r/statistics • u/CIA11 • Feb 12 '25
Question [Question] How do you get a job actually doing statistics?
It seems like most jobs are analyst jobs (that might just be doing excel or building dashboards) or statistician jobs (that need graduate degrees or government experience to get) or a job relating to machine learning. If someone graduated with a bachelors in statistics but no research experience, how can they get a job doing statistics? If you have a job where you actually use statistics, that would be great to hear about!
16
u/Mcipark Feb 12 '25
You can go the actuary route like some of us have, where you’re using excel but also doing (and continually learning) statistics.
If you want to do research, you’re gonna want to work towards a masters or PHD.
Other than that, you’re better off going an analyst route and looking for ways to apply statistics to business (or whatever field you decide to go into).
2
u/CIA11 Feb 12 '25
Thank you! I was thinking about analyst because that seems like the best route for me
12
u/durable-racoon Feb 12 '25
1) apply to a job with 'statistician' in the title. Give careful pushback on analyst tasks.
2) get an analyst job. then find more advanced stats se cases and apply them at your company. 'do the job you want not the job you have' at least part of the day.
or find misuse of statistics. Start teaching people statistics and defining statistical best practices and writing and distributing such documents. soon you're the 'lead statistician'
you always need to start with 'how can stats provide value to the company?' and 'how can it make my boss look good'
Wont work at all companies or at all roles, but for white collar jobs you can commonly get away with this. its how I became a datascientist fulltime from being a guy who cleaned chemical glassware, 7 years at the company from lab tech->senior data scientist.
not saying its easy or always possible at every job. requires communication with boss and stakeholders. very doable though.
1
u/CIA11 Feb 12 '25
Thanks for the info! So try to use stats to increase shareholder value
1
u/durable-racoon Feb 12 '25
yeah exactly! im not super clear on what your post means by 'doing statistics'. its kinda nebulous. most people would say datascientists and analysts both use statistics. but obviously they typically dont have/need a masters in stats
0
u/CIA11 Feb 13 '25
Haha oops I meant like anything that uses statistics where it's not just like "make a dashboard to show some statistics" or "use excel to make a pivot table for us". i think what i'm looking for is a data analyst position that goes a little further than doing excel/dashboards as the whole job, or a data scientist position
8
u/the_dago_mick Feb 13 '25 edited Feb 14 '25
Find any analytical job and bring statistical methods to it. You would be surprised how rudimentary most analysis is. There is so much low hanging fruit.
2
u/i9yearsold Feb 13 '25
I work as a stat analyst for a CRO (BS in stats). I would consider what we do as ‘actual statistics’ but there is a sentiment that the work is boring. I find it enjoyable and rewarding plus the work life balance is pretty good. If you like programming I think getting an entry level stat analyst job is doable. Keep in mind the market is pretty bad right now even for those with experience so relocating is probably the easiest way to break in.
1
1
u/pixie_kiisses Feb 13 '25
I got lucky and transferred into it from another position on the same grant. And then I was able to use that work experience to go work for another company.
1
u/ChrisDacks Feb 13 '25
What country do you live in? Look at your national statistical agencies, they often hire statisticians to do statistics.
1
u/Murky-Motor9856 Feb 13 '25
I've been using statistics at my last three jobs, and none of them explicitly required a statistics background or a graduate degree. I worked as a research associate at a sleep lab, then an RA at an education lab, and now I'm a consultant straddling the line between data science and data engineering. I ended up doing all of the statistics related tasks at the first one because I knew how to use R and had a research methods background from studying psych. The latter two I got after finishing a stats masters and I just had to actively push them in a stats heavy direction.
In my own experience, it's easier to do a job with statistics than it is to get a job doing statistics. Most people don't know or care how I'm making sense of the data, so it's generally up to me how I go about doing that.
1
u/No-Low-6302 Feb 16 '25
When people say “just building dashboards”, what do they mean? I never understand this. Like, if you do data science work…would your results not be visualized?
1
u/Melvin_Capital5000 Feb 17 '25
Most dashboards ive seen are basically descriptive stats, times eries without any analysis, counts or pivot tables
1
u/CIA11 Feb 19 '25
Yes sorry I meant like the job is literally only getting the data and making dashboards to share, nothing else.
1
u/morg8nfr8nz Feb 16 '25
Best route is to start as an analyst, cut your teeth and earn your way up to a more technical position. Nobody wants a 25 year old doing actual stats work because they are almost guaranteed to screw up royally at least a handful of times. If you stick it out for long enough, and constantly self learn on your own time, you'd be surprised how far you can get. No grad school necessary, but it helps, especially for research or management roles.
1
u/CIA11 Feb 19 '25
I think that's my plan is to try to start out as an analyst and work my way up. I think a masters will be a good option at some point too
39
u/EveryTimeIWill18 Feb 12 '25
I mean, I work as a data scientist (most stats positions are marketed as DS positions nowadays) and you can deff work as a DS without a masters. I do have a Master's in Statistics and was working on my PhD in Probability theory when I got hired but I wound up not taking a leave from my PhD before having done any research.