While the job market isn’t the most friendly place right now, throwing applications at any role may get you the income you’re looking for to survive. But, it won’t serve you long-term in being fulfilled and growing your career.
Especially coming from a more generalist role or if you’re new to analytics and starting your job search, you may be seeing a dizzying array of titles: Marketing Analyst, Supply Chain Analyst, Financial Analyst, Product Analyst, People Analytics Specialist... the list goes on. It can be a little overwhelming.
Choosing a specialization and narrowing your job search can feel limiting, but I don’t think it’s actually limiting. You can build more specific resumes and cover letters to the roles you’re applying for, rather than needing to figure out how your experience fits into whatever analytics role you find at that very moment.
Also, building deep experience in a niche can absolutely open doors. While you should consider the tradeoffs, I won’t go into how you should balance your “T” shaped skills here. June Dershewitz just wrote about this and she does a far better job than I would explaining that concept. I recommend you read her article.
Here’s a simple, four-part framework to find a niche and better define your career journey.
Step 1: Take Inventory of Your Strengths and Interests
Before you look at a single job description, look in the mirror. The best specialization for you lies at the intersection of what you're good at, what you enjoy, and what the market values.
Ask yourself:
- What problems do I enjoy solving? Do you get a kick out of understanding customer behavior (Marketing or Product)? Do you love creating efficiency in complex systems (Supply Chain or Operations)?
- What business topics pique your curiosity? If you're often reading about market trends, M&A’s, and company valuations, Finance could be a great place for you. If you are interested in HR and hiring trends, People Analytics might be a good fit.
- What was my favorite project so far? Think back on your work. What project made you forget about the clock? Was it building a forecast, analyzing customer feedback, or finding process bottlenecks? I realized in my Supply Chain Strategy & Transformation role, I really liked standing up new processes and building technical solutions, so I leaned into that when finding my next role in product and community.
If you need a little help taking inventory on your strengths, check out my article Unlocking Success as an Analyst: Building Your “Q” Skills.
Step 2: Determine the Market Opportunity
This is where you align your internal interests with external demand. As I mentioned in the beginning, identifying where opportunities are will not only help you land a job you enjoy now, but also where you can grow your career in the future.
You’ll need to think like an analyst and use the data to figure this out.
- Become a Job Board Analyst: Spend at least an hour a week on LinkedIn, Indeed, Zip Recruiter, and other job boards. Rather than just scrolling, analyze the trends. What are the common skills required for the roles that sound interesting? What tools keep popping up?
- Identify Growth Areas: AI & ML Analysts (or Data Scientist Roles), People Analytics and Product Analytics are huge in 2025, but this can change. Follow industry leaders in analytics and track what they’re talking about.
- Look at the Salary Data: I’m not going to pretend that compensation doesn’t matter. It absolutely does. Use sites like Glassdoor and Levels.fyi to understand the earning potential in different specializations. Compensation isn’t everything, but it’s important.
Once you’ve mapped out what aligns with your Strengths and Interests and what the market dictates, you’re ready to move into the experimentation phase.
Step 3: Run Low-Risk “Pilot Programs”
Once you have self-examined and researched the market, you should have a shortlist of 1-2 specializations you want to chase.
Now, if you don’t have specific experience in those areas, you’ll need to test it out to see if you’ll actually enjoy it. Don’t spend too much time in any one area, this is meant to be small pilots so you can try several things out.
- Take a Course: Intrigued by product analytics? Find a short course on Mixpanel or Amplitude. Don't commit to a six-month certification, start on YouTube or other free resources. Then, go deeper if you’re enjoying it.
- Do a Project and Add it to Your Portfolio: Go to Kaggle or find a public dataset (Data.gov is great) related to an industry you're exploring. Build a small portfolio project around it. Did you enjoy the process? Did the questions you were answering feel meaningful?
- Read Industry Blogs: Follow blogs and influencers in the specializations you're considering. Do their problems and solutions resonate with you? This is an easy way to immerse yourself in a specific domain.
- Pro Move - Get Real World Experience: Is it possible for you to stretch into a department at your current job where you may have interest? See if you can take on a “stretch assignment” or temporary project to see it’s a good fit. This is definitely the pro tip. If you can do this, you will have actual resume experience in a real world role and can be a stepping stone within your current organization.
Keep a running list of what you like and don’t like during this phase, and go back to step 1 if you need to rethink your choices.
Step 4: Learn from Someone Who's Been There
This is potentially the most powerful step, and it’s the one a lot of people skip. You need to talk to people who are already doing the job you think you want.
Their real-world experience is worth more than a hundred job descriptions. Ask them:
- "What's the most challenging part of your job?"
- "What's a problem you solved recently that you were really proud of?"
- "What do you wish you knew before you got into this specialization, is there anything you would change?"
I actually had NO idea I wanted to get into supply chain & logistics until I shadowed a leader when I was an hourly employee at Best Buy. This ended up changing the trajectory of the rest of my career, because I realized that what I liked about problem solving as a technician translated extremely well to logistics management (and eventually Supply Chain analyst work).
If you want to hear more about the journey I took, you can read about that here.
Step 4.5: Leverage Your Network
OK, before you get back to scrolling, let’s put what we just learned into motion. You can do both of the below in less than 5 minutes (I’ve timed it!) and get one of the steps moving right now.
- Join the Conversation: Create a post in the GOATs Community and ask about a specialization you are curious about. Our supportive community will jump in and share their experience with you.
- Get Expert Guidance: Ready to go deeper? The GOATs Mentorship Program is designed to connect you with experienced analysts who can give you the real-world advice you need to make your next move with confidence.
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