just look at that. That's just something to be aware of that doesn't help you get a promotion, but just something to be aware of promoting from entry level to mid level is standard like everyone should be able to do that. If you have an entry level job for one or two years. You should be a mid level. You should ask for a promotion internal external doesn't matter. You should be able to get it because now you have two years experience, you're no longer entry level. That's kind of like standard like you should be able to do that. Mid level to senior level is a little bit. It's quite a bit more challenging because entry to mid is just like entry. You don't know anything. So then when you have some experience, you know things now and you're like, I'm not an entry level anymore because now I'm not asking having asked questions for for every single thing. I can take on a few small projects now. People kind of know me and I know the skills now. So now you're mid level. Mid level to senior level is a much bigger jump. Mid level is like I'm taking on projects. I know these skills. Well, people know me. I've been in this position for three or four years. I deserve to be a senior, but senior level is quite a bit different senior level. You're usually mentoring more entry or mid level people. You're taking on much more important projects. They expect you have some type of domain knowledge. So if your job hopping to other domains, maybe tougher to get to senior because usually they expect that level that you have more domain knowledge in the area that they have because technical skills only get you so far. A lot of it comes from understanding the business really well. And that was an area that I think I really excelled at. I just understood healthcare really well and I knew a lot of different moving parts that were really relevant to our company. And so I think that helped me get promoted pretty quick. And so you should be thinking about that as well. You know, if you want to go from mid to senior, you really need to have more domain knowledge. And of course more technical skills, but you should be taking on bigger projects already as a mid level. You should be taking on bigger projects that when you ask for that senior level promotion, you can say, I've been taking on these what I would consider senior level projects and you should really be networking and getting to know people because a senior level is somebody that everyone in different departments is going to look to to be the most knowledgeable in that area. Now, there's other senior analysts and of course you'll be hopefully just as knowledgeable, but you should be the best out of the mid level and entry level. You shouldn't be the same as an entry level or mid level. And so, you know, you know, let me see. Let me see what I say. So that is what you need to do technically in order to get those promotions. Next thing you have to do is ask. Now, I asked, I never really asked for promotion. One was given to me when I went from the junior day analyst to the mid level analyst. But I asked when I applied to external jobs. So from the healthcare analytics company to the fortune 10 company, I went out and sought a different job and I asked for that job. Same thing when I went to the manager, I was applying and looking for that job. So sometimes you're going to have to ask. Now, I was a manager of data analytics or a manager of operational analytics, which was for our data analytics team and I encouraged people to ask me. I'm like, Hey, listen, if you feel like you want something you need to ask, because I can't always read everything like if you want to go for a certificate and you want our company to pay for it, just ask me. If you feel like you deserve a promotion or you want to pivot your job to another position, just ask. I will help you. That's my job. And so as an example, we had a business analyst who is in Lithuania who wanted to be a BI developer and I was like, okay, okay. We'll tell me like, what do you want to do? What kind of skills do you want? She's like, I really want to be a BI developer because I really like automation and this kind of stuff. And I was like, that's great. Well, in my time there, as well as moving to the cloud, I also was moving our team from the built-in tool of analytics that we had to Power BI. And so I said, Hey, listen, if you learn Power BI and you get this certification, which was not a crazy hard, it's like a Microsoft Power BI certification. I was like, I can go to HR. I can put in the budget request, put in the position change request and I can make you our BI, Power BI developer. And you know, she, the only reason I knew that is because she talked to me about it and she told me. So if you're in a job, you have to make it known that you want that, that you want to change positions, that you want a promotion. People aren't just going to give it to you typically. It just doesn't typically happen. I'm kind of, I feel like that was an outlier thing for me. Um, but typically you're going to need to ask like, Hey, I would like a promotion. Hey, at the end of this year, I've been here for two years. But I would love a promotion. I feel like I deserve a promotion. If I want to stay here, I have everyone to say that. But that is how you should go about asking for these promotions. Um, so that is kind of like the core. The core values or advice or, or things that I would take away from, um, this conversation, this video, whatever, whatever you want to say is that you got to work hard for the promotions. You have to learn the skills. You have to network, you have to take on big projects and you have to ask for it. Um, I hope the whole purpose of me talking about my experience was to show how I got my promotions, how I got my different jobs. Um, because you know, when I was starting out, I didn't have anybody to ask these things or tell me these things. I didn't know I had to learn all of this myself from scratch. And so I make these videos in this type of video to kind of be that mentor and be like, here's how I did it. Here's what I've learned. And I'm hoping to, you know, give you this information for free so that you can go and do it yourself. Um, and you can advance your career, make better for your family and your future and, you know, really make progress where you may not have been able to do that beforehand. If you weren't aware of it, if you weren't thinking about it or consciously making decisions towards that path. Um, now promotions don't have to go all the way up to manager. Uh, there are times where I look back and I'm like, I really wish I just stayed a data analyst. I really love the technical side of things. I really like the work. So I kind of wish I just stayed and got into like a senior data analyst or taking that more hands-on manager position and my, um, that my old boss had offered me. So, um, there's lots of different paths though, you know, in promotions don't have to be just data analytics. Maybe you want to go into data engineering. Maybe you really love, um, data models and you really love automation and data pipelines, which I do too. I almost went into data engineering. Um, you know, that's a promotion too. Right? Even if, um, even if it's like you go back, you're a mid-level data analyst, but then you're an entry-level data engineer. Well, it's more technical. So maybe that's the equivalent, right? So, you know, that you don't have to progress just in data analytics and something that you love. If you love data science, go into data science. If you love data architecture, do that. If you'd like being a program manager or a product manager or do that. Find what you love and follow that because I promise you, you know, if I didn't have my consulting and I didn't have my YouTube channel and I was in that manager position of operation analytics, I wouldn't have been super happy there long term. I would have been looking for something else because it just didn't really fulfill me. It wasn't like something I was passionate about. I would have stayed in it for a while because the money was good, but I would have been looking out and been like, this is not what I want to do long term. So really think about that. Think about long term, what you want to do. And I think that'll go a long, long way. Now, this is the very end of this entire thing. And I really hope, I genuinely hope that this has been helpful to you. I hope that, you know, you've got something out of this. Hopefully people who are listening to this are you're in a position where you can start getting promoted and you can actively act on this advice. But it's really, if you're able to get through all this, because I just talk sometimes, right? If you're really able to get through all this, that means you're really committed to analytics and getting promotions and advancing your career. I hats off to you because that's what you should be. And so if you've got here, we have something on the channel. We have a vegetable of the week. Well, vegetable of the week because I used to do these weekly, but I just, my schedule doesn't allow it anymore, but the vegetable of the week or this episode is green beans. So if you watch all the way to this and you want to show that you're really committed, you made it all the way here and you are really dedicated to getting a promotion in the comments. You write green beans. That's it. And all the other people didn't get to the other gonna be like, why are they typing green beans in the bottom? I know and you know. It genuinely just, it's a fun thing that I do because I think those people who make it to the end and really commit to these videos and really are interested in that topic. Whatever topic I'm talking about, like they are really committed. That's like a 45 minutes, an hour of their time spent to this. And so write that, write that down there. And that's it. That is, that is the whole show. So if you want to leave, you can, but I'm just going to chat a little bit. I've been, I've been working nonstop, just nonstop. All good things though. I've been trying to take on less consulting so I can spend more time on Analyst Builder. Analyst Builder started it as like an idea and now it's grown more into like people really like it and it's generating money. And I have a team who's working on it and people really, like they send me messages all the time saying they love it so much. So if you haven't tried on Analyst Builder, genuinely do that. You will love it. If you like me, cause I teach all the courses. I created all the questions. If you like it, it's phenomenal. It's so good. I'm really, really, really, really proud of it. And it's only going to get better. So if you haven't checked it out, definitely do. I'll leave a link to the description, but I'm trying to spend more time on that to create really great courses that are really affordable forever for everyday people. So create really great courses, create a great platform and just, you know, build that up because I see that as being something that's like a legacy I can leave behind. Who knows how much longer the YouTube world will accept me. Maybe it'll accept me for another five years or maybe it could be a year and they're like, yeah, Alex, the dude's washed up. He's so out of reach, out of touch. I don't think so, though. In my consulting, I do a lot of data analytics. I keep up with it quite a bit. So I don't feel like I hope that's not what people perceive me as. But other than that, I just got back from a trip with my family. There were 17 of us, my brother, his family, my parents, their family, my adopted siblings and then my family, 17, maybe 16. But I came back and I had a sore throat. I was like, I can't let it, can't let it stop me because I got too much to do. See, what else is going on in my life? I'm sure you're interested. What's going on in my life? No, you're not interested, but I'm going to keep talking. It's my show. I can do what I want. Um, actually, I only have a minute left. Oh, minute 30 seconds. What else do I want to say in a minute 30 seconds? Um, huh, not much. Not much. I'm coaching my son's soccer team. That's fun. That's really fun. Uh, he scored our first goal. Really proud of him. Even if he didn't, I'd still be proud of him though. He's doing really well. Uh, you know, I don't even know. Usually I have stuff to talk about the end, um, but my, I'm just, just doing, I'm doing, I'm doing good. I'm just, it's the winter seasons. So things are colder. I don't like that as much, but, uh, yeah, I'm going to leave it at that. It's kind of a downer, kind of a downer for the end, uh, which I'm fine with. It's okay with me. There's only five of you. There's only five of you listening. Um, anyways, thank you for watching. I really appreciate it. I hope this was really helpful. I genuinely do. So with that being said, I will see you in the next episode. Bye.