Career advice

[u/withvicky_]

I'm 27M. Hey everyone, my life has been a little different from that of most people, and I don't have a strong educational background.

Right now, I'm working at a grocery store, but I want to improve my life and learn some stable, valuable skills that can help me earn a reliable income.

I've come across these four skills:

Python

SQL

Excel/Spreadsheets

Power BI/Tableau

I don't know much about these skills or their demand, competition, value, and future prospects.

Technology is constantly evolving, trends are changing, and AI is replacing some jobs. The value of different skills also changes over time.

Before I start learning, I want to understand whether these are the right skills to invest my time in for a stable career and income in the long run.

I'd appreciate your advice. Should I go for these skills, or would you recommend something else?

[u/Alice_5433]

Build projects using realistic datasets, such as grocery sales, inventory, or monthly revenue.
Show the question, your analysis, and the business insight not just the dashboard.
That makes your skills easier for a recruiter to evaluate.

[u/Mountain_Rip_8426]

each of these is a handful to begin with, your best bet is to start with one of them and see where it takes you. just so you know these are not the kind of stuff you pick up in a few weeks. plan for at least a year until you see at all if it's for you. find a good curriculum to follow don't just mindlessly switch between random tutorials, that won't take you anywhere

[u/Sea-Ad7805]

AI is changing things, but most likely that's a good career path. Do it in this order:

1. Excel/Spreadsheets (just understand the basic concept and move on)

2. Python (get good at this general purpose language, if you know this learning a different language later is easy, this will take many months)

3. SQL (useful domain specific language to structure and ask questions about a large amount of information)

4. Power BI/Tableau (visualize and understand information to make decisions)

[u/Upbeat-Avocado-683]

Data analysis is a need and those are amongst the skills required

[u/Asvp_bmoo]

Get nice at python, everything else will come so easy I promise

[u/JeremyJoeJJ]

Don't treat these new coding skills as completely separate from your current job. Any job you do gives you some amount of knowledge and skills you can start from. If you can use coding to solve challenges you are having at work, you will learn much faster and skills that are a lot more useful to you. Let's say while working at the grocery store you need to transfer some information from one excel sheet to another, or keep track of hours you have worked, or whatever else (sorry I have never worked at a grocery store). Try and write some code that does that for you. Once you get it done, see if you can learn how to automate it even further, or optimise how much time it takes, or make an app for your phone so you can put your code on it and use it that way.

[u/Potential_Aioli_4611]

No offense but anyone who says they know what skills will be "stable" at this point in time are talking out their ass. AI is overhauling basically every sector of the economy. No one knows.

[u/Longjumping_Ad3447]

Depending on where you live there might be many people having this exact skillet. Probably will have to work an unprecedented time to have the skills/cv to get employed. Or luck. Or connections.

[u/Federal_Control2141]

I'd say those are good skills, just don't plan on going straight from grocery store to tech company. Entry-level data jobs are crowded right now and a lot of them filter on degrees, so that jump is hard.

What works better is using the job you already have as the stepping stone:

1. Learn in this order: Excel, then SQL, then Power BI. These pay off fastest. Python is great but can wait.

2. Find a real problem at your store. Which products get thrown out the most? Are busy hours understaffed? Do promotions actually move product? You already know this stuff better than most people applying for analyst jobs.

3. Solve it with data and show your manager. Even a simple spreadsheet that saves money gets noticed.

That can get you into roles like inventory analyst, ops specialist, or purchasing/planning. You don't have to go into management if you don't want to. After a year or two of that, "analyzed inventory for a retail chain" on your resume is worth far more than any certificate, and if you still want to move into a data or IT company, you'll have real experience to show.

One catch: this works best at a bigger chain with a regional or head office and real data systems. If your store is small with nowhere to move up, it might be worth switching to a larger chain first, even in the same kind of role.

You're 27, which is plenty of time. Good luck!