Statisticians in the private sector

[Anonymous]

I am working as a statistician for a UN agency in Europe and my contract is not going to be renewed due to USAID funding cut. My contract ends Dec 31. I am terrified because I'm am 49 years old, and I am not where I want to be as far as retirement.

I have been working here for 18 years.

Who employ statisticians in the private sector? I am not a data scientist or biostatistician? I am a statistician in the traditional sense, like survey methodology, etc

Now with AI doing all the first rounds cuts, competition from other other fellow colleagues and Fed workers in the US, and a slowdown in hiring I don't even know where to look.. unfortunately my professional connections are all in the same field in the public sector.

Should I apply directly via company websites? On indeed? If you know of companies that are known for hiring statisticians in the private sector please let me know.

The good news I know my end date here, so as a result we have been on extreme savings mode etc. I still have about 5/6 months until I am unemployed.

I have about 4 weeks vacation days to use. I would like to use 2 weeks just to devote 10 hours/day preparing/looking for jobs.

And I also face big challenges transferring to the private sector because our experience at these international organizations if you want my honest opinion are not going to be directly of moch value to the private sector.

I think I'll stop now because I am starting to ramble ...

[Anonymous]

That sucks, op. some medical writing firms employ statisticians if that appeals or meshes well with your background. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Cold-applying to jobs is going to be a worse use of your time than expanding your skill set and meeting people. If you don't work in Python, start working with AI coding tools and build out your GitHub profile in an area that's connected to your specific statistical expertise.

[Anonymous]

Most large private sector companies employ "data scientists" ranging from chief data scientists/chief economists (PhD from high caliber university) who go on the news to talk about trends to recent college grads who can manage statistical packages and crunch numbers.

I'm surprised that you don't see your expertise in survey methodology as something related to being a data scientist--but many firms run experiments related to product uptake (ex: which marketing campaign is more successful,) but these aren't big national surveys like I think you may be speaking of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cold-applying to jobs is going to be a worse use of your time than expanding your skill set and meeting people. If you don't work in Python, start working with AI coding tools and build out your GitHub profile in an area that's connected to your specific statistical expertise.

OP here. I do use python and do have GitHub. But these skills are now standard. They are no longer a differentiator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most large private sector companies employ "data scientists" ranging from chief data scientists/chief economists (PhD from high caliber university) who go on the news to talk about trends to recent college grads who can manage statistical packages and crunch numbers.

I'm surprised that you don't see your expertise in survey methodology as something related to being a data scientist--but many firms run experiments related to product uptake (ex: which marketing campaign is more successful,) but these aren't big national surveys like I think you may be speaking of.

OP here. Most my experience in survey design is with developing countries.But this is a very old field and the way we did things in the 60s is sadly the same way today.

I have looked into data science and the skill sets required is massive. Many of the openings I have seen not only require knowing algorithms but they also require business acumen. I just don't know how I can spin my experience.

[Anonymous]

How much are you willing to accept? If you want $160k, you will easily find a job. It's not hard for a former statiician from the UN to find someone to hire them for $160k.

We hired a 23 years old business analyst and handed her $125k. And she doesn't absolutely nothing NOTHING.

Listen it will come down to luck. I hope you are lucky like the inexperienced 23 years old we have $125k too just for editing PowerPoints and clicking cells in an excel spreadsheet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cold-applying to jobs is going to be a worse use of your time than expanding your skill set and meeting people. If you don't work in Python, start working with AI coding tools and build out your GitHub profile in an area that's connected to your specific statistical expertise.

OP here. I do use python and do have GitHub. But these skills are now standard. They are no longer a differentiator.

There's a lot of variation in terms of skill. But my point was, you're better off thinking about where your skill gaps are and filling them in rather than applying to jobs that thousands of other people are also applying to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Cold-applying to jobs is going to be a worse use of your time than expanding your skill set and meeting people. If you don't work in Python, start working with AI coding tools and build out your GitHub profile in an area that's connected to your specific statistical expertise.

OP here. I do use python and do have GitHub. But these skills are now standard. They are no longer a differentiator.

There's a lot of variation in terms of skill. But my point was, you're better off thinking about where your skill gaps are and filling them in rather than applying to jobs that thousands of other people are also applying to.

OP here. Now I understand what you meant. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

You gave an uphill battle. Good luck. It's a brutal job market.

[Anonymous]

Many years ago, I worked in survey design & weighting, analysis of the data, and report writing. I am not in that profession any more, but I googled a former colleague of mine, using "John Doe LinkedIn".

He is now at Grant Thornton. In their careers section, I entered "statistics" and a few jobs came up, including this one:

https://ehzq.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/CandidateExperience/en/sites/CX_1/job/112797/?utm_medium=jobshare&utm_source=External+Job+Share

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much are you willing to accept? If you want $160k, you will easily find a job. It's not hard for a former statiician from the UN to find someone to hire them for $160k.

We hired a 23 years old business analyst and handed her $125k. And she doesn't absolutely nothing NOTHING.

Listen it will come down to luck. I hope you are lucky like the inexperienced 23 years old we have $125k too just for editing PowerPoints and clicking cells in an excel spreadsheet.

I wish was the case. The US government is letting go of so many statisticians and they, including myself, are not finding much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much are you willing to accept? If you want $160k, you will easily find a job. It's not hard for a former statiician from the UN to find someone to hire them for $160k.

We hired a 23 years old business analyst and handed her $125k. And she doesn't absolutely nothing NOTHING.

Listen it will come down to luck. I hope you are lucky like the inexperienced 23 years old we have $125k too just for editing PowerPoints and clicking cells in an excel spreadsheet.

I wish was the case. The US government is letting go of so many statisticians and they, including myself, are not finding much.

Yes, it has been absolutely brutal for statistical agencies and chief data officers’ staff. I wonder why they want to get rid of anyone who works with data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much are you willing to accept? If you want $160k, you will easily find a job. It's not hard for a former statiician from the UN to find someone to hire them for $160k.

We hired a 23 years old business analyst and handed her $125k. And she doesn't absolutely nothing NOTHING.

Listen it will come down to luck. I hope you are lucky like the inexperienced 23 years old we have $125k too just for editing PowerPoints and clicking cells in an excel spreadsheet.

I wish was the case. The US government is letting go of so many statisticians and they, including myself, are not finding much.

Yes, it has been absolutely brutal for statistical agencies and chief data officers’ staff. I wonder why they want to get rid of anyone who works with data.

I thought data jobs were all over the place and easy to find.

[Anonymous]

If you are looking for an individual contributor role as a statistician/data scientist there are tons of them being posted every day on LinkedIn and financial companies websites. You don’t necessarily need networking to get those jobs. Like a pp said invest in your skills. Many of these jobs are about using a large dataset to build a model that predicts a discrete event like a default. Find a dataset like that online or simulate your own and use python to build a model like that using statistical techniques as well as machine learning. Ask ChatGPT and it will create a plan for you with more details. Good luck