Hi all,
on Dec 19th I launched DataAnalyst.com. In total, this is the 13th update, this time covering the first month of 2024.
Want to make sure I document the journey, and keep myself honest, so each month I will be making a post about the statistics, progress, some thoughts and what are the next steps I want to be focusing on.
While the main purpose for the post is to bring everyone along on the journey, I do think that members of r/SideProject might benefit from the site, especially those looking to start an online project on the side.
So, just a reminder that early stages vision is to become the #1 job board for data analysts - hand-picking interesting data analyst job opportunities across industries.
Let's dive right in:
2023
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Number of jobs posted
Total: 208 (US)
Total: 212 (US)
Total: 207 (US)
Total: 153 (US)
Total: 140 (US)
Total: 115 (US)
Total: 104 (US)
Total: 110 (US)
Total: 105 (US)
Total: 111 (US)
Total: 107 (US)
Total: 90 (US)
Paid posts
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
Visitors
795
3,267
3,003
4,892
5,203
4,029
3,382
4,421
4,552
6,400
7,600
7,300
Apply now clicks
634
2,354
2,898
4,051
4,476
4,561
3,193
4,154
4,814
6,100
8,400
8,500
Avg. session duration
3min 52sec
3min 53sec
3min 39sec
3min 44sec
3min 10sec
3min 17sec
3min 05sec
2min 53sec
2min 58sec
1min 45sec
1min 45sec
1min 50sec
Pageviews
4100
16,300
15,449
26,291
28,755
24,000
18,884
23,424
23,153
30,000
35,000
35,000
Google Impressions
503
5,500
9,430
28,300
45,900
58,100
47,500
78,400
152,000
246,000
265,000
267,000
Google Clicks
47
355
337
1,880
2,070
3,320
2,180
4,220
6,600
13,700
15,000
17,400
Newsletter subs (total)
205
416
600
918
1,239
1,431
1,559
1,815
2,043
2,262
2,605
2,356
Newsletter open rate
61%
67%
58%
60%
52%
60%
Skipped
55%
61%
64%
64%
70%
2024
January
Number of jobs posted
Total: 113
Paid posts
0
Visitors
10,000
Apply now clicks
13,350
Avg. session duration
2min 05sec
Pageviews
56,000
Google Impressions
352,000
Google Clicks
27,000
Newsletter subs (total)
3,264
Newsletter open rate
71%
DataAnalyst.com has been online for just over 13 months, and we're bringing new, hand curated data analyst jobs onto the site daily. As it stands, we've published over 1,800 data analyst jobs in total, all of them including a salary range.
If I had to sum up January, it would probably be along the lines of:
"New Year, New Me, New Job"
Basically from 2nd January onwards we've seen incredible surge in visitor numbers over the course of the month. The only significant down days were when I accidentally deleted all the job postings from Google jobs schema, but managed to identify the issue fairly quickly - live and learn, right.
Unfortunately we're continuing to see layoffs, particularly in the tech industry, so combined with people's New Year resolution to move toward better pastures, I would say those were the main drivers for an uptick in visitors and applications made.
Where did 10,000 people come from?
I've been chatting and more actively keeping up with some other people in the job board industry over the last month, and overall the stories are very similar.
Those who purely provide a job board service (i.e no recruitment/coaching services attached), the experience over the last year has been largely the same - companies have very much stopped/decreased their hiring efforts, and any revenue from job posts, have virtually disappeared.
The sites that are doing better are those who also provide those coaching services, CV/cover letter reviews, and are operating more as a recruitment agency with a job board, rather than the other way around.
The second type of sites that are able to bring in revenue, are those that scrape all the jobs, don't do any curation, and then put a paywall and have job seekers paying for access.
Why am I saying this?
With the site hitting over 10,000 unique visitors, as well as over 50,000 pageviews, I've started receiving headache-inducing emails - "You're running out of bandwidth, upgrade your plan today to protect your site from downtime"
Alongside these emails, I've also noticed that one of the no-code tools that I am using, was recently sold (change of ownership) - how did I notice? Well, some of the features stopped working and support went AWOL.
And with the newsletter subscribers' count skyrocketing, I'm now also over the limit with my email marketing provider. I know, I know, it's a good problem to have (pls keep reading my emails and don't unsubscribe).
Put all three together, and the site is potentially about to face issues with job filtering, I'm pretty sure the view-count of individual jobs is also off, and as I'm trying to move to Amazon SES for emails, I've been fighting it off with their email support, over the last few days.
My main advantage still is that I'm "splitting" the costs of all these tools between DataAnalyst and BusinessAnalyst, so I still only really need one of the two to start getting traction.
As the technical issues started piling up over the last couple of weeks, it did also cross my mind to move toward a white label job board solution, that provides a comprehensive (and mainly) functional solution that won't need as much upkeep as my current monstrosity.
Upside:
But now, to the fun part.
Another two interviews from our series has been published. In these interviews, we aim to share stories and experiences about the route to becoming a data analyst, keeping up with the skillset, recommendations to aspiring data analysts and much more.
Huge thank you to Gene and Rennie for taking the time, and I highly recommend everyone to read their stories, there's an absolute gold mine of experience and tips that you can learn from.
Honestly, this was an extremely entertaining and educating interview, that I can't really properly cover in a few paragraphs here, so let me provide a few bulletpoints that Gene covers
"If I were to give advice from this point in my career (between retirement at 32 and unretirement at 37), I would say to definitely do projects, use online certifications as a proof of concept and to make sure you like what you're doing. Do some projects for yourself, you'll put more care into them. Everyone can copy a project from a youtube tutorial, but if you can find something you're interested in, your results will usually be better than if it's just some project you need to do to get a job.
For example: hate dating? gather data about your data and break it down, expand on it. Like sports? do an analysis on your favorite team or player. Nobody really cares about logistics rates and times personally unless you own the company, do something you actually care about.
I can, however, give a bit of insight from the employer's perspective. The things we looked for was results. Can you do this? Can you do that? I don't really care what school you think you got some prestige from (if any), I don't care what you got on your gender studies exam. I'm worried about what you can actually do."
Read the full interview with Gene
As we've seen with multiple people already, the path toward her marketing data analyst role started internally within her organisation.
When the company launched a firm-wide initiative to understand upskilling potential, Rennie was selected for parnership to complete a data science program, during which she learned python and used tools to create data visualizations.
It's after the completion of the programme, that she felt comfortable and confident enough to apply for data analyst roles, eventually leading her to her first data analyst role.
In her current role she works on major campaigns and brand partnerships with professional sports programs and non-profit organizations to increase membership growth and brand loyalty.
She shares her best advice for anyone interested in becoming a data analyst, and recommends a few things:
Read the full interview with Rennie
Thank you all again, and see you soon.
Alex
on Dec 19th I launched DataAnalyst.com. In total, this is the 13th update, this time covering the first month of 2024.
Want to make sure I document the journey, and keep myself honest, so each month I will be making a post about the statistics, progress, some thoughts and what are the next steps I want to be focusing on.
While the main purpose for the post is to bring everyone along on the journey, I do think that members of r/SideProject might benefit from the site, especially those looking to start an online project on the side.
So, just a reminder that early stages vision is to become the #1 job board for data analysts - hand-picking interesting data analyst job opportunities across industries.
Let's dive right in:
2023 Monthly Statistics update
2023
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Number of jobs posted
Total: 208 (US)
Total: 212 (US)
Total: 207 (US)
Total: 153 (US)
Total: 140 (US)
Total: 115 (US)
Total: 104 (US)
Total: 110 (US)
Total: 105 (US)
Total: 111 (US)
Total: 107 (US)
Total: 90 (US)
Paid posts
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
1
0
Visitors
795
3,267
3,003
4,892
5,203
4,029
3,382
4,421
4,552
6,400
7,600
7,300
Apply now clicks
634
2,354
2,898
4,051
4,476
4,561
3,193
4,154
4,814
6,100
8,400
8,500
Avg. session duration
3min 52sec
3min 53sec
3min 39sec
3min 44sec
3min 10sec
3min 17sec
3min 05sec
2min 53sec
2min 58sec
1min 45sec
1min 45sec
1min 50sec
Pageviews
4100
16,300
15,449
26,291
28,755
24,000
18,884
23,424
23,153
30,000
35,000
35,000
Google Impressions
503
5,500
9,430
28,300
45,900
58,100
47,500
78,400
152,000
246,000
265,000
267,000
Google Clicks
47
355
337
1,880
2,070
3,320
2,180
4,220
6,600
13,700
15,000
17,400
Newsletter subs (total)
205
416
600
918
1,239
1,431
1,559
1,815
2,043
2,262
2,605
2,356
Newsletter open rate
61%
67%
58%
60%
52%
60%
Skipped
55%
61%
64%
64%
70%
2024 Monthly Statistics update
2024
January
Number of jobs posted
Total: 113
Paid posts
0
Visitors
10,000
Apply now clicks
13,350
Avg. session duration
2min 05sec
Pageviews
56,000
Google Impressions
352,000
Google Clicks
27,000
Newsletter subs (total)
3,264
Newsletter open rate
71%
General Observations
DataAnalyst.com has been online for just over 13 months, and we're bringing new, hand curated data analyst jobs onto the site daily. As it stands, we've published over 1,800 data analyst jobs in total, all of them including a salary range.
If I had to sum up January, it would probably be along the lines of:
"New Year, New Me, New Job"
Basically from 2nd January onwards we've seen incredible surge in visitor numbers over the course of the month. The only significant down days were when I accidentally deleted all the job postings from Google jobs schema, but managed to identify the issue fairly quickly - live and learn, right.
Unfortunately we're continuing to see layoffs, particularly in the tech industry, so combined with people's New Year resolution to move toward better pastures, I would say those were the main drivers for an uptick in visitors and applications made.
Where did 10,000 people come from?
- Organic - 65%
- Direct - 28%
- Social - 5% (automated job postings on Twitter, Linkedin, Reddit)
- Refferal and others - 2%
Scaling up ain't easy
I've been chatting and more actively keeping up with some other people in the job board industry over the last month, and overall the stories are very similar.
Those who purely provide a job board service (i.e no recruitment/coaching services attached), the experience over the last year has been largely the same - companies have very much stopped/decreased their hiring efforts, and any revenue from job posts, have virtually disappeared.
The sites that are doing better are those who also provide those coaching services, CV/cover letter reviews, and are operating more as a recruitment agency with a job board, rather than the other way around.
The second type of sites that are able to bring in revenue, are those that scrape all the jobs, don't do any curation, and then put a paywall and have job seekers paying for access.
Why am I saying this?
With the site hitting over 10,000 unique visitors, as well as over 50,000 pageviews, I've started receiving headache-inducing emails - "You're running out of bandwidth, upgrade your plan today to protect your site from downtime"
Alongside these emails, I've also noticed that one of the no-code tools that I am using, was recently sold (change of ownership) - how did I notice? Well, some of the features stopped working and support went AWOL.
And with the newsletter subscribers' count skyrocketing, I'm now also over the limit with my email marketing provider. I know, I know, it's a good problem to have (pls keep reading my emails and don't unsubscribe).
Put all three together, and the site is potentially about to face issues with job filtering, I'm pretty sure the view-count of individual jobs is also off, and as I'm trying to move to Amazon SES for emails, I've been fighting it off with their email support, over the last few days.
My main advantage still is that I'm "splitting" the costs of all these tools between DataAnalyst and BusinessAnalyst, so I still only really need one of the two to start getting traction.
As the technical issues started piling up over the last couple of weeks, it did also cross my mind to move toward a white label job board solution, that provides a comprehensive (and mainly) functional solution that won't need as much upkeep as my current monstrosity.
Upside:
- an option for people to create personal account and set up functional job board alerts into their inbox, submit their CVs for employers to browse and reach out directly
- overall probably a better option to monetize through various (already integrated) channels
- depending on the provider, some might also be able to do company outreach and sell directly for the site
- all job boards look mostly the same
- no option to tweak and customise the solution to fit (what I personally think might be the best) user experience
- potentially higher expenditure per project, or on the other hand, profit sharing agreement with the provider
- depending on the provider, losing all the existing SEO benefits
But now, to the fun part.
Day in a life of a Data Analyst, with Gene and Rennie
Another two interviews from our series has been published. In these interviews, we aim to share stories and experiences about the route to becoming a data analyst, keeping up with the skillset, recommendations to aspiring data analysts and much more.
Huge thank you to Gene and Rennie for taking the time, and I highly recommend everyone to read their stories, there's an absolute gold mine of experience and tips that you can learn from.
Gene shares valuable insights into how data is being used in gaming companies
Honestly, this was an extremely entertaining and educating interview, that I can't really properly cover in a few paragraphs here, so let me provide a few bulletpoints that Gene covers
- from a Marketing Data Analyst role, to Head of External Operations (through a change of business ownership due to a gambling founder)
- how is the role of an individual contributor different to the one of a leader
- various ways how data insights drive behaviours and profits in a gaming organisation
- turning his passion for lacrosse, into an app
"If I were to give advice from this point in my career (between retirement at 32 and unretirement at 37), I would say to definitely do projects, use online certifications as a proof of concept and to make sure you like what you're doing. Do some projects for yourself, you'll put more care into them. Everyone can copy a project from a youtube tutorial, but if you can find something you're interested in, your results will usually be better than if it's just some project you need to do to get a job.
For example: hate dating? gather data about your data and break it down, expand on it. Like sports? do an analysis on your favorite team or player. Nobody really cares about logistics rates and times personally unless you own the company, do something you actually care about.
I can, however, give a bit of insight from the employer's perspective. The things we looked for was results. Can you do this? Can you do that? I don't really care what school you think you got some prestige from (if any), I don't care what you got on your gender studies exam. I'm worried about what you can actually do."
Read the full interview with Gene
How an internal survey helped Rennie land her Marketing Data Analyst role
As we've seen with multiple people already, the path toward her marketing data analyst role started internally within her organisation.
When the company launched a firm-wide initiative to understand upskilling potential, Rennie was selected for parnership to complete a data science program, during which she learned python and used tools to create data visualizations.
It's after the completion of the programme, that she felt comfortable and confident enough to apply for data analyst roles, eventually leading her to her first data analyst role.
In her current role she works on major campaigns and brand partnerships with professional sports programs and non-profit organizations to increase membership growth and brand loyalty.
She shares her best advice for anyone interested in becoming a data analyst, and recommends a few things:
- Learn SQL, most jobs will require some type of querying experience in your everyday role. There are a lot of free or low-cost resources available such as W3schools, Coursera, Datacamp, Udemy, YouTube, etc.
- Learn a type of data visualization tool such as Excel, Power BI or Tableau. Excel and Power BI are free and easy tools to get creative and test your data visualization skills. I believe Tableau is discounted if you’re a student.
- Learn a scripting language such as Python or R programming. Some roles may or may not require this skill, but it’s always a good thing to have more skills and experience with it.
Read the full interview with Rennie
Things in the pipeline
- New data analyst jobs, added daily
- Figuring out what to do with the newsletter
- Monthly US data analyst market insights
- Improving the overall site experience (this one is a never ending activity)
- Continuing to bring you Data Analysts across their experience levels, to share tips, tricks and their thoughts
3 ways you could help
- Looking for a new challenge? Check out the website - I'm adding new jobs daily
- Looking to hire a data analyst to your team? Do you know anyone looking to hire? Shoot me a message on Reddit (or [alex@dataanalyst.com](mailto:alex@dataanalyst.com)) and I'll upgrade your first listing for free!
- As I mentioned, we have an ongoing "Day of a Data Analyst" series. For those of you who are open to do an email based interview about your data analyst career journey, please just send me a message and we'll organise something - would love to get you featured and share your experience with our readers!
Thank you all again, and see you soon.
Alex
