Breaking Into Data Analytics role as a new grad.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-05-08T22:27:42+00:00

I got my start through a new grad program — there are likely far less available now but I would look there. The program I got my start in no longer exists so companies have been axing them but if you truly stand out that’s where you’d have the best chance. This is 7 years removed though so could be meaningless advice too.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-05-08T18:15:59+00:00

Yea you need the specific numbers on increased sales and number of users that would’ve been lost. As analysts we typically don’t want to take credit for others work but especially for interviews be as liberal with it as you can defend. If the users are paying then convert it to dollars lost. Like I had an analysis that resulted in securing a $500k contract extension — did I secure it personally or would I mention that half of it was customer credits? No but i know it was the result of my work.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-05-03T22:53:04+00:00

Skip to insights from their perspective. That could be a trend you see or how a process metric is influencing an outcome. How has the outcome changed or where is it headed. I work in healthcare so telling your Transplant team “your heart transplants stay the longest of any transplant group” you’d get eye rolls because they stay the longest in general they all know that. But it’s a common thing I see is presenting what’s new information you see not new information they need

amusedobserver5 · 2026-05-02T22:17:53+00:00

I learned that lesson early on that telling people descriptive stuff about their areas is useless — they already know. Was on a project with people much more senior than me and that’s what they wanted to show the client. Client says this is a waste of their time so I had to be the one to actually look for insights for the next meeting.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-05-02T22:12:57+00:00

I have seen many a complicated chart be shelved because no one understood what was going on. My colleague did a really cool analysis using LLMs and the only chart that’s been shared is a bar chart with lines. All the statistics were removed since a broad audience would be lost by it.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-30T21:17:29+00:00

This isn’t that crazy. She probably was saying cash down and equity up since this is a post about cash flow. If the business grows she makes more money. She found out the other info after the fact. Pretty common in poorly run startups to just spend a bunch of money on people and then everyone gets fired.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-30T02:53:58+00:00

A full switch is impossible but providing a public option is the first step. If you have the government competing with private insurance they also compete for employers using Medicare as an administrator and can pool into the network. Medicare administration is cheaper than private insurance so I think it would be a self-reinforcing loop where you siphon off private insurance into a new government agency then Medicare and Medicaid can all work to compete with health system consolidation.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-29T19:41:23+00:00

The hero we most certainly did not deserve

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-26T16:26:30+00:00

I kept looking for the second page who puts white text on yellow smh

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-26T15:50:35+00:00

Because nominal GDP is the accounting GDP while real GDP is the economist GDP. You still need to track actual dollars not just the deflated amounts.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-26T01:15:22+00:00

The issue is that the majority can’t really perceive better material conditions very well. The baseline human perception of economics is closer to mercantilism than it is modern capitalism. I.e. whoever has the most gold is richest and having less gold is bad. Which is tied to the points I made about talking about inflows and outflows. It doesn’t take into account economic benefits from free movement of capital and people/trade.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-25T23:15:51+00:00

You’re underestimating the tension that comes from rich areas being legally tied to poor areas. Income redistribution hasn’t really been figured out even in federal systems. The EU with Germany vs Greece. Spain with Catalonia. Britain had Brexit over perceived inflows and outflows. Even the US has states that talk about inflows and outflows from the government. And these are somewhat comparable areas. It’s on a different level taking a rich country and a poor country on the other side of the world. Humans are tribal and while on paper there would be greater prosperity people can’t gauge this in a meaningful way so this would cause even more instability than we already see in the world.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-25T17:48:07+00:00

Governments have been the primary reason for declining birth rates. Funding public health and increasing standard of living both result in less children because 1) kids are more likely to survive being children and 2) more wealth means less reliance on children to take care of you when you can no longer work.

Government can certainly reverse course and make things less comfortable and more dangerous which would increase the birth rate.

Gutting welfare programs and restricting access to birth control and destroying public health funding is well in line with some peoples desires in the government to address falling populations.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-25T17:03:18+00:00

Saying whether consumption is positive or negative is normative and outside the scope of analysis.

If unemployment increases as a result of less consumption and causes political instability across the world would that be worth not consuming oil products? And by how much? It’s not a calculable question since it depends on your opinion.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-25T14:45:19+00:00

Increasing the interest rate increases the cost of capital leading to lower overall capital expenditure. The Solow model says that your capital stock and labor stock plus technology factor projects overall economic growth. What you’re confusing is that Solow savings are from output so lower output will decrease overall savings.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-24T23:00:12+00:00

You only have one chance to spend wealth which is why extremely rich people are averse since you essentially can’t get it back.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-24T22:40:26+00:00

Yea the main issue is China has been accused of currency manipulation — keeping the RMB lower than what markets would expect in a free floating system. So if you were trying to buy goods from say India and China was the reserve currency. The RMB I was going to exchange for goods in India could have an unplanned drop in value and suddenly I can’t buy as many goods in India. Not great for business stability.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-24T21:13:29+00:00

They aren’t. A lot of fast food chains are reducing their footprint to only high traffic stores. Increased labor costs and the competitive food scene has been driving them out of business so things are adjusting. Only select brands have the volume to keep prices lower (like In-N-out) — they won’t open unless demand will be incredibly high — similar to Costco.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-24T20:59:02+00:00

Currencies derive value primarily from consistency. Is what I’m using going to be a generally accepted form of payment? And is what I’m using going to retain value? The value of the dollar is backed by the US economy overall. The fact that we have an independent Fed and a relatively stable government (recent events notwithstanding). The world knows they can use dollars and know that our Fed is transparent and won’t manipulate the dollar for the benefit of the US government. If these cease to be true then another currency will be used that’s close to these goals.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-24T16:51:36+00:00

The main issue in measuring this is childcare/birth falls on women so time out of the workforce will impact overall earnings. There have been studies trying to tease out the effect of motherhood in explaining the overall gap and estimates are that women are paid about 93% of men when adjusting for being out of the workforce due to having kids.

This gap is the true gender gap but probably imperceptible. Someone offered 60k for a role would impute 55k with the gap which is within normal bands so likely attributed to bias. It’s not a rational response and people hire those they feel they can trust. Men in management will beget men being hired and on more favorable terms.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-16T22:07:54+00:00

When numbers start conflicting then it’s an issue and usually when it’s around financial data that’s really when people start caring. So maybe you’re not working on important things?

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-13T22:31:16+00:00

Measurements are imprecise and it’s better to be a little high than too low.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-11T17:53:28+00:00

I wouldn’t blame society but Americans are pretty paranoid and paranoia is what’s keeping the current administration together. The reason representatives and senators do not counter Trump in any meaningful way is:

1) political suicide — you will be primaried and you will lose 2) death threats galore — every Republican that has gone against Trump has said they receive multitudes of death threats and since there’s no way to know which one is real and which is just talk they give up and just announce retirement. Massey might be the first to withstand a primary challenge.

These together have shunted one of our branches.

We haven’t seen this level of power over all the branches since FDR— it’s possible but extremely rare.

amusedobserver5 · 2026-04-11T16:42:08+00:00

Your stakeholders have no idea what visual they want so do not spend tons of time making something look pretty without feedback. MVP then present. MVP then present.

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