Career Options with SAS Base?

[edasdfasdfasdfa]

What are the different roles/positions one might apply for if they showed competence in SAS Base? (i.e., certification). I know certification would not guarantee a job, but what would the potential entry-level roles be?

[PaigeMiller]

My company hires recent college graduates, even with no SAS experience, as data analysts. I suppose if you have certification, you are also eligible and might even get a higher paying job.

[PaigeMiller]

Adding: I work in banking, my department works on Credit Risk (if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it, I think every bank does this maybe with a different name) and as I said, we hire students who have just graduated who don't know what Credit Risk is when we hire them.

[edasdfasdfasdfa]

Is it harder for people changing careers in their 30's to '50s, let's say, or does do you think there is more a focus on your new graduates at your company/in your industry?

[PaigeMiller]

So let's just say that I worked in manufacturing for more than two decades, and then got hired for my current job in banking. And others in my department also were hired with non-banking backgrounds after a decade or two in other fields. In fact, we just hired a Ph.D. Sociologist with over a decade of work in the social sciences for Credit Risk.

Do all banks do this? I don't know.

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
However, banks aren't the only companies that use SAS or hire SAS programmers. In my previous jobs, before coming to SAS, I've personally worked at a power company, an insurance company and a university, all of which used SAS. My husband used SAS at an insurance company, a university and an airline. I've had students working in marketing, in public health departments, in government offices, in retail sales, at banks, at pharmaceutical companies, manufacturing plants and various other industries.
Cynthia

[edasdfasdfasdfa]

The responses surprised me thus far (in a good way
).

How about business analyst positions? 

How about data scientist positions? I know this is not entry-level but is there a way to start as an analyst and work your way up?

[PaigeMiller]

"Business analyst" and "data scientist" are very vague and general terms.

I would imagine that all of my previous jobs, plus most or all of the jobs that Cynthia and her husband had, could be described as "Business Analyst" or "data scientist". In fact, after I left my manufacturing job, they advertised the same job I had as "Data Scientist", even though I never had that particular title.

[SASKiwi]

Data scientists typically need a post-graduate degree in advanced statistics, like a masters or a doctorate. You can't work your way up to it on the job without the academic background, unless you studied on the side while you were working - I know a few people who have done this.

Business analysts generally need good analytical skills and would be able to work their way up to it with probably just a bachelor's degree to qualify.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Let me throw in a different POV.

I had been working in the IT field as a coder, designer, system administrator (HP-UX) and jack-of-all-trades (replacing damaged chips in terminals, replacing a torn drive belt in a 40 MB disk drive the size of a washing machine, designing printed circuit boards with CAD software, stringing 10-base cables through the office) for 10+ years.

Then I joined the insurance company where I still work, and did my time in user support. After 5 years, I switched to the "individual data processing" group that turned into the data warehousing we have now. Doing that, I did the initial programming courses with SAS in Heidelberg. Since at that time the company started (VERY reluctantly at first) to migrate to UNIX, my experience with that (which had had not much of a value at first) came in handy, and so I became the "head of data warehousing" over here, and did that until I found the right guy who replaces me now since I am close to retiring.

So: I have no degree. I don't have any SAS certifications. I am not a statistician, so I don't call myself a data scientist, I call myself a "data engineer". My only formal SAS education was with what you call "Base SAS", I learned everything I know about SAS administration on the job, and from the documentation. With all this, I had a very successful career (both in terms of satisfaction and money) working with SAS. And you can judge for yourself if I'm good at what I'm doing by following me here.

Bottom line: if you have brains and are not afraid to use them, you'll make it.

[edasdfasdfasdfa]

That's great to hear and makes perfect sense to me.

I do have one other central question. People differentiate between analytics and data science. Is this simply an attempt to distinguish between a data analyst and a data scientist (who tends to do more innovation)?

[Ksharp]

sas programmer in Pharmacy Field . Like CRO company.