Explore People Analytics Job Postings (even if you don’t want a new job!)

There are so many open jobs in the People Analytics field today. At the time of this writing the company One Model maintains a page on their website where they compile a list of open people analytics jobs (https://www.onemodel.co/roles-in-people-analytics-hr-technology), it regularly has between 300-600 open people analytics positions at any time! Yet somehow, there also always seem to be a large number of individuals who struggle to find a job. How can that be?

It’s because there are so many different types of people analytics jobs out there and those who are looking for positions have such a variety of skills, experiences, interests and needs in what they are are looking for in a role and in their careers. The issue isn’t having enough jobs or having enough people looking for jobs. The difficulty is in matching the right people to the right jobs. Then consider the complexity of finding a match between work location requirements, salary, culture, work style, communication, and interpersonal preferences – no wonder it can be hard! But just because it is difficult, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. If you are looking for a job, the whole process does get easier when you get clarity and understanding on what you are looking for and when you can more clearly articulate and show how your skills align with what what others are searching for. This step in the process will help you do just that. If you are not looking for a job, do not skip this step! Looking at open job postings is one of the best things you can do for awareness building and self-development, even if you are happy in your current situation and have no plans of looking for a new position. It provides you an understanding of the type of work being done in the field and gives you a way to benchmark your own skills to see if you are up-to-date on what is happening in the field. It can also spark new ideas for how to apply your skills.

Action – Explore Job Postings to Identify in Demand People Analytics Skills:

1. Identify at least five different job postings that look interesting to you. Choose any currently posted position in the People Analytics field. It does not need to be a role you feel you would apply to today but it should be one you find interesting and that could be fulfilling for you in some way or at some point in your career. It should be a real job, actively seeking applicants today – this provides validation that the skills indicated in the posting are in fact things someone is willing to pay for. Tips for finding and selecting job postings to review:
   • Look beyond the title. Not all people analytics jobs come up in a simple search for “People Analytics.” Instead, focus on responsibilities and use keyword searching rather than relying on the job title alone. Look for phrases like “data analysis,” “workforce analytics,” “reporting,” and others you’ve read about in this guide that excite you paired with descriptions of “Areas of Practice” described in the last section of this book or descriptions that mention people practices.
   • Consider the type of work that excites and energizes you. Do you gravitate toward technical analysis, strategic problem-solving, or research and experimentation? Reflect on the different job roles described in the last section and select some that interest you. Going back to your strengths assessment earlier and entering those skills as keywords can also help with this.
   • Mix it up. Try not to include job postings from only one type of role or area. This is an exploration activity. Mix it up and see what’s out there. You might be surprised when you look beyond the title and assess them in this new way.
2. For each job posting you select, fill in the tables below. For each job that you analyze,
   1. Identify the expected job duties, responsibilities, requirements, qualifications, and/or skills necessary for the job. Summarize and simplify them, and input what you believe to be the most important expectations for the role in the first column of the table.
   2. Alongside each expectation, indicate the skill(s) needed to meet that expectation. If more than one skill is needed, you may need to use more than one row per job expectation. For example, if a job posting listed, “Ensure data integrity and accuracy in all reports and analyses” as a job responsibility, you would write that responsibility in the first column, but you might need to use three rows because this responsibility might require the three different skills of 1) Data Cleaning, 2) Data Quality Management, and 3) Data Governance (see example below).
   3. Continue this until you feel you have filled in the table for the most critical and differentiating requirements of the job. You do not need to list everything indicated in the job posting, and it is up to you how many or how few differentiating requirements you include. These first few steps of the activity can be a bit tricky since you will need to do a lot of the work of sifting through what items are really important and which are generic, understanding and translating the requirements, and identifying the implied but not explicitly stated job requirements. Here are some tips for doing that as you review the job postings:
      • Job descriptions have a lot of information, you don’t need to include everything from the posting in this activity. Start by looking at the skills required and key responsibilities. If there are specific types of analytics, technology, or business skills clearly required as part of the role, those go on the list. When deciding what else to put down, look for items that seem to be unique or critical to this role.
      • The job descriptions will use different wording than we have used in this book. You’ll need to use your translator skills and make some assumptions. For example, if a job posting requires “Tableau expertise,” you may need to first look up what Tableau is. Since Tableau is a visual analytics platform, you would translate that to the skill “Data Visualization Tools” and even if the job posting never said the words data visualization, you might want to go ahead and assume you’ll probably need some of those other data visualization skills we talked about in the “Data Visualization Skills” section in Step 3 if you saw this requirement.  
   4. Once you have your job expectations and the required skills identified, use your previous self-discovery exercises to conduct an interest and strength analysis. For each skill in the table, indicate if it was one you are interested or passionate about.
   5. Then mark if it was one you personally felt was a strength of yours (this should simply be whether or not you marked it as a strength in the prior activity of this chapter).
   6. Finally assess whether you believe your current level of skill matches, or is close to, the required level of skill for this job posting. If it is, that means you would not require further development in order to meet the job requirements. And whether or not you want to do any further development of this skill. Remember, any self-assessment activity can be difficult since it is not only hard to assess ourselves, but this will carry the added difficulty of not being able to know exactly how those who wrote the job description may define a skill level. In some instances you may be lucky and the posting may describe what it means to be proficient in a particular skill in a way similar to those we use in this book. Other times it will be more subjective and you will need to use your best judgement. Here are some tips to help you fill in the “Further Development Needed” column: 
      •  Do not worry too much about accuracy; if you feel that you could realistically perform actions as described in the posting, you probably do not need significant development and can indicate a “No.”
      • This is an exploration activity and you can personalize it however you like. If you don’t know whether it is a Yes or No, feel free to write “Maybe” “Some” “A little” or go deeper and list the nuances. (e.g., “I am really good at the X and Y parts of doing it, but still need to develop more when it comes to doing the Z part of it.” 
      • The purpose of  the Development column is simply to allow you the opportunity to reflect on and distinguish between skills that you may want to develop for the purposes of meeting job requirements and those that you would for you distinguish between things others want you to have a skill in and those you want to develop in.
      • Example: 

        Job Title & Company #1: HR Data Analyst, Reporting” at Healthcare Company	Skill	Passion	Strength	Fit
        Job Expectations	Are you currently skilled in it?	Is it an interest or passion?	Did you assess it as a strength in the last activity?	Is further development needed to meet the job requirements?
        From responsibilities section: “Ensure data integrity and accuracy in all reports and analyses.”	Data Quality Management	Interest	Yes	No
        	Data Cleaning	Interest	Yes	No
        	Data Governance	Interest	No	Yes
        From required qualifications section: “Familiarity with data visualization tools such as Tableau or Power BI.”	Data Visualization Tools	No	No	Yes
        From responsibilities section: “Collaborate with the People Analytics team to assist in various projects.”	Collaborative Teamwork	Passion	Yes	No
        	Active Listening	Interest	Yes	No

         

3. Analyze in-demand skills. The table you created is now filled with in-demand skills. Through this activity you identified a set of People Analytics skills others need and are willing to pay someone to do. Analyze them. What do you notice? Which skills came up more than once? How do the in-demand skills relate to your current strengths and interests?
4. Identify your ikigai.
   • Current ikigai. If you have any skills for which you indicated a strength AND an interest or passion, then you’ve identified ikigai opportunities. This is where the things you are good at align with career opportunities, and happily they align with career opportunities you will enjoy! Highlight or circle these skills. Take note of them. These are special.
   • Future ikigai. Next, look for any skills where you have an interest or passion, but not yet strength. These are special too. These are the ones where ikigai is waiting for you at the end of your development journey. Mark and take note of these. These will likely be skills where you’ll want to focus your self-development efforts.
   • If you got to this point in the exercise and you didn’t have any skills that are current or possible future ikigai opportunities for you. Then the jobs you reviewed may not be the right fit for you. Take note of this as you follow the next step of evaluating career paths and then repeat the process with different job postings that are dissimilar from the ones you started with.
5. Evaluating career paths.
   1. Assess job fit. Analyze the outputs of your activity to see how well each job fit your strengths and interests. For each job that you assessed, what percentage of the requirements aligned to your current strengths or to things you already wanted to develop on? How well do they align to your interests or passions? What similarities or differences did you notice between the different types of jobs you reviewed and how well they fit you? When you review the column for “Development Needed,” would you be happy in a role like this knowing that you would need to spend your time learning and developing those skills if you were to follow this path?
      • There’s no correct definition of “fit” – if it excites you and you are willing to develop the skills needed to be successful, it’s a fit. But, if you would like a little more guidance, keep this in mind. Finding the right job role is a lot like shopping for clothes. You want something that matches your style and fits you well, but finding clothing perfectly tailored to your body is rare. Aim for around a 70% fit, this leaves room for you to develop and grow. You also might discover that some of those skills you thought you weren’t interested in become exciting when they are combined with a lot of things you do enjoy.
   2. Repeat the job posting exploration activity as needed. If you got to this point in the exercise and you don’t have any skills that are current or possible future ikigai opportunities for you. Or, when you assessed job fit, you found that the jobs you assessed don’t fit your interests well, then congratulations! You are so much closer on your career planning journey because you have started to learn which types of jobs may be less appealing to you, and you have likely freed yourself from trying to pursue a career that may not have been well suited to you. Now, you can go look at others.
      • If you need to find additional jobs to evaluate because the others didn’t fit quite right, the clothes shopping analogy is apt here as well. When shopping for clothes, you get to bring multiple items into a fitting room to try them on. Treat this activity the same way. Maybe you need to try different styles (i.e., different job types). Or just a different size. For example, maybe you are or are not ready for a position with level of responsibilities required than you realized. Or, maybe you’ve been following a misguided belief that you are only supposed to go “up” the career path you are currently on. Maybe you’ll discover you’d actually be happier taking a different level role on a new path that’s more fulfilling. You don’t have to buy every piece of clothing you try on, so go ahead and have fun, try on some new and different things to see what’s out there.

Note. This activity was designed around job postings because they are easily searchable online. You can also do this activity by considering projects available in your workplace, consulting or freelance work, or volunteer opportunities.

Tip. Since many job postings exist online for only a short time, you may want to save a copy of any aspect from the job posting that was valuable to you from this activity.