Jobaaj Stories
- Hi, I am Shiva Vashishta! A singer, poet, orator, and most importantly, a Data analysis mentor
- Having trained more than 20000 students in data technologies, I am building a data-centric training ecosystem to promote data literacy pan India.
- Here’s my story of how I came to be!
Coming from a farming family, my interaction with the internet and the digital professions was nothing short of a miracle.
I know it's a cliche but yes, I too had a childhood where I had to travel from my village to a school in Agra, the whole journey of which took 2 hours. But we had gotten used to it.
I also used to sing a lot in my schooling days and fortunately, it became a part of my life.
Even now I love to sing!
So life till the 11th standard remained to be pretty basic! But that was about to change.
Delving into the world of Internet
I had decided early on that I wanted to pursue a career in computer science. I truly believed that there was great potential in the internet and there were a lot of career opportunities to be made.
And so I started a youtube channel. (This was a time when youtube was fairly easy to be monetized)
And pretty soon I was able to generate a good amount of revenue from it. After generating around 1.5 lakhs in youtube revenue, my belief in the power of digital solidified.
In fact, one of my earliest ambitions was to make a career in youtube marketing. I even remember that I used to ask my teachers for collaborations wherein I would upload their recorded lectures on youtube.
This was all in the 11th standard. But the concept of an Ed-tech had been inscribed in my brain. And that was soon to come.
After 12th, I enrolled in a tier-3 college near Agra. I went with a Btech in CS because I knew for sure that I wanted to build a career in computer science.
Putting my oratory skills to test
During my first semester, I attended a digital marketing workshop which got me hooked and interested in learning more about the field. During that time, I dived deep into the field working with other digital marketing companies. (My earlier youtube marketing experience also came in handy for this)
By my 2nd semester, I was already giving out seminars on Digital marketing in other colleges. This was the time when I actively worked on oratory and audience capturing and honestly, it was an amazing experience altogether!
If there is one thing that I have frequently done during college, it’s that I have spoken!
I have spoken a lot. I have done poetry, I have sung, and I conducted many many workshops during my college.
Even then I felt that workshops were a pretty great method of teaching. Because they were more engaging than college lectures and I was free to train students in more practical applications using workshops.
In fact, even now, I frequently conduct poetry open mic events in my city. Because if there is one thing that will never leave me, it’s public speaking!
Anyways, in my 3rd year, I had my first formal introduction to Data science. And it was love at first sight!
My journey with Data Analysis
I dedicated a lot of my 3rd year in building projects and upskilling in Data analysis. I went to Jaipur to learn Data Science from Hitesh Chaudhary, a very famous mentor in the Data science space. I already had a strong command of excel so I was already accustomed to a high level of Data manipulation.
But that was the year when I was able to actually learn and build projects in a practical working environment.
That's how my passion for data science was emblazoned!
After a while, I joined Jobaaj, which was a consultancy firm. I joined Jobaaj as an intern but soon rose up to be its Senior manager due to my past marketing and data-centric experience. I then helped put in the foundations of Jobaaj Learnings, Jobaaj’s Ed-tech arm.
This is where my years of oration and mentorship experience would come to fruition.
I put my heart and soul into the Edtech arm and oversaw everything right from marketing to operations to ensure that I could get the Ed-tech to a level where we could help students across INDIA!
And that’s where we are now!
Mentoring to the next level
In college, when I used to conduct those workshops on different technologies such as WordPress, digital marketing, python, etc. I usually used to receive a pretty good footfall. (Mostly because I was known for making workshops fun and poetic)’
But even then, during my college, the number of students I ever taught at once couldn’t have ever reached more than 100.
But now!
Every week, I teach almost 600 students at once from all across India in my Data analytics beginner-friendly workshops.
I have had students who were professionals from big MNCs and who wanted to add an extra skill through data analysis.
And this has all been possible because of the power of digital.
Till now, I have trained more than 20000 students pan-India. And I am not looking to stop.
I am on a mission to build resources, create training material and help as many students as possible who want to build their dream careers in Data.
If you want to be a part of my weekly FREE workshops where I teach about Data technologies right from scratch, then register for the workshop here.
My views on Data Analytics as a growing industry
Oftentimes, I am amused by discussions where people state that the Data industry will soon get saturated with so many people flocking into it.
The problem with this logic is that the same could be said about the software industry, and yet if we look at the figures, the demand for software developers keeps increasing year on year.
This is because software is becoming more complex and vast rapidly. And although more and more people are getting involved in the software industry, they just can’t keep up with the demand for ‘good quality’ engineers!
Similarly, in the case of the Data industry, over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is generated every day, and with the rise of data-centric technologies, these figures are rapidly increasing.
But even with so many people getting into data science, they just can’t keep up with the demand for high-quality professionals.
Even now, major MNCs are actively hiring for data professionals and there is a clear lack of professionals in the industry.
Data has become a very central aspect for almost all kinds of companies right now. In fact, I often like to compare Data with electricity.
Just decades ago, electricity was a foreign concept and a lot of people were reluctant to adopt it. But now, people and even industries can’t survive without electricity.
The same will be true for Data in a few years! (I say it's true even now!)
The most important advice I can give to students who want to enter the data industry
The data industry much like the software industry is incredibly vast! And for a beginner, everything might feel overwhelming.
So my very first and most important advice for any beginner starting out in the data industry is that you should first create a career roadmap for yourself.
If you jump right into learning the different technologies, you will most probably freak yourself out super quick.
So build a roadmap first! Even in the data industry, there are multiple subdomains in which you can do specialization. Try to understand which of them is your calling!
And then plan your learning journey accordingly!
Of course, you can always hit me up on my Linkedin and send me your doubts and I will try my best to resolve them as quickly as possible. (can’t promise prompt replies but can promise prompt connection request acceptance😅)
And do feel free to join me in my Free workshop on how you can build a rewarding career in Data right from scratch. Register here.
Thanks for Reading!
