Soft Skills You Need For A Career in Data in 2024 | by Rashi Desai | Apr, 2024

Now that you know how to code & visualize data, what’s next?

In the rapidly expanding technological world, data-related careers have strongly emerged in the market over the past few years, and the demand for a professional with skills to understand and translate data skyrocketed. Over the past few years, organizations have seen an exponential rise in the quantity and quality of data careers, and there has been an equivalent rise in the number of people interested in data careers.

However, the job market today is tougher to crack than ever. With a delayed hit from the pandemic, companies are freezing hiring and laying off employees. That only scares a professional in the data landscape. In my opinion, you could bring the correct set of hard skills to the table but that is not enough. How will YOU create a unique and comprehensive value is a more important question to the hiring managers.

When I started my career in data in 2020 with my Data Science Intern with PepsiCo, I had a lot to learn. Through a year-long internship, I learned, unlearned, and developed a sense that soft skills are equally (sometimes more) important with having the hard skills like coding and manipulating data.

While I can say that I’m enhancing my soft skills each day, I wanted to highlight a few soft skills (in no particular order) that have worked in my favor in the past four years and helped me make progress in my career.

Last year, I attended a fireside chat with my company’s president and one of the learnings he shared for people starting in their careers is to showcase accountability and that people who show accountability stand out in the organization. That stayed with me.

As professionals, we have to be answerable for the success and failure of our work, regardless of a managerial role. Keeping accountability in mind, I like to plan the impact of my work on others on my team, the stakeholders, and the value it creates.

Even if you are not a manager, you will be at some point and accountability governs your Behavior in times of responsibility. With accountability, as I work for my inner boss, I am also better able to align…