Alter Everything Podcast

AlteryxMatt · ‎08-28-2024

In this episode, we dive deep into the analytics industry with Sarah Golnik Roberts, a data analytics professional who successfully transitioned into the field. Sarah shares her inspiring journey, revealing how her first Alteryx workflow revolutionized her company's analytics by cutting 80% of ad hoc work. She also offers practical tips for career changers looking to break into tech, including her passion for Alteryx that even led to a tattoo! Tune in to gain valuable insights into building a successful career in data analytics and tech.

Panelists

Sarah Golnik Roberts, Alteryx Trainer @ Data Meaning - @SGolnik, LinkedIn
Megan Bowers, Sr. Content Manager @ Alteryx - @MeganBowers, LinkedIn

Topics

Ep 166 (YT thumb).png

Transcript

Episode Transcription

Ep 166 Career Journey into Analytics

[00:00:00] Megan Bowers: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Megan Bowers, and today I am talking with Sarah Roberts, an Alteryx trainer at Data Meaning and New Alteryx Ace. In this episode, we chat about her journey into the analytics field as a self-taught data analyst, her advice to other career changers and analytics job seekers.

And how personal branding and networking play a role in career development. Let's get started. Hey Sarah, it's great to have you on our show today. Could you give a quick introduction to yourself, where you work, where you're located, for our listeners?

[00:00:38] Sarah Roberts: Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. I am Sarah Roberts. I currently work for Data, meaning I've been with them for almost a year and a half now.

I live in a little town in North Carolina that most people have never heard of. Reedsville for anyone in the area, but for anyone who does it, just I'm in North Carolina.

[00:01:02] Megan Bowers: Cool. Well, I'm excited to chat today about your career journey and your experience with Alteryx. So I think we could just start off with you walking us through your story and your career journey, how you got to being at data meeting now.

[00:01:17] Sarah Roberts: Yeah, so I have a unique journey. I actually dropped out of college to start my family and get married, so I didn't have that college degree to fall back on when I got divorced, when my son was really young, I just took a job in customer service. I was so scared as a single mom to step out of customer service that I stayed in that role for nine years.

But I learned every skill I could, and I volunteered for every project possible. Then I finally got the right people leader that was like, why are you here? You can do so much more. So she encouraged me to get a job on the service desk for our analytics and system support teams. In that role, very quickly I started noticing things like trends in the tickets, trends that I was alerting management to with system issues.

And then I was like, you know, I really want better data. So I redesigned our entire ticketing system just to get better data so I could do better reporting on it. And that was the wake up call that I am a data person. I just have that ability by just instinct to be able to spot trends in the data and spot outliers in data.

And so I started working towards getting a role on our analytics team, and that took a few positions in order for me to get to our analytics team simply because I didn't have a background in analytics. I kept growing my skills and every time I would learn new skills, I would ask management for a promotion or a change in title.

I would say, I'm doing all of this that isn't part of my regular work anymore. Then I finally landed on our analytics team, and all I was doing at that point was modifying business objects, distribution reports, the lists for the reports. It was quite boring, but management still understood that I picked up on new software and things very quickly.

So when it came up that Alteryx was doing a half day training on site, and this was in the fall of 2016, they sent me and they're like, Hey, go check out this software. These two guys from sales kind of backdoored it into the system and we just wanna see what it's about. Those two guides from sales. Were the only Alteryx users so far in our company.

And you know, I went through this training, I was like, okay, this is really cool. I don't know what we're gonna use it for yet, but it's cool. Fast forward a week. I was in a team meeting and we had this business analyst that was talking about this problem we had been trying to solve for years. It was all about self-service analytics.

The problem with creating a platform for self-service analytics is that you have to have knowledge to create a platform like that. And we had all of these different data sources. It was going to be a coding nightmare. We never could solve this problem. And I was like, you know, I think Alteryx could do this.

They have these analytic apps. And that was the aha moment for me. I built my first analytic app within a couple weeks. That was my very first workflow ever. Did not know how to even query any of the SQL databases at that time, so I borrowed queries from the analysts that were doing the work, and I built these analytic apps and it completely changed the face of our organization.

Ended up ultimately removing 80% of the ad hoc work from our analytics team. Wow. So that we start moving up the analytic curve. That's huge.

[00:05:27] Megan Bowers: That's a huge impact for your first workflow ever. I feel like you should have a prize for that. That's amazing. I think my first workflow was like adding up some columns or something.

That's amazing. Super cool how you got into analytics through perseverance, learning new skills. I'm curious what resources really helped you change your career too. You mentioned taking on projects at work, but what were some helpful resources through Alteryx or otherwise?

[00:05:59] Sarah Roberts: I am completely self-taught in analytics.

I just learned on the job and I learned on my Saturday mornings. I would leverage the Alteryx communities learning resources. I love the interactive lessons. Those are my favorites. And then I also leveraged other things like LinkedIn Learning and other free learning platforms like the Google developer site has a lot of the classes that they teach, the actual developers at Google.

So by leveraging these free resources, I not only upped my Alteryx game, but I was also able to become a Python full stack developer and work with other technologies, even within Alteryx because I gain these extra skills. So then that brings me to when my time at that company came to a close. I knew I left on my own terms.

I had been with my previous company for 17 years. I knew it was time to move on, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, so I was just gonna take six months off and figure it out. That's when I applied for one of the Spark licenses. I was able to leverage that license to start studying for my advanced certification while I was still job hunting.

So by the time I got hired at Data, meaning I had my designer Core certification and Advanced certification.

[00:07:36] Megan Bowers: Yeah. I love that program and how they support Job Searchers in addition to, I. Students and educators. I think that's huge for filling that gap and that's awesome that you're able to get your advanced while you are in between looking for your next thing.

So very inspiring. Overall, excited for our listeners to be inspired, and I'm wondering what advice you would have for listeners who are looking to break into analytics.

[00:08:02] Sarah Roberts: Well, analytics is one of those constantly changing industries. We can see now the focus is starting to be on gen AI and more machine learning, so it's just constantly changing.

Back when I was getting started, it was everybody needed to learn Python and r. My best advice is be open to learning new skills. Keep your skills fresh, learn new softwares. Soak up the knowledge of people around you that have more knowledge in a subject than you do. So when working with Alteryx, leverage the community.

Leverage the people that are answering these questions. Get their expertise. Pick their brains. Reach out to the ACEs on LinkedIn. Ask them questions. We are here to help. By leveraging these resources and these people, you're going to up your game and you're going to constantly be moving forward in your career.

[00:09:08] Megan Bowers: For individuals who don't have the same educational background, they didn't start out in analytics, do you have advice for them on how to position themselves as they're looking for analytics jobs and applying?

[00:09:22] Sarah Roberts: Absolutely. One of the most important things that I have learned is read the job descriptions.

Don't eliminate jobs strictly by the job title. Read the full job description. If you are missing something like an educational background piece like a degree, but you have the years of experience and the ability to do that work. In addition to applying for the job, reach out to people that work at that company.

Reach out to the hiring manager that's listed on the job post. Reach out to them through LinkedIn. Find others that work at that company to give you an internal referral. You will be much more likely to be able to land that job if you make those individual connections as opposed to just applying through the website or LinkedIn or Workday, whatever platform they use.

The reasoning being that a lot of these online platforms will actually sort through your resume, and if you're missing one of those key skills or components, it'll just throw out your application altogether. But having that connection and getting an internal referral from somebody actually goes a lot further to getting seen.

Many of these companies, while they say they require a specific degree in reality, they'll accept years of experience. So if they don't have a years of experience equivalent, again, reach out to the hiring managers. But networking is going to be your key. And then also look at the jobs that you're interested in and see what other skills you need to learn.

In order to position yourself to be hired into one of those positions. So if it's saying that they want you to use Alteryx, but also Tableau, get a temporary Tableau license. Learn some Tableau skills. Take a LinkedIn class. I love the LinkedIn learning ones because they add little badges and skills to your profile, and we can apply for jobs using our LinkedIn profiles.

Those are my best tidbits of advice for applying for a new position.

[00:11:41] Megan Bowers: Yeah, those are great pieces of advice, and I can echo the networking component for sure. It is so important, especially in this job market, where there's a lot of applicants making those connections and getting referrals or just finding out more kind of inside scoop on the position.

It can go a long way, and I know networking can feel scary, especially to introverts or to people who are new to the field or whatnot, but there's so many different things that can count as networking, and you can do it online as well as in person. There's a lot of options these days for networking, so I think it's definitely a good skill to practice, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Absolutely. What about people who are dealing with imposter syndrome? Did you ever feel that as you were going through this journey?

[00:12:32] Sarah Roberts: I suffer from imposter syndrome every day of being somebody who is self-taught, and I always placed a high value on education. I've always felt like I was not quite as good as others, even though we all did the same work, simply because I didn't have that degree.

And the way you counteract that is to keep growing and learning by continuously improving my skills. I feel like I am constantly upping my game and it's helping me not feel that imposter syndrome quite as much, but it's really easy to fall into that trap. And get self-deprecating with your thoughts when there's no need, especially if you're passing things like these certification tests that Alteryx has.

That's your proof that you belong.

[00:13:28] Megan Bowers: Yeah, totally. It's really easy to fall into that trap of thinking into thinking, you know, if you don't come from the educational background as your coworkers, all that stuff. Something that I realized when I was doing analytics at Stanley Black and Decker was. So many people were moving into analytics from different fields and from different projects, and it was like they were in finance and then they got assigned this one project and found their way into data.

And also talking to people on this show about how many different backgrounds people come from into the analytics field has also been encouraging to me as well. I really do think that keeping up with the technology and doing projects is just so much more indicative of skills in the field rather than what path you found into the analytics field.

So I think it's great. I love talking to people on the show that come from all different backgrounds. I believe we had a blog article on someone who was a yoga teacher before she got into analytics. So you really can, you can do it from anywhere and there's tons of resources. So it's really fun.

[00:14:34] Sarah Roberts: Absolutely. My boss even was a lawyer in Brazil before he fell into the analytics world. So regardless of what you've been trained in, you can make it in this field if you have that drive and determination to do so.

[00:14:51] Megan Bowers: That's great. I'm also wondering about how personal branding has helped you make contacts, elevate your career.

We talked a little bit about this earlier, but yeah. What are some ways that putting yourself out there or building your personal brand has helped you?

[00:15:06] Sarah Roberts: I have a unique personal brand experience in that when I was developing a tattooed sleeve for my arm, I was trying to figure out a way to tie everything together.

And I happened to be working in Alteryx and I had that kind of light bulb moment, and so I actually turned my tattooed sleeve into an intertwined with an Alteryx workflow. So all of my favorite things are on the lower part of my arm within a macro, so I always remember to repeat my favorite things. Oh, I love that.

Yeah. So it, it became this kind of fun thing that I did, but ultimately it made me very famous in the Alteryx community as that person with the Alteryx tattoos. You know, I wasn't even very far in my analytics career when I decided to do this, and I just, I shared my pictures, um, my tattoo session on Twitter and tagged Alteryx in it, the former CEO of Alteryx and Co-founder Dean Stoker.

Saw it, retweeted it, shared it, and I just started blowing up in the Alteryx community as this crazy person that got these Alteryx tattoos. It's a way of also telling people how passionate I am about not just this product, but what it's done in my life. It's become a conversation starter for me. I am. An introvert, and I am not a very people person when I'm in big crowds and things, but I can use my tattoo as my introduction to anybody new in a crowd.

That's one of those things that I feel is really important, whether it a tattoo that sets you apart or you've come up with a great elevator pitch to be able to introduce yourself. Having something memorable about yourself when you're introducing yourself to others in the community is going to be important for you.

And it could be something work related, it could be something personal related, or it could even be something physical on you like your tattoos or your hair. Just setting yourself apart and doing that personal branding to be memorable.

[00:17:41] Megan Bowers: Totally. I feel like people sometimes think that when you're building your professional brand, it can't cross a line into who you are as a person, or there's like personal and then there's professional and they're separated.

But I feel like I've learned recently, I. Like I build my brand on LinkedIn and I post a lot on there and I post it about getting married and then we go to the Inspire conference and so many people congratulated me and it was so sweet. It was a great to point, like I had hesitated to post that 'cause I was like, do people really wanna know that on LinkedIn?

Do people really care? You gotta walk the line. It's not Facebook, but still it was really sweet to build a connection with people in that way. And the fact that they remembered I was so shocked how many people remembered and brought it up. So there's like lots of ways that you can add a personal touch and you know, people like to get to know you outside of just what your portfolio.

So I love that tip. I think that building your brand, it's important to share who you are. Let people get to know you and love the tip about starting conversations as an introvert, because networking is hard for introverts.

[00:18:53] Sarah Roberts: It definitely is. It definitely is. And one of the things that we need to think about when it comes to branding yourself is that types have changed.

I remember going and speaking at my first Inspire conference in 2017. I wore a dress that showed off all of my tattoos on my arms, and so many people were coming up to me just going, I can't believe you're up there and a dress without sleeves, and you're showing all these tattoos. Now it's become more common and more acceptable to have tattoos and tastefully colored streaks in your hair.

So let people get to know the real you, and I promise you, you will be rewarded for it.

[00:19:43] Megan Bowers: I love that. One thing I wanted to chat about was, you know, now that you've progressed all the way in your career, you're an Alteryx ace. Now, I don't know if we mentioned that, but in what ways are you able to mentor others and take others along on this journey?

[00:20:00] Sarah Roberts: Sure. Yeah, so being an eighth is one of the greatest honors I've ever received, getting a name to be an eighth this year, so I'm really excited about that. Now I am really taking more of an active role in my user group, which is one of those things that I do. I am one of the co-leaders for the Research Triangle user group in North Carolina.

Shout out, we are a virtual user group in case anyone ever wants to join us. Awesome. In addition to that, Alteryx also has their mentorship program, and I am signed up to be a mentor for others. I also have been mentoring people unofficially through LinkedIn. Anyone who reaches out, how do I become an ace?

How do I get to that next step in my career? I feel like all of us ACEs are mentors in that respect, so don't ever hesitate to reach out to us and ask those questions, but also. Really a big plug for Alteryx's new mentorship program. I think this is a great program. You can go out and you could search for people by name, by their skills.

You can even see things you have in common with those people. Like I have in my profile that I ride motorcycles and do off-roading. So you can even find people by what they do on their off time. In there and that way you're working with a mentor that you can relate to.

[00:21:37] Megan Bowers: Yeah, that's super fun. Yeah, I've heard great things about the Sparked Mentor Program and I know that they're looking for both students who want to be mentored as well as professionals who want to mentor others, and even professionals who are interested in speaking at classes.

So just to call to action to our listeners, if you're interested, we will link that program in our show notes for you to find and go sign up and get connected. It's been really great to have you on our show today, Sarah. Really fun to hear about your journey. What's one last thing you would leave our listeners with if you want them to remember one thing from this episode?

[00:22:16] Sarah Roberts: The one thing that I would just like to reiterate to everyone is. Never stop looking for the unsolvable bull problems, figuring out your ways to solve those problems. And I guarantee you in the data and analytics space, Alteryx is going to help you solve 99% of those unsolvable problems in your organization.

[00:22:43] Megan Bowers: That's great. Well, thanks for joining us today. It's been really fun to talk with you, and I'll see you later. Thanks for listening to Sign Up to be a mentor or mentee on Alteryx Mentor Connect. You can follow the link in our show notes at alteryx.com/podcast. See you next time.

Ep 166 Career Journey into Analytics [00:00:00] Megan Bowers: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Megan Bowers, and today I am talking with Sarah Roberts, an Alteryx trainer at Data Meaning and New Alteryx Ace. In this episode, we chat about her journey into the analytics field as a self-taught data analyst, her advice to other career changers and analytics job seekers. And how personal branding and networking play a role in career development. Let's get started. Hey Sarah, it's great to have you on our show today. Could you give a quick introduction to yourself, where you work, where you're located, for our listeners? [00:00:38] Sarah Roberts: Yeah, sure. Thanks for having me. I am Sarah Roberts. I currently work for Data, meaning I've been with them for almost a year and a half now. I live in a little town in North Carolina that most people have never heard of. Reedsville for anyone in the area, but for anyone who does it, just I'm in North Carolina. [00:01:02] Megan Bowers: Cool. Well, I'm excited to chat today about your career journey and your experience with Alteryx. So I think we could just start off with you walking us through your story and your career journey, how you got to being at data meeting now. [00:01:17] Sarah Roberts: Yeah, so I have a unique journey. I actually dropped out of college to start my family and get married, so I didn't have that college degree to fall back on when I got divorced, when my son was really young, I just took a job in customer service. I was so scared as a single mom to step out of customer service that I stayed in that role for nine years. But I learned every skill I could, and I volunteered for every project possible. Then I finally got the right people leader that was like, why are you here? You can do so much more. So she encouraged me to get a job on the service desk for our analytics and system support teams. In that role, very quickly I started noticing things like trends in the tickets, trends that I was alerting management to with system issues. And then I was like, you know, I really want better data. So I redesigned our entire ticketing system just to get better data so I could do better reporting on it. And that was the wake up call that I am a data person. I just have that ability by just instinct to be able to spot trends in the data and spot outliers in data. And so I started working towards getting a role on our analytics team, and that took a few positions in order for me to get to our analytics team simply because I didn't have a background in analytics. I kept growing my skills and every time I would learn new skills, I would ask management for a promotion or a change in title. I would say, I'm doing all of this that isn't part of my regular work anymore. Then I finally landed on our analytics team, and all I was doing at that point was modifying business objects, distribution reports, the lists for the reports. It was quite boring, but management still understood that I picked up on new software and things very quickly. So when it came up that Alteryx was doing a half day training on site, and this was in the fall of 2016, they sent me and they're like, Hey, go check out this software. These two guys from sales kind of backdoored it into the system and we just wanna see what it's about. Those two guides from sales. Were the only Alteryx users so far in our company. And you know, I went through this training, I was like, okay, this is really cool. I don't know what we're gonna use it for yet, but it's cool. Fast forward a week. I was in a team meeting and we had this business analyst that was talking about this problem we had been trying to solve for years. It was all about self-service analytics. The problem with creating a platform for self-service analytics is that you have to have knowledge to create a platform like that. And we had all of these different data sources. It was going to be a coding nightmare. We never could solve this problem. And I was like, you know, I think Alteryx could do this. They have these analytic apps. And that was the aha moment for me. I built my first analytic app within a couple weeks. That was my very first workflow ever. Did not know how to even query any of the SQL databases at that time, so I borrowed queries from the analysts that were doing the work, and I built these analytic apps and it completely changed the face of our organization. Ended up ultimately removing 80% of the ad hoc work from our analytics team. Wow. So that we start moving up the analytic curve. That's huge. [00:05:27] Megan Bowers: That's a huge impact for your first workflow ever. I feel like you should have a prize for that. That's amazing. I think my first workflow was like adding up some columns or something. That's amazing. Super cool how you got into analytics through perseverance, learning new skills. I'm curious what resources really helped you change your career too. You mentioned taking on projects at work, but what were some helpful resources through Alteryx or otherwise? [00:05:59] Sarah Roberts: I am completely self-taught in analytics. I just learned on the job and I learned on my Saturday mornings. I would leverage the Alteryx communities learning resources. I love the interactive lessons. Those are my favorites. And then I also leveraged other things like LinkedIn Learning and other free learning platforms like the Google developer site has a lot of the classes that they teach, the actual developers at Google. So by leveraging these free resources, I not only upped my Alteryx game, but I was also able to become a Python full stack developer and work with other technologies, even within Alteryx because I gain these extra skills. So then that brings me to when my time at that company came to a close. I knew I left on my own terms. I had been with my previous company for 17 years. I knew it was time to move on, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, so I was just gonna take six months off and figure it out. That's when I applied for one of the Spark licenses. I was able to leverage that license to start studying for my advanced certification while I was still job hunting. So by the time I got hired at Data, meaning I had my designer Core certification and Advanced certification. [00:07:36] Megan Bowers: Yeah. I love that program and how they support Job Searchers in addition to, I. Students and educators. I think that's huge for filling that gap and that's awesome that you're able to get your advanced while you are in between looking for your next thing. So very inspiring. Overall, excited for our listeners to be inspired, and I'm wondering what advice you would have for listeners who are looking to break into analytics. [00:08:02] Sarah Roberts: Well, analytics is one of those constantly changing industries. We can see now the focus is starting to be on gen AI and more machine learning, so it's just constantly changing. Back when I was getting started, it was everybody needed to learn Python and r. My best advice is be open to learning new skills. Keep your skills fresh, learn new softwares. Soak up the knowledge of people around you that have more knowledge in a subject than you do. So when working with Alteryx, leverage the community. Leverage the people that are answering these questions. Get their expertise. Pick their brains. Reach out to the ACEs on LinkedIn. Ask them questions. We are here to help. By leveraging these resources and these people, you're going to up your game and you're going to constantly be moving forward in your career. [00:09:08] Megan Bowers: For individuals who don't have the same educational background, they didn't start out in analytics, do you have advice for them on how to position themselves as they're looking for analytics jobs and applying? [00:09:22] Sarah Roberts: Absolutely. One of the most important things that I have learned is read the job descriptions. Don't eliminate jobs strictly by the job title. Read the full job description. If you are missing something like an educational background piece like a degree, but you have the years of experience and the ability to do that work. In addition to applying for the job, reach out to people that work at that company. Reach out to the hiring manager that's listed on the job post. Reach out to them through LinkedIn. Find others that work at that company to give you an internal referral. You will be much more likely to be able to land that job if you make those individual connections as opposed to just applying through the website or LinkedIn or Workday, whatever platform they use. The reasoning being that a lot of these online platforms will actually sort through your resume, and if you're missing one of those key skills or components, it'll just throw out your application altogether. But having that connection and getting an internal referral from somebody actually goes a lot further to getting seen. Many of these companies, while they say they require a specific degree in reality, they'll accept years of experience. So if they don't have a years of experience equivalent, again, reach out to the hiring managers. But networking is going to be your key. And then also look at the jobs that you're interested in and see what other skills you need to learn. In order to position yourself to be hired into one of those positions. So if it's saying that they want you to use Alteryx, but also Tableau, get a temporary Tableau license. Learn some Tableau skills. Take a LinkedIn class. I love the LinkedIn learning ones because they add little badges and skills to your profile, and we can apply for jobs using our LinkedIn profiles. Those are my best tidbits of advice for applying for a new position. [00:11:41] Megan Bowers: Yeah, those are great pieces of advice, and I can echo the networking component for sure. It is so important, especially in this job market, where there's a lot of applicants making those connections and getting referrals or just finding out more kind of inside scoop on the position. It can go a long way, and I know networking can feel scary, especially to introverts or to people who are new to the field or whatnot, but there's so many different things that can count as networking, and you can do it online as well as in person. There's a lot of options these days for networking, so I think it's definitely a good skill to practice, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Absolutely. What about people who are dealing with imposter syndrome? Did you ever feel that as you were going through this journey? [00:12:32] Sarah Roberts: I suffer from imposter syndrome every day of being somebody who is self-taught, and I always placed a high value on education. I've always felt like I was not quite as good as others, even though we all did the same work, simply because I didn't have that degree. And the way you counteract that is to keep growing and learning by continuously improving my skills. I feel like I am constantly upping my game and it's helping me not feel that imposter syndrome quite as much, but it's really easy to fall into that trap. And get self-deprecating with your thoughts when there's no need, especially if you're passing things like these certification tests that Alteryx has. That's your proof that you belong. [00:13:28] Megan Bowers: Yeah, totally. It's really easy to fall into that trap of thinking into thinking, you know, if you don't come from the educational background as your coworkers, all that stuff. Something that I realized when I was doing analytics at Stanley Black and Decker was. So many people were moving into analytics from different fields and from different projects, and it was like they were in finance and then they got assigned this one project and found their way into data. And also talking to people on this show about how many different backgrounds people come from into the analytics field has also been encouraging to me as well. I really do think that keeping up with the technology and doing projects is just so much more indicative of skills in the field rather than what path you found into the analytics field. So I think it's great. I love talking to people on the show that come from all different backgrounds. I believe we had a blog article on someone who was a yoga teacher before she got into analytics. So you really can, you can do it from anywhere and there's tons of resources. So it's really fun. [00:14:34] Sarah Roberts: Absolutely. My boss even was a lawyer in Brazil before he fell into the analytics world. So regardless of what you've been trained in, you can make it in this field if you have that drive and determination to do so. [00:14:51] Megan Bowers: That's great. I'm also wondering about how personal branding has helped you make contacts, elevate your career. We talked a little bit about this earlier, but yeah. What are some ways that putting yourself out there or building your personal brand has helped you? [00:15:06] Sarah Roberts: I have a unique personal brand experience in that when I was developing a tattooed sleeve for my arm, I was trying to figure out a way to tie everything together. And I happened to be working in Alteryx and I had that kind of light bulb moment, and so I actually turned my tattooed sleeve into an intertwined with an Alteryx workflow. So all of my favorite things are on the lower part of my arm within a macro, so I always remember to repeat my favorite things. Oh, I love that. Yeah. So it, it became this kind of fun thing that I did, but ultimately it made me very famous in the Alteryx community as that person with the Alteryx tattoos. You know, I wasn't even very far in my analytics career when I decided to do this, and I just, I shared my pictures, um, my tattoo session on Twitter and tagged Alteryx in it, the former CEO of Alteryx and Co-founder Dean Stoker. Saw it, retweeted it, shared it, and I just started blowing up in the Alteryx community as this crazy person that got these Alteryx tattoos. It's a way of also telling people how passionate I am about not just this product, but what it's done in my life. It's become a conversation starter for me. I am. An introvert, and I am not a very people person when I'm in big crowds and things, but I can use my tattoo as my introduction to anybody new in a crowd. That's one of those things that I feel is really important, whether it a tattoo that sets you apart or you've come up with a great elevator pitch to be able to introduce yourself. Having something memorable about yourself when you're introducing yourself to others in the community is going to be important for you. And it could be something work related, it could be something personal related, or it could even be something physical on you like your tattoos or your hair. Just setting yourself apart and doing that personal branding to be memorable. [00:17:41] Megan Bowers: Totally. I feel like people sometimes think that when you're building your professional brand, it can't cross a line into who you are as a person, or there's like personal and then there's professional and they're separated. But I feel like I've learned recently, I. Like I build my brand on LinkedIn and I post a lot on there and I post it about getting married and then we go to the Inspire conference and so many people congratulated me and it was so sweet. It was a great to point, like I had hesitated to post that 'cause I was like, do people really wanna know that on LinkedIn? Do people really care? You gotta walk the line. It's not Facebook, but still it was really sweet to build a connection with people in that way. And the fact that they remembered I was so shocked how many people remembered and brought it up. So there's like lots of ways that you can add a personal touch and you know, people like to get to know you outside of just what your portfolio. So I love that tip. I think that building your brand, it's important to share who you are. Let people get to know you and love the tip about starting conversations as an introvert, because networking is hard for introverts. [00:18:53] Sarah Roberts: It definitely is. It definitely is. And one of the things that we need to think about when it comes to branding yourself is that types have changed. I remember going and speaking at my first Inspire conference in 2017. I wore a dress that showed off all of my tattoos on my arms, and so many people were coming up to me just going, I can't believe you're up there and a dress without sleeves, and you're showing all these tattoos. Now it's become more common and more acceptable to have tattoos and tastefully colored streaks in your hair. So let people get to know the real you, and I promise you, you will be rewarded for it. [00:19:43] Megan Bowers: I love that. One thing I wanted to chat about was, you know, now that you've progressed all the way in your career, you're an Alteryx ace. Now, I don't know if we mentioned that, but in what ways are you able to mentor others and take others along on this journey? [00:20:00] Sarah Roberts: Sure. Yeah, so being an eighth is one of the greatest honors I've ever received, getting a name to be an eighth this year, so I'm really excited about that. Now I am really taking more of an active role in my user group, which is one of those things that I do. I am one of the co-leaders for the Research Triangle user group in North Carolina. Shout out, we are a virtual user group in case anyone ever wants to join us. Awesome. In addition to that, Alteryx also has their mentorship program, and I am signed up to be a mentor for others. I also have been mentoring people unofficially through LinkedIn. Anyone who reaches out, how do I become an ace? How do I get to that next step in my career? I feel like all of us ACEs are mentors in that respect, so don't ever hesitate to reach out to us and ask those questions, but also. Really a big plug for Alteryx's new mentorship program. I think this is a great program. You can go out and you could search for people by name, by their skills. You can even see things you have in common with those people. Like I have in my profile that I ride motorcycles and do off-roading. So you can even find people by what they do on their off time. In there and that way you're working with a mentor that you can relate to. [00:21:37] Megan Bowers: Yeah, that's super fun. Yeah, I've heard great things about the Sparked Mentor Program and I know that they're looking for both students who want to be mentored as well as professionals who want to mentor others, and even professionals who are interested in speaking at classes. So just to call to action to our listeners, if you're interested, we will link that program in our show notes for you to find and go sign up and get connected. It's been really great to have you on our show today, Sarah. Really fun to hear about your journey. What's one last thing you would leave our listeners with if you want them to remember one thing from this episode? [00:22:16] Sarah Roberts: The one thing that I would just like to reiterate to everyone is. Never stop looking for the unsolvable bull problems, figuring out your ways to solve those problems. And I guarantee you in the data and analytics space, Alteryx is going to help you solve 99% of those unsolvable problems in your organization. [00:22:43] Megan Bowers: That's great. Well, thanks for joining us today. It's been really fun to talk with you, and I'll see you later. Thanks for listening to Sign Up to be a mentor or mentee on Alteryx Mentor Connect. You can follow the link in our show notes at alteryx.com/podcast. See you next time.

This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.

Alter Everything Podcast

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166: From Career Changer to Analytics Expert

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This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.