Statistician

A statistician analyzes data to discover important patterns. As such, it is important to have powerful mathematical, scientific, and analytical skills in order to succeed as a statistician. It is very challenging and requires a powerful intellect to succeed. In addition, a masters degree in statistics is practically required for someone to find work as a statistician; a PhD is also very helpful and can lead to even more advanced employment and a higher rate of pay.

The work consists of much time working in front of a computer, viewing data and interpreting it. Besides this, there are meetings and conversations with supervisors and statisticians. Other requirements revolve around staying up to date with technology; new and updated analysis tools and software programs must be periodically reviewed and understood if a statistician is to do the best job that they can.

In addition, statisticians design experiments and use sampling techniques to try to determine patterns in larger populations. This has many applications from political sampling to determine the attitudes and beliefs of large groups to marketing, where it is important to understand and gauge consumer reactions regarding products before the products are produced.

Common employers are local, state, and federal governments; there is a great need for data collection, organization, and analysis in government, especially for census-related work. Other employers are medical, pharmaceutical, and various private companies related to scientific work and research.

An aptitude test can verify whether or not someone is well suited to being a statistician. These can be found at career assessment offices across the country; also, they can be found online. However, the results of these are not binding upon a person's abilities and should always be taken with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, aptitude tests are valuable tools that can help a person know what they would be good at and what they might enjoy doing.

The results of this test should point to a strong analytical, mathematical, and scientific ability. Furthermore, it is essential that a statistician has very good writing skills. This is because besides analyzing the data, they must be able to interpret it and communicate it effectively to other people. Since others may not have advanced training in statistics, the burden of being able to translate between the specialized language of statistics and everyday language falls on the statistician. For these reasons, writing skills are also very helpful for statisticians.