I transitioned from a research background to the world of data science about 5 years ago and it has been an interesting journey so far, with a lot of lessons learnt along the way and some hits and misses as well.
I will try to break down the transition in some clear steps and break it down into some key take ways: What you can do to prevent my mistakes and what to do to focus on some key things.
The term 'data science' was introduced to me by my partner and despite being quite dismissive at that time, it started ringing a bell for me, as I was going nowhere with my research career.
After a bit of research it did appear that I could focus on getting some skills under my belt, built on top of my existing skillset built during my PhD research time.
By that time, I knew good enough MATLAB and enjoyed doing some coding for my research, so when my research showed that "matplotlib" (plotting library in python)" had been built on top of the syntax of MATLAB, it really did ring a bell for me.
I started taking some online courses to help me understand this topic better.
I started with a course, A-Z of data science by Kiril Eremenko on Udemy and it was a very good course for a beginner like me. I would really recommend that course if you are just starting out and have no idea about data science or analytics at all.
Having gained some baseline knowledge about the various aspects involved in data science, I started applying for data internships and analyst jobs.
I wouldn't say that the journey was easy for me at all. I ended up getting an unpaid internship and after that a very low paying analyst job after having done my PhD.
The whole process took me over 8-9 months and the toughest part of it was dealing with the mental fatigue and the imposter syndrome that came along with it.
I had to remind myself that I belonged and that it will get easier with time.
The moment that really clicked for me was: I started getting posts and marketing content from 'Data Science Dream job' (a new upcoming data science platform) that was coming about in the market which claimed to be different and how different it was. It really pushed in the mental side of the whole process in and along with the study material, came extra books (Growth mindset, Deep Work, So good they can't ignore you etc.) and I read them all religiously. I really did start to change.
My biggest takeaway was that everything that will happen to me and my career from now on, will be my responsibility. I will take extreme ownership of everything I do, and it really did change me.
The outcome of this process was that:
I was no longer afraid of failing (and I did fail a lot).
Lets see this: I applied for over 500 jobs in the next few months and only got response from about 15.
From those, I only got to interview 6 and got rejected by 5.
But, I did achieve the objective I had set out on. I did get the job of a data scientist and it took me ~2 years to get there.
My whole point here is: You too can get there and achieve your dreams and achieve your goals. If I can do it, so can you.
Do not give up!