 Hello, I'm your host Alex Friedberg and this is the Alexa Analyst Show. Thank you so much for joining me today. We are going to be going out to LinkedIn to look at some jobs that are completely unrealistic. And I think that a lot of people can resonate with this, especially during this time of COVID, where it seems like these unrealistic job expectations are just getting out of hand. Five, 10, 15, 30 years of experience for a junior data analyst position. I mean, where does it end? Where does it stop? And I think that, you know, we need to be able to laugh at these jobs, smile up about these jobs, and bond over them instead of letting them defeat us. And so that is what we're going to be doing today. I am going to pull up real quickly my screens that we can look at these together, walk through them, and help you identify what completely unrealistic job expectations looks like. So you do not fall victim to these. I'm going to pull up my screen real quick. I'm going to be using my fake accounts that nobody can identify who I am. Let's go over to the very first job. This is a junior data analyst position in Kansas, Overland Park, Kansas. And let's take a look at our very first job and let's just dive right into it. I got a few pulled up as you can tell. And we're just going to walk through them and, you know, see what we got. So this one is a junior data analyst position. And they are asking for two plus years as a junior data analyst or data analysts associate in an established organization. If it's unestablished, no can do. Now, here's my problem with this. If you have two plus years experience as a junior, sorry, my wife texted me, as a junior data analyst, don't you then think you would be a mid-level data analyst? I mean, genuinely, am I wrong about this? Or is your career goal to really just be like a junior data analyst forever? And it could be. I'm not here to judge. I'm just saying it does not make sense. Like, if I have two years of experience as a junior data analyst, I will not then go and look for another junior data analyst position. It does not make sense. Let's look at some of the things they're going to be using. Okay, SQL Excel, business intelligence tools, CRMs, ERPs, Salesforce. Yeah, I mean, everything else looks pretty normal. And they're going to be working with people like software developers, data engineers, data analysts, like everything else looks normal. It's just, I'm so confused. I'm like, it does not, it doesn't make sense to me. It makes zero sense to me why they would do this. They're just like, you know what? Why would we give someone a chance when we could keep them at the exact same level that they're currently at? Why promote? That's not what we do here at Sunlighten. That's a terrible name. All right, let's go into our next job. I glanced at these again to find them. And so I already know this one. I think I might apply to this job in a few years. This is for the Air Force Nuclear Weapon Center at Hill Air Force Base Ogden, Utah. And you're going to be working with intercontinental ballistic missile weapon system. I'm just going to stop right there and say, this is amazing. I want this job, but it is a junior data analyst position. And in order to get this, in order to get this job, you need nine years experience or basically a combination of like five years experience with a bachelor's degree. And you need top level security clearance to get there. And I mean, honestly, it's obscene. But at the same time, I like really want to apply to this job to see if I can get it because I will take the hit and I'll take the junior data analyst position if I can like work on some ICBM stuff or some nuclear launch codes or I don't even know what they do. I mean, it's top secret. So I thought this one was really interesting. So if you have nine years of experience and you want to work with ICBMs or some nuclear launch codes, this is your job. I think it's a very, very small market. Let's see. They posted it four weeks ago and they still don't have 25 applicants. So I think I have a really good shot at this one. So, you know, if I can't do this show anymore in a few weeks, it's because the Air Force told me that it was a national security risk. That's the only reason I would stop doing this show. So this next one is a junior data strategy analyst and this was in Hawaii. Hello. That's what I'm talking about. In this role, you need a master's or bachelor's in computer science. One to seven years of experience in data strategy management, data analytics, or data science role. Why one to seven years? Again, going back to the last job, if I had seven years, the one before, if I had seven years of experience, why would I be taking a junior role unless they're paying just really good money? Let's look at some of the things that they want. Some of the skills that they're wanting is a broad range of data tools and technologies, not, you know, the staples of SQL and Excel for like a normal, you know, a normal junior role. No, no, no. We want someone who knows Oracle SQL, SAP IQ, visualization tools like Tableau, click, micro, strategy, SAP business objects, as well as machine learning, because why not? Why not just toss, everyone's toss machine learning and their job descriptions these days, just in case we don't do machine learning. But why not? So you need to know Python, our studio Java C sharp and SQL and experience developing machine learning models. Now, yes, your job title is junior data strategy analysts. We know this, but you will be doing the work of a mid-level data scientist. So be prepared for that. And be prepared to not be paid for that is basically what I'm saying. In US citizenship and security clearance, oh, this one's a security clearance one as well, national capital contracting. Oh, this is, yeah, this is probably some military thing. Man, these military job descriptions are insane. I would love to do some contracting for the military, though. You, I may have to quit the show if that ever happened. Like if I went FBI, CIA, something like that, I'd do it. I'd do it though, because I'm just, I'm super curious and I'd love to do that. Anyways, I think that was another, I think that was another military one. I'm just going to throw that out there. This one is a junior cloud data analyst, and this is at Deloitte. That's a, that's a good company to work for. I've heard, I don't personally work there. Some of your responsibilities are project planning, sure, generate design, develop, wait, what did I say? Generate design, development, test plans, inflow charts for programming, sure. Develop data pipelines, APIs using Python SQL, potentially Spark and AWS Azure or GCP methods. My goodness. And build large-scale batch and real-time data pipelines with data processing frameworks and AWS Azure GCP cloud platform. Okay. First off, this is a junior cloud data analyst, right? This isn't like a data engineer, database developer. I get it's in the cloud, but you can't just say cloud and then demand like, demand you be able to like build APIs and data pipelines and all these things. That's not what data analysts do. All right. So let's, let's go down to the qualifications real quick. Okay. So they're not only demanding odd, I guess I could say it, odd skills that you're going to be doing or odd responsibilities, you need to have the qualifications to back it up to get this junior position. So you need one year experience data engineering, emphasis on data analytics and reporting. One year's experience using like AWS, Google Cloud Platform Azure. A year using SQL data transformations, statistical analysis. And why not troubleshooting across more than one database platform? Cassandra, my SQL, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, Redshift, Azure SQL warehouse. I mean, I'm not going to read all through all these because it just, excuse me. It's just getting insane. And then they're even talking about like Kafka down here. This is not a data analyst role, but they want to pay you for it. They want to pay you like it's a data analyst role. And trust me, they will. They will pay you less than your worth. And this is, I mean, I'm going to get to this later. I will go on my rant as per the usual for this show at the end. But to give you a kind of a little taste of what we're going to talk about is why on earth do companies feel like they can just like throw like machine learning data pipelines, being able to develop APIs into data analyst roles. That's not what data analysts do. And so they're trying to like like keep adding on all these things that data analysts don't do. And then they're like, but we're going to pay you out of data analyst salary. So whether or not you're doing data sciences work, data engineering work, all these things, you know, this is a junior data analyst role. Don't don't get it confused. All right, let's move on to the next one. I'm not reading through all that. It's going to make me angry. All right. So this one's a junior data analyst. Again, these are all like junior entry level data analysts. This is that blue skies consulting never heard of it. But candidate must have top four consulting experience as well as three to five years deploying SAP MDM projects. I don't really know what MDM is to be honest. But let me see. Okay. Responsibilities tells me nothing, but the qualifications basically say you need two years of management consulting experience from the big four. Management consulting is so different than data analysis. This is like, again, the job description does not fit the title. Let's see if there's anything else that's interesting in this one. Okay, you need no sequel. You need to be friendly, respectful, courteous, selfless and modest. Of course. Yeah, I mean, there's nothing else really in here. Understanding data gathering, inspecting, cleansing treatment. There's nothing else in here that really sticks out to me. It's just this job description is like, it's not really a data analyst role. But again, they want to pay you like a junior data analyst role. Don't get it confused. Don't get it confused. All right. Let's look at this one. This is a junior data analyst role. And this is for CGI. Never heard of it. Not a lot of applicants for whatever reason. Well, I guess we'll find out. But this one says you need a bachelor's degree. You need three years of experience. And let's read through. So you need filtering and cleaning data. And then, oh, of course, you're going to be doing a little bit of artificial televisions or AI. I don't know what I just said. Machine learning. You need ideation, solution, concept development, prototyping, validation, operational environments. And importantly, in the sustainment of AI ML solutions for CI CD, I don't even know what this I don't know what these things mean. I'm not a data scientist. And this is a data scientist role. If you're doing artificial intelligence, that give me a second. Give me a second, Joel. This thing is running out of battery. Let me see if I'm going to go plug it in. I'll be back in like two seconds. All right, I'm back. Yeah, I know. It's not the most professional thing to, you know, go plug in your baby monitor during the middle of a show. That's just real life. And that's what this show is all about. It's just about real, real life. We have this baby monitor. And if it's plugged in, it works perfectly fine. But if I unplug it, it dies in like an hour. And that was an hour ago. So now it's dying and trying to tell me that. And so that's all that was. Let's move on to the next one. And let's see what this one has. This was an entry level data analyst. So entry level data analyst. Some type of consulting group, some type of technology group in New Jersey. Let's look at the requirements real quick. They need to have analytical skills, sure. So they need to know MySQL, Excel. They need to know experience in MSBI. So SSRS, SSIS, SSAS. I don't even, I've never used SSAS. SQL server, data warehousing. T is very strong in experience in T SQL. Very strong. Not just no T SQL. You know, SQL start procedures and then design data architectures. And then the daily things you're going to be doing is write T SQL, ETL book insert with SSIS, and a bachelor's and master's. Okay. So I was kind of on board for a little while until they started throwing in like very strong experience in T SQL. I still don't have very strong experience in T SQL. I've been a data analyst for quite a while. You know, and I'm okay. I'm pretty good at T SQL, but very strong experience. That's maybe where I am now after like quite a few years. I would not expect that of, was this an entry level data analyst and also designing data architectures. There is a job called data architect who designs data architectures. A data analyst does not design data architectures. Maybe they do at this company, but that is not a normal thing that a data analyst does. Again, they want to pay you a data analyst salary to do data architecture work, data engineering work, data scientists work. I'm going to stop because I'm about to talk about this in a little bit. All right. Here's the thing. It is almost laughable how ridiculous some of these jobs are. And let me tell you something. It was not hard to find these jobs. It took me maybe 10 minutes to find these jobs. I maybe looked at 30 jobs and out of those I found one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Right. So that's almost a third. The little under a third is probably like 22%. Let's take a random guess. I don't know. I need a calculator. But that is, it's just like, I get it. You know, you're trying to get the best value for your money. Every company is doing that, especially during COVID, but it almost feels a little bit predatory. Right. It's like, hey, there's a lot of data analysts out there who are down on their luck, who have lost jobs. Let's make the requirements really high so that those people who are mid level or senior level are now taking entry level data analyst positions. That's how it feels. And that may, that may not be the case. You know, this may be, this may be HR. This may be HR who's writing this. This may be like a recruiter who's writing this, who does not know what they're doing. And so I don't, I wouldn't feel as bad. I would still feel like it was negligent and predatory, but you know, it's not as bad as like a hiring manager who knows exactly what this position is supposed to be writing this and knowing full well that, you know, they're, they're just completely ripping somebody off. And I feel bad. I genuinely do feel bad. Excuse me. That's really all I had to say. I don't want to go to, I feel like I could just go off on this, but I just, you know, sometimes you just got to laugh. There were so many other really good jobs. And I think I'll do a video on like, what good data analyst job postings look like. Because when you see stuff like this, it kind of like is like really like demoralizing. I'm glad that we as a community can watch this and be totally fine. And not, you know, and not like blow up and just like get mad at the system because the system is tough right now. You just got to kind of play along. And so I'm glad that we were able to talk about this and look at this. And I thought it was fun because Lord knows I have applied to jobs like this. I didn't hear anything back, but I applied to jobs like this when I was an entry level data analyst. I didn't know anything. I just applied to jobs. We have come to that time in the show where I would like to give a shout out to our sponsor. It is you, everyone over who is supporting me on Patreon. You are who I'm giving this shout out to. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. I love you. And if you want to feel loved and see pictures of Max, me, my Christmas tree, which I put up and posted just yesterday, if you want to see those things and you want to support the channel, head over to Patreon, support the channel. It would mean a lot. I would appreciate it. Moving on to the next even probably more important section is the question of the week. Now I got to be honest and I'm being very vulnerable with you guys. I did not plan a question of the week this week and I feel bad about that, but during this whole thing, this whole conversation, I was able to go through and find the very first question I chose. If it had a question mark in it, I chose it and we're just going to run with it and we're going to go with it and see what happens. This is from Baloram and he says, sorry to say this. This should be good. In this video, you look like you're disturbed or in some hurry. Is it any? And the video that he commented on was in the last week's ATA show, which it was, what is no code analytics? And so I want to Baloram. I want to ease any concern that you have. I am perfectly fine. I'm in good health. I don't believe I'm disturbed. You may say differently. Other people may say differently. I don't believe I'm disturbed. I got to be honest. The thing I think that he was thinking of is because I'm tired and I have just been perpetually tired for like the past two years. If you have kids, you know what I'm talking about. And I do shoot these very late. As of now, it is 12.15. I started recording videos, prepping, doing all this extra stuff that I do before my videos are on 9 o'clock. So from 9 to 12.15 now, I have been up doing this stuff. And on normal days, I'm off doing work, responding to YouTube stuff, like doing my day job work. I mean, so, you know, that may be what you're talking about. And I appreciate you being concerned because that's how I'm going to take it. I'm just going to take it that you were concerned about me. And I appreciate you being concerned about me. That means a lot. Now, even on to the, what I would consider the best part of the entire show, which is the ending where, and I don't know how this started. Actually, I do know how this started, but I don't know why it's become so fun for me. I continue to do it time after time. My wife tells me to stop. I don't care. You tell me to stop. I don't care. I have fun doing this. This is for me. It's not for you. This is for me to have fun, which brings us to the keyword of the week. And so this week's keyword, something that I personally don't like very much. But one of my favorite characters on my favorite show of all time loves, which is Beats. And so if you watch all the way through, you watch through my ranting, you watch through me plugging in my charge over here for, because it was starting to die, you'd comment below Beats, B-E-E-T-S. This is not like Rita Vega of last episode, where I had you basically spell it blindly, right? I'm going to give this one to you. It's B-E-E-T-S. If you spell it incorrectly, I'm just going to assume you didn't actually watch it all the way through. So if you put like Beats, B-E-A-T-S, you're a good person, and I appreciate you trying. That is all I've got. Thank you so much for watching. I really genuinely appreciate it. I'm glad you made it up this way. I mean, this is, I don't know, this might be a long video, maybe not. Let me see. This is a short video. You guys made it. I appreciate you. I appreciate you joining me. I think I might start bringing like coffee on the show, because genuinely, I need it during these times. Like, it's really late, and I'm trying to stay up and shoot these, and then I'm going to, you know, download them all and then start editing them all tomorrow. I genuinely think I need some coffee. And so I might start doing that. Who knows? And we can have coffee time in this, and I do release these in the mornings. So maybe you can be like coffee time with Alex. I don't know. I'm just spitballing here. I'm just throwing out ideas. If you have any ideas, let me know. That'd be really cool. Maybe hot chocolate. Hot chocolate with Alex. I don't know. Again, I'm tired and disturbed. Thank you for watching. I appreciate you. Have a good night. I will see you in the next episode. Bye.