Here at IBM, we have over 100 openings for Business
Analytics and Optimization jobs. Some of
these are associated with our Public Sector Practice, consulting to Federal,
State, and Local Governments or developing data-intensive, analytics solutions
to help them perform their mission.
Why are there so many jobs in this field? Businesses and governments today must figure
out how to do more with less.
Organizations can analyze data coming from their business processes to
develop new approaches to streamlining or even optimizing their business. In the past, many decisions involved in
running an organization were based on “gut instinct.” Today, it is not longer defensible to make
decisions in this way when it is possible to make “fact-based” decisions using
hard data. Data stored in a Business
Intelligence system can be used by every level of an organization to help staff
understand their business better, detect problems, and develop solutions that
will allow them to accomplish their mission better, cheaper and faster. Sophisticated analysis can be done on the
data to predict what will happen if the current trends continue, determine how
to achieve the best outcome, and study the impact of external uncertainties
such as the economy or the weather.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in their
2010-2011 Occupational Outlook Handbook,
the employment of operations
research analysts is expected to grow 22 percent over the 2008-18 period. While not all analytics jobs require an
operations research degree, this gives a good indication of the long term
trend. We know that technology is continuing
to improve both in terms of raw compute power and in the design of efficient
algorithms to analyze and optimize solutions.
This increasing capability will drive the demand to add “smarts” to many
more systems and processes, and will drive the need for analysts who can apply
the technology. So analytics isn’t just
a good short term career choice, but a good target for long-term career
growth.
To do these jobs, though, requires in-depth skills and
knowledge. Skills in operations research
(OR) techniques, data mining, optimization, decision theory, and data analysis
are needed, along with some background in IT systems. The ideal candidate will also have some
domain knowledge about government or business functional areas since it is very
hard to apply the mathematical techniques in abstraction.
How to Find Analytics Jobs
Most Analytics jobs aren’t listed under “analytics” and many
won’t even come up under that keyword.
Use search terms like ‘business intelligence,” “performance management,”
“optimization,” and “operations
research.” If you have experience with
actual analytics software such as Cognos, SPSS, Intelligent Miner, or ILOG,
both Monster and IBM’s website return hits on those keywords.
Want to learn more about jobs at IBM in Business Analytics?
Go to www.ibm.com/employment
and click on the “Search for Jobs at IBM” link
You may also write me at ASCdc@us.ibm.com
Regards, Frank Stein Analytics Solutions Center of Washingtion, D.C. Director