careernav.

General Description

This is an ideal career for analytical thinkers. As a statistician, your job is to collect, classify, analyse, and interpret numerical facts or data. You then use statistical methods to produce valuable information, creating an ordered and accessible summary of data and findings. You may collect your information from a range of areas, including government, science, technology, medicine, education, finance, business, and society. Statisticians who concentrate on human diseases in the medical field are called biostatisticians, though mathematical statisticians are more common.

As a statistician, you will support research endeavours. This will often require you to meet with people to learn the exact purpose of their experiment and the available resources. Your job is to design the most efficient techniques for accurate data collection, and then later analyse the results of the experiment. The data analysis is carried out on computers, which represent the data graphically, making it possbile to give a comprehensive report of the findings.

What you do every day

Depending on your area of statistical involvement, you could perform a range of tasks during a standard working day. At the beginning of an experiment or study, you could be required to determine the most accurate method of data collection, including what needs to be measured and exactly what information will be collected from the source. You may also select the size of the sample and determine the best way to get the most out of your research resources.

After the research has been completed, it is your job to interpret the data, searching for particular trends or tendencies. You may create a statistical model to display these patterns. You will come in regular contact with computers, and the specific programs used for data input, display, and calculation. Finally, you report the findings of the study.

Personality that best fits this career

Overall, statisticians must have strong logical, analytical and problem solving skills. You should be good at mathematics, but this alone won’t be enough without a talent for research and analysis. Once a study has been completed, you will need to able to interpret the data, and come to an educated conclusion.

The best statisticians also have good communication skills. Not only to interact with colleagues and clients effectively during the developmental and data collection process, but also to understand the data from other people’s work. Without communication skills, you will also find it difficult to portray your results in a way that other people can readily understand.

The ability to work both independently and as part of a team is vital. Large studies will require you to work alongside other statisticians or researchers, collating data together, while smaller statistical investigations will have you working on an entire study alone. Comprehensive computer skills are also essential, for most of your problem-solving is done using computer systems.

Best thing about this career

Being a statistician can be a highly rewarding occupation. There will be times when you spend hours upon hours working on a data study, compiling, analysing and plotting. The moment when all of your hard work pays off, and you reach an informative and logical result, brings you a strong sense of job satisfaction. You are also able to keep your mind constantly active and involved in your work, which is a bonus if you get intellectually restless. Depending on the field of your work, you may deal with interesting facts and produce valuable information to assist in a better direction for society.

Worst thing about this career

The monotony of working with an employer who deals with the same facts and same repetitions can make your job tiresome and you restless. Your work also relies heavily on accurately collected data. There will be times when you slave away at a study, only to conclude that the data was not collected correctly in the first place, and the research needs to restart from scratch.

Your reliance on other people to successfully complete a vital step in a statistical analysis can be frustrating and occasionally detrimental to the final statistics.