#037: Growing Your Career without Changing Companies

The following is a straight-up machine translation. It has not been human-reviewed or human-corrected. However, we did replace the original transcription, produced in 2017, with an updated one produced using OpenAI’s WhisperX in 2025, which, trust us, is much, much better than the original. Still, we apologize on behalf of the machines for any text that winds up being incorrect, nonsensical, or offensive. We have asked the machine to do better, but it simply responds with, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

00:00:04.00 [Michael Helbling]: Hi everyone. We’ve been doing this show now for almost a year and a half. It all started because we liked hanging out and talking about what’s going on in our industry. We all have our own work and really busy lives in addition to doing the Power Hour podcast. This is where the good news, bad news starts. The good news is that Jim Cane’s business napkin has been growing very rapidly. The bad news is that it’s not leaving him enough time to continue hosting the digital analytics power hour along with Tim and I. Jim, we’re really going to miss you.

00:00:35.28 [Jim Cain]: Thanks, Michael. It is a mutual appreciation society. And like you said, with two companies that are growing fast, I also have three kids. I didn’t have time for one world-class podcast. So I am very much looking forward to continuing to be part of the podcast, but this time on the other side of the floor. So talking some smack and slack, maybe uploading some inappropriate pictures to the Facebook page. but very much being a part of the community, but just on the different side of the microphone. So it was a fun year and a half. Met a lot of cool people looking forward to continuing to participate, but again in a different capacity.

00:01:12.69 [Michael Helbling]: Well, you’ll certainly be missed, Jim, and thank you so much for your contributions to the Digital Analytics Power Hour.

00:01:19.96 [Jim Cain]: Just promise you guys won’t do a super secret everything else I said outtakes episode, and we’ll… Oh, it’s already in the works. Oh, no. It’s a huge retrospective. It’s a cheer trigger. All right. Cheers.

00:01:31.71 [Michael Helbling]: Cheers.

00:01:38.75 [Announcer]: Welcome to the Digital Analytics Power Hour. Tim, Michael, and the occasional guest discussing digital analytics issues of the day. Find them on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash analytics hour. And no, the Digital Analytics Power Hour.

00:01:57.91 [Michael Helbling]: Hi everyone, welcome to the Digital Analytics Power Hour. This is Episode 37. There’s a lot of talk in the analytics industry about getting a job and the right job. And once you get one, there’s no shortage of recruiters in bad situations that quickly make you want to look for another one. And the average tenure of a digital analyst is around two years. That’s an awfully short time. On this episode, we want to talk about The flip side of that, who are the strange people in analytics who are actually happy with their jobs and like them for some reason. So we set off on a trek to find the person who’s been working in analytics the longest for one company in the whole country. And I think we found him. Our guest is Dylan Lewis. He’s currently the director of analytics and experimentation in the TurboTax business unit at Intuit. Before that, he was at Visual Science. Oh, who really cares? It was so long ago. We’ve been working really hard to get Dylan to come on our show actually for about as long as he’s been at Intuit. So we’re very excited to have you. Dylan, welcome to the Power Hour.

00:03:11.00 [Dylan Lewis]: Thanks, Michael. I appreciate it.

00:03:12.52 [Michael Helbling]: great and also joining us my other host Tim Wilson senior partner at analytics demystified hello Tim hi guys and as always i’m michael helbling from search discovery Dylan welcome to the show let’s kick it off with a question what’s the secret of your longevity How do you stick it out in the same company and not get sucked into other companies and all the cool things that they’re doing that they definitely probably want to hire you for?

00:03:42.49 [Dylan Lewis]: That’s an interesting question. You know, other jobs come across my desk and across my phone a lot. And it’s always interesting to see what it is that people are touting is what’s available out there. I’ve seen enough people leave into it and leave other companies and find out that the grass really isn’t greener. And so it’s one of those things where you really have to pressure test and see if what it is being said is really what it is that’s able to be delivered on. And you also have to look at your own surroundings and say, hey, how do I make this better? How do I make this the best situation that it can possibly be given where I’m at and given what it is that I want to accomplish? I’ve got friends who you can set your watch by when they will actually be leaving. I see them at conferences and I go, oh, it’s been two years. Uh-huh, you’re about ready for a new one, aren’t you? I just, I wonder about what kind of impact that you can have on an organization after two years. The first year, you’re really trying to figure out exactly how the organization runs. And once you get to that 12 month mark, you’re now over the year lap and you’ll actually be able to make a bigger impact that way. And so after another year, you really haven’t had the ability to really set your mark there. And so I wonder about those people that are flipping every two years, like what it is that they’re able to accomplish in each one of their positions.

00:04:49.80 [Michael Helbling]: Well, and I think honestly, that’s probably what drives a lot of people to switch is because they feel like they’re not getting traction and they’re cutting loose and bailing. And maybe the answer for some people is hold on a little longer to see the fruits of your labor come forward.

00:05:09.82 [Tim Wilson]: What were you hired in? What was your role, Dylan, when you first joined into it?

00:05:16.50 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah, I was hired into it to be a analyst on the TurboTax.com marketing site and to help bring about their testing program. And so I was fortunate enough that the person who was there before me didn’t understand how Adobe site catalysts worked. And so the analytics were off by a large amount. And so I was able to come in after some other people were there to help fix that and spend that first year really getting to understand exactly how the marketing website worked there.

00:05:47.05 [Tim Wilson]: How many of those analytics people that were there when you started are still there? I know the organization’s not the same. Are there others who are still around?

00:05:57.90 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah, they’re in different business units now, but it’s a completely different company from when I started 11 and a half tax seasons ago.

00:06:06.61 [Tim Wilson]: That’s how you… I was a child of a CPA, by the way, so I was not parented from January 1 to April 15.

00:06:15.09 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, I’ve definitely worked a tax season or two and it can be brutal.

00:06:21.80 [Dylan Lewis]: It’s an interesting life for sure but it’s one of those things that’s really nice because at my company I get to work in tax season when every minute counts and every customer that’s coming across the door is really somebody who want to help complete their taxes and then after tax season you get ready for the next year. So it’s similar to being a teacher but a little bit more, you’re affecting more people obviously.

00:06:42.33 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, I think the retail business cycle is not too dissimilar in that, you know, if you’re working in a retail business, you know, you really focus on holiday season and most of the year is the planning and preparation and execution of that. So.

00:06:56.96 [Tim Wilson]: the thing you still have, you still have back to school and the other does seem like, I mean, it is a hard annual. I mean, is that, do you think there’s any part of that that you’ve got kind of a built in high intensity cycle followed by a little bit of a more slower period that that actually kind of makes it where you’re not getting sucked into the humdrum? There’s kind of a big sigh of relief. And now how do we shift and rejigger so you’re kind of somewhat starting anew on a fair, you define cycle where the entire company is kind of hitting a reset or what’s next.

00:07:32.38 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that I really like about this position and this company that I work at is because we get a chance to look back right now and figure out exactly what happened and try to make it better for next year. So it’s really, really an amazing opportunity to make things better every single year and to see an impact every single year. And it’s not something that you get if you’re slogging away at reports every week for a year over year. You don’t get that chance to figure out how to make it better in a way that you can be demonstrably different. And that’s what I really love about it.

00:08:04.91 [Tim Wilson]: So how many, you said that the company is different, is a totally different company than it was, you know, a decade ago. And the longest I’ve ever been at one company is eight years, but I always kind of say, gee, I came in as a technical writer and I left as the manager of the business intelligence group. So even in that eight years, I was maybe on roughly a two year cycle where my job shifted. It was always an evolution. How much has, You’ve obviously grown professionally learned and gotten more skills, but if you break down that 10 and a half years, do you see that as really one continuum or is it you’ve really had two or three or four very distinct and different jobs along the way?

00:08:50.78 [Dylan Lewis]: I’d say that every year is actually pretty different from the other. The tax season brings about different changes, but then actually the focus of what it is that I’m working on or what it is that the analytics team is working on is actually very different. We have the same type of tenants for analysts. and that you have to be able to dive in and get the data, you have to be able to get insights out of that data, then you have to help persuade the team, the experienced teams on how to make a better experience. But what it is that we’re focused on and what it is that we get to really dive into is different every tax season. So it’s like having 11 different roles, basically. So the name on my paycheck has been into it the entire time, but I’ve had multiple different roles. And so maybe I’m one of those people who is at the same company, but actually gets different jobs in that company. And maybe that might be part of the secret to reasons why I’m actually staying at the same company all the time.

00:09:39.56 [Tim Wilson]: What I wonder how much of that is how much of that is the nature of the company or the industry because that’s the company I was at was not anywhere near this that level of a cyclical. The industry wasn’t changing as nearly as rapidly as I was kind of evolving into different roles but it was a company that was geared towards. you know moving things around and that was honestly where I was sort of finding my way from one profession into the analytics profession and I was really only in a couple of roles within analytics but I do feel like I work with you know some of my clients where it is much more kind of the same the same thing day in and day out not that there isn’t an opportunity for them to push themselves and grow their careers but They wind up in an organization that has much more stability and maybe is not being as challenged by external forces or maybe they’re dominant in the market, although you guys are dominant in the market. I don’t think it’s necessarily competitive pressure that’s making things different every year. I’m sure there’s. for whoever’s reviewing this on the Intuit side. I have no idea about the inside workings of your business, but I wonder if there’s something about the environment that you’re in that your things are continuing to stay fresh and new, even as you’re getting deeper and deeper knowledge of the business. And, you know, if those go hand in hand.

00:11:11.35 [Dylan Lewis]: I think it’s part of the company culture too, right? I mean, we’re a company that’s never satisfied with a status quo and it’s a healthy dissatisfaction. And we’re always looking to get better. And I work with a bunch of learners, basically, that are there trying to make it so that we get better every single year and every single week. And that’s one of the things I really like about Intuit is that it is one of those places where you’re going to get to work with some pretty amazing large-scale programs that you also get to work in a place where you get to get better every single year. And feedback is something that we work not only in our programs, but also with our employees and with everybody. So you’re always working on something. you’re always working to get better, which is actually pretty amazing when you look at how some people, I work in other companies where it isn’t that way, where you’re there to do a job and you’re getting your job done, but this isn’t just a job, it’s also you’re learning and growing your skills and making it so that you’re making the analytics realm in your area and the customer experience developers in your area smarter about the customers and smarter about how to make things better, which is pretty cool.

00:12:14.14 [Michael Helbling]: See, so it sounds like there’s something to the shape of the company and the way that the entire company operates when you describe it that way that lends itself to making it continuously be interesting for an analyst, right? Because I think all of us as analysts, we want to continue to improve. We want to grow our skill set and we want to be challenged. And so I think it’s almost like endemic to the culture, maybe even is how you’re describing it.

00:12:44.05 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah, absolutely.

00:12:44.81 [Michael Helbling]: That’s interesting. It’s something that’s interesting. But let me ask this question. So certainly throughout your journey there, it could not have been all things just working super great all the time, how did you deal with kind of those challenges, pitfalls, things that would normally in another situation make you be more or less open to the idea of looking for an opportunity or answering one of those LinkedIn emails you get from a recruiter every week. In other words, what keeps you from doing that or what makes you more or less susceptible? What was happening for you? along the way.

00:13:25.98 [Dylan Lewis]: You know, it’s not always rosy. It’s, you know, you have your challenges in your current work and you have your challenges along the way. I think it’s one of those things when you have to really think about what it is that you want to get done, what it is that you could be getting done someplace else and, you know, there’s choices that you have to make. Do you want to make a choice to go and jump and live in, I live in San Diego and it’s pretty amazing to live in San Diego and I’m pretty excited about here. I grew up here. But there’s no shortage of calls that happen for me and many of the people that work on our teams to go jump to the Bay Area and go travel from one company to the next. And it’s one of those things where you have to look at those opportunities and say, well, is the grass really greener? And I’ve watched enough people leave and then come back and then sometimes leave again because it looks greener and sometimes it actually is greener but I think it’s one of those things where you have to figure out is it the right move for you and right now the company that I work at into it is the right company for me to be at today and it’s one of those things where I’m constantly learning and figuring out how I can make myself better and how I can become a better employee and how I can help other analysts become better analysts and that’s something that I really love to do and I get to do that a lot which is great.

00:14:39.01 [Michael Helbling]: Oh, I think that’s cool. It’s interesting the way you describe that. That’s basically how I feel about my job right now at Search Discovery, which I have never felt before.

00:14:48.35 [Dylan Lewis]: Is that search discovery dot com slash careers?

00:14:50.93 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, no, but I’m just saying like they’ve got to set that redirect up because I don’t know what the actual one is. Yeah, I’ll get right on. No, no, but seriously, in my career, I’ve done a lot of hopping. Like I haven’t always stayed the same place. I think I’ve only been at search discovery for three and a half years now, but that’s actually now tied with the longest I’ve ever been at any company in my analytics career. And I have no reason while ever leave, but it’s because what you just said, there’s ways for me to get better. And I, you know, and it’s, it’s worth being there. Anyways, it’s interesting because it’s like, if you make the company right, It can be a great place for analysts, and they’ll want to stay.

00:15:34.60 [Dylan Lewis]: And it’s not for everybody. Certain companies are great places for certain people, and Intuit is not for everybody. Not everybody stays there forever, but it is one of those companies where it is a special place, right? And so it’s something that you have to find the right fit, and you have to figure out what are the company values, the founder that’s there, the board of directors, like do they fit in your boss and your boss’s boss? Do they fit your values? Do they fit your way of operating? And is it one of those things that you can see yourself being there for five or 10 or 15 years?

00:16:08.58 [Tim Wilson]: But that seems like the sort of thing. It’s an easy… I don’t think it’s right to say, oh, well Dylan just kind of magically found the great fit. There’s no magic.

00:16:20.32 [Dylan Lewis]: So let me just tell you really quick. I worked with a small company called SmartTry.com, which is here in San Diego. And I read this book called Insight Into It. It was all about Into It and how amazing they were. And then I read this article about a guy who did direct marketing who worked it into it who basically one year he decided to have all the vendors competed against him and he lost as a direct marketing person that first year or that first time out. And then he took everything that he learned from all of those other direct marketing vendors and then he beat every single one of them hands down the next direct marketing effort that he did. I thought, wow, that’s an amazing culture. That’s a culture of learning. That’s a culture of taking advantage of an opportunity and making it so that you become better and your skills become better and you’re actually able to experiment and make the experience better. And it’s one of those things that I saw it after. So I was a smart draw, then I went to visual sciences and then when a job opening came up for into it, I actually jumped on that as quickly as I possibly could.

00:17:13.30 [Tim Wilson]: But so you I guess where I was where I was going though was that it seems like somebody could Listen and say yep. I’m not there. I don’t I don’t love my boss boss’s boss board I don’t the founders not running the company. We even bought and sold I need to get out I feel like there’s still some well I think you have to look at it.

00:17:31.93 [Dylan Lewis]: I think yeah, you’re right. I mean that’s sort of a It’s not a platitude, but it is a reality. It’s one of those things where you have to figure out what’s right for you, right? So is your current situation something that you can understand and you can grow your skills? And at the end of the week, you have more good days than bad days, then you should probably stick it out, right? And if you aren’t having more good days than bad days, then you should probably be a change agent and figure out how to make it so that you are. And if you aren’t, then, and you can’t, and you’ve tried changing and you’ve tried moving stuff around, then maybe it’s time to look.

00:18:04.92 [Tim Wilson]: And I think the part on top of that, which maybe does come back to the way you were describing what you’re doing, is that it does seem like the am I growing? That to me seems like a sort of a fundamental question that when I’ve moved on after two or three years at a place, it’s often because I’m doing great. I mean, people are happy with what I’m doing. I’m advancing. I’m getting more responsibility, but I’m basically on a fairly gentle slope of a trajectory and that is to the detriment of some companies. If they’re like, we have sort of pigeonholed this analytics role and this is what it is and this person is trying to push themselves and they’re just getting beaten down, that’s one thing. I mean, I always want to put the accountability on the employee to say, you have got to really try You got to put your all in to make it right for you. But it sounds like Intuit is very right for you and you’d been in the workforce for a while before you joined there. So you’d had that experience to say, wow, this actually does feel right and better and different. And you know, one of the kicking around notes before the show that sort of had me realizing what I’ve said to other people as well. Like, you know, at a point when you’ve worked at a few companies, then all of a sudden you do, you ignore your gut once and it burns you bad. And then you’re like, oh, that was very informative. I’m going to pay attention to what my instincts are saying, but that goes for both changing as well as staying, which I guess are two sides of the same coin. So you wouldn’t advocate the use of data here, Tim Wilson, just go with your gut. Oh, well put. Well, hopefully. I think the learning comes from saying, my gut says this, now why can I quantify why that is?

00:19:54.70 [Michael Helbling]: See, I had to build up a bunch of data points going to leaving companies, going to figure out some of those things. Well, so did I. Yeah, I built my gut. But it’s just the thing is, and a lot of things, there’s a lot of pressure on people in our industry too to advance, I think. And I don’t know, you know, Dylan, if you’ve seen this, but I know that because of the way our industry is needful for talent, you see a lot of title inflation out there in the marketplace. And so people feel a pressure. Hey, wow, I’ve been out of school for five years. I should be a director. of analytics at some agency by now, because I see that’s the title that some of my friends have. I try to tell people now, but I was in the same boat as them before, but that’s not really going to help make you feel better.

00:20:45.68 [Dylan Lewis]: Well, if your paycheck keeps going up, and that might help some people, but one of those things that you have to look at and go, yeah, so my paycheck’s going up, but it was really the thing that I want to be getting up and doing every day. You know, you’re only here for so long and when you are here, you want to be able to get up and actually enjoy what it is you’re doing. And that’s one of the things that I think that people don’t think about that much when they’re jumping from one to the next.

00:21:08.06 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah. Well, and it’s, it’s tough. I mean, and also sometimes when you face tough times, this is sort of going back a little bit, but I’ve found that there’s been people in my life that have kind of helped give me context or give me perspective. I don’t know, Dylan, if you’ve had people along your way. You’re welcome. You’re welcome, Michael. Yeah, you know what, Tim? You could be one of those people someday. I was thinking more like Chris Grant, but yeah, sure.

00:21:36.50 [Dylan Lewis]: You’re good too. I have been a personal board of directors, absolutely. That’s something that I made sure that I have, and I have people and friends that I reach out to when I’m thinking about things. Do I want to go down this path or this path, and what’s the future career look like? And I have those conversations with those people. And, you know, it all comes back to what it is that you want to accomplish. Do you want to be the CIO or do you want to be the person who’s finding the new puzzles or what is it that really fuels your boat that week, right?

00:22:05.53 [Tim Wilson]: So given that into it, great fit for you, great place to work, how much, what’s the balance between How much you have said, I’ve realized something else that I’m interested in or that I want to do and try out and you’ve guided your career versus how much has it been? Oh, there’s this other role and let me go to it. Does that question make sense?

00:22:30.99 [Dylan Lewis]: It does. I think it’s how much have I been self-directed and what it is that I’m doing versus just taking advantage about what’s going on in the environment.

00:22:38.35 [Tim Wilson]: Yeah.

00:22:40.05 [Dylan Lewis]: It’s a little bit of both. I think there’s things that certainly fuel my passion. And so I try to go and do those things more often than things that don’t fuel my passion. But I realize that it’s a business and we have to do some of the work that isn’t what it is that we want to do sometimes. But I find myself in a position where I get to do a lot of the stuff that I really like to do and people like it when you do things and you’re passionate about it. So that’s where I ended up. And that’s where, you know, this week is going to be spent doing a lot of that. Last week was spent doing a lot of that too. And so I look at it and I do self-reflection. You know, I keep score of how my week went and how my day went and figure out what I could do better every single time. And I think about that and I try and figure out, well, how is today going to be different than yesterday? What is it that I want to do today that’s going to make today more productive than yesterday could have been?

00:23:25.61 [Tim Wilson]: How explicit is that? You’re not literally tallying in a spreadsheet somewhere that you gave Moenday a seven and Tuesday was an eight? I don’t know. He’s got a personal board of directors, so…

00:23:37.78 [Dylan Lewis]: No, I don’t do it quite to that level, but you know… And I’m not trying to put you on the spot.

00:23:42.37 [Tim Wilson]: I’m curious as to whether that’s a… I mean, yeah, that’s the sort of thing Leah Pika absolutely would do.

00:23:47.77 [Dylan Lewis]: Well, I have no people that do do that. And I know managers that at every single staff meeting, they say, alright, so what’s your happiness and what’s your stress level? And then they plot that out over the entire year, and they look at where it was up and when it was down, and they put in commentary for that to try and make it so they can manage better. That’s a bit obsessive for me, so I don’t quite do that. But I do reflect on Saturday or on Sunday about what happened last week and try and figure out, well, how do I make this week better? How do I learn from what happened last week? And it’s that healthy dissatisfaction, right? And so it’s how do you make it so that you’re always getting better and you’re always moving forward whenever you can.

00:24:23.12 [Tim Wilson]: It seems like an interesting technique from if somebody says, wow, I have thought about this for 12 straight Saturdays and I keep coming up with, damn, there’s nothing I can do to make it better except hope that person X or company culture Y, you know, changes.

00:24:41.13 [Dylan Lewis]: Culture’s hard to change. Culture’s not going to change.

00:24:43.71 [Tim Wilson]: Well, some people say it’s impossible to change, right? But I think there’s the piece of that of saying it would force you to say, am I just trying to remove responsibility for myself versus is this really something that I cannot change and it’s a problem if it persists? So there’s a whole lot of introspection, it seems like, that’s required there.

00:25:06.60 [Dylan Lewis]: When are we going to start talking about analytics, though? We’ve been talking about career for the entire time.

00:25:10.85 [Michael Helbling]: What’s the coolest analysis you’ve done in the last 11 years? I mean, do you even do analysis anymore, you personally, or you’re just a boss now?

00:25:20.73 [Dylan Lewis]: Now I do analysis. I work with two different teams and across those teams trying to figure out how to make it so they’re both as productive as possible. It’s probably the coolest analysis that I do right now. But I think the other coolest analysis that I get to do is, hey, we’ve got all these customers that are coming in. How do we help them complete as fast and as happily as possible? And that’s one of the things that I really love about my job is that You know, I get to help customer, I get to help experienced teams make better experiences by giving them the tools they need in order to be able to run experiments. And that’s, that’s one of the coolest things that I get to do. And watching teams learn about how to make their experiences different than what it is they started out on is actually a pretty cool analysis.

00:26:01.67 [Michael Helbling]: All right. Well, let’s switch gears here and talk about when you do get that call from a recruiter, do you talk to them? Do you want to do a chat with them?

00:26:12.79 [Dylan Lewis]: Of course.

00:26:14.02 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah.

00:26:14.78 [Dylan Lewis]: Why wouldn’t you?

00:26:15.56 [Michael Helbling]: Just to get free plane tickets across the country.

00:26:18.40 [Dylan Lewis]: No, no, no. That’s going on the interview. That’s a little different. Oh, okay. The food in Atlanta here is really good. So is that flash careers?

00:26:28.11 [Michael Helbling]: Hey, listen, I think we should be talking based on all I’m hearing about careers.intuit.com. And actually, as I’m browsing here, there’s some open positions. So I think, you know, some of our listeners might find that interesting.

00:26:42.29 [Dylan Lewis]: Absolutely. There are open positions. We’ve had analytics positions open both in San Diego and in Moeuntain View for over a year now. We filled lots of them, but we always are looking for great talent. If you’re interested, just give me, drop me a line at linkedin.com.

00:26:59.34 [Michael Helbling]: And we’re always interested in great talent too. Yeah. See, look at this. I love how this is working out. Just drop me a line anytime. Do you want to go east or go west? No.

00:27:09.83 [Dylan Lewis]: I like San Diego. So it’s a hard, it’s a hard thing. And San Diego is pretty awesome.

00:27:13.57 [Michael Helbling]: That’s the beauty of our model though is, you know, most of my people are remote. So there you go.

00:27:19.82 [Tim Wilson]: So when the recruiter calls you, what should the recruiter say who calls you to really peak your interest? Apparently it’s San Diego.

00:27:33.69 [Dylan Lewis]: It’s really about the company, right? And so it’s about what I know about the culture of that company and what the recruiter can convey in that first communication. And it’s all about, you know, how better is that place gonna be versus the place I’m at? And we all take the call, right? We all, you know, sometimes, more often than not say, no, no, that’s not okay. But sometimes you take the call and you, you figure out exactly what it is that you have versus what it is that you want. And sometimes you can make that change in your own, your own, where you work today. And sometimes you have to go someplace else.

00:28:06.42 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, but I think, I don’t know if you feel this way Dylan and Tim, but I feel like I’m able to sort of weed out 90% of what I see just based on how the approach is and who it is and who the company is.

00:28:19.25 [Dylan Lewis]: Totally. That’s the culture. You can get right there, right? So you can just sort of get your name wrong or they have misspellings throughout or they, you know, approaching you a little strongly than, yeah, absolutely.

00:28:31.15 [Michael Helbling]: Well, and even how the people write job descriptions, you know, like, oh, this is a very important director level role where you’re going to sit in a corner and be in charge of our Adobe analytics implementation. You’re like, hmm, that seems weird to me.

00:28:44.66 [Tim Wilson]: You know, but the job description that says sit in the corner is, uh, that’s, that’s fantastic.

00:28:49.69 [Michael Helbling]: Sometimes you will not talk to others in the line, but no, there’s, there’s ways to kind of figure it out. I guess that’s what I’m saying. You can kind of tell.

00:28:59.23 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:59.96 [Tim Wilson]: But I think that’s the same. I have gone deep in interview processes and turned down jobs, and I wasn’t going in just so I could interview and turn down the job. Those are as valuable as the work experience to say, This seems like it meets the criteria that I had, or it addresses the frustrations that I had, yet I’m not feeling great about this. And I have been very diligent when that has happened to say, you know, why? What is it about that? Oh, well, this job offer comes with the contingency that I’m Adobe Implementation Certified inside nine months. I’m not scared about getting that, but why is that like a contingency in the, in the offer? You know, and that, that there were things that I’d say, now why, why is that important to that company?

00:29:55.98 [Dylan Lewis]: And why is that not how I’ve been operating? Right? So that’s one of the things that you have to suss out. You have to figure out as you’re going through that process, is this, why is it that they’re making that the most important thing versus, you and what you can bring to the table and why is it that they have that particular recommendation or that particular requirement for that position. And even when you’re looking at roles inside your own company, you have to look at what’s the situation there that you’re going to and figure out exactly if that’s the right place for you to be. You know, I think we’ve got a network amongst us that most people who are contacting one of us, we can probably contact somebody else and find out more about that company. And so it’s one of those things like, hey, what’s the culture really like there? What does the analysts really do there on a day to day basis? And one of us can probably figure out pretty quickly whether or not that’s the right place for us. And I think that’s something that you can’t put a price tag on. That’s part of the reason why you have that personal board of directors. So you can say, look, I’ve got this opportunity that’s coming up and it’s one of those things that’s interesting to me. So let’s talk through what it is that it might mean for us. And I think that, you know, getting in on the E-metrics conferencing early on has allowed me to actually have those relationships with other industry experts like you guys and other people, Jim Stern, Eric Peterson, you know, just the gamut of people to make it so that you can feel comfortable reaching out to them and saying, hey, there’s this thing going on over here, what’s it really like, and really assessing out how true that opportunity might be. There’s no shortage of that.

00:31:26.30 [Tim Wilson]: So do the personal board of directors get, do they have stock in Dillon Lewis?

00:31:32.49 [Dylan Lewis]: No. I buy them drinks when I see them at the e-metrics lobby. So maybe.

00:31:40.60 [Tim Wilson]: I certainly have had clients and have talked to people. I had conferences like this is the first conference I’ve gotten to go to in three years. Or I’ve got to pick which one conference to go to. And definitely here they’re the The totally boneheaded managers that are like we don’t want to send you to conferences because you might find. You might get a job you might make a contact and get a job and of course the you know the obvious is. That’s so ridiculously short term thinking that’s that’s not good on the company but. So, Intuit’s one of those companies that’s great that people want to learn from.

00:32:13.39 [Dylan Lewis]: So, I’m definitely, that’s part of it, right? And so, we’re doing some pretty amazing things. We’re pretty innovative. So, that’s part of it. So, I get invited to speak at different places. So, that’s one component of it. The other piece is that, you know, I’ll go and be the DMC for a room at E-metrics if I can get a free ticket, right? And so, I look for opportunities like that because I know that that’s actually how I’m going to learn. And so I look for places where I can go and do that. Yeah, I may have to lead a conversation at Click Summit, or I may lead a conversation of what was exchange. or something like that, but I get a lot out of being there and I learn a lot about how the industry is changing by talking to those companies. And so I make it a priority for me to go and learn as much as I possibly can.

00:32:56.83 [Tim Wilson]: But you have the support of, because you’ve made it a priority for you, it’s not a, you’re dreaming. This is the third conference you’ve gone to this year. I mean, you’ve got Whatever the mechanism is, that’s a priority for you. It’s kind of on your goals, and therefore you get that support, which I think they’re analysts who don’t have that support, I guess.

00:33:20.66 [Dylan Lewis]: It’s tough, right? I mean, if you’re not used to public speaking, and I’m not, I get nervous every single time I got nervous before this podcast, And it’s not something that, and I imagine that most of you guys do a little bit too, right? You get the nerves right before you come on, not on this podcast anymore because you’ve done it so many times probably.

00:33:37.02 [Tim Wilson]: You can tell we’re mailing it in at this point.

00:33:40.49 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah.

00:33:41.13 [Tim Wilson]: We just kept the, we kept the bar low from the get go and we thought that’s all we got to clear. And we got a whole bunch of, Dylan will be letting us know how this, this last one sucked too.

00:33:50.68 [Dylan Lewis]: So. your feedback’s a gift, right? But I think it’s one of those things that you gotta push yourself, right? And so what is it that you’re gonna do? And I had a manager very early on at Intuit and even before that, I said, look, you need to grow and you need to go and do this. You need to go and be a speaker. You need to go and talk about what it is that we’re doing so that we can get better. And so I got that push and I also got conference money taken away. And so it’s like, how do you get to go to conferences for free? Well, hell. You go and speak, right? And so you’ve got to figure out how to create a compelling presentation. You’ve got to convince the conference organizers that it’s going to be worthwhile for them to put you on stage. Then you have to deliver a convincing presentation that talks about what it is you’re really doing, be able to answer questions, and then be able to talk about it afterwards. And so you sort of have to think about what that’s going to be and you have to put a lot of effort into it. And that’s one of those things that is paid off in dividends like you wouldn’t believe. And I would encourage anybody who’s listening to go and do that once or twice to really try and figure out exactly how to put together a compelling story and actually get the feedback from, if you’re not getting it in your company and then get the feedback from an audience at E-metrics or some other place, right?

00:34:59.18 [Tim Wilson]: finding a way to go where you don’t have to speak. I mean, it can be tougher, but they’re definitely companies. I mean, they’re there’s in Columbus. There is, I know of one retailer and I’m sure there are others and I know of one major bank and they’re just like, you’re not going to go share our secret sauce, which is a little bit of a red flag. I would think if you’re an analyst and saying, I’ve got to find some way to, this is a space that is evolving quickly. I have to grow my network and my knowledge and my exposure and I have to be efficient about that. And I recognize I can’t just spend oodles of the company’s money, you know, going to every conference. There have been people that we’ve wanted to talk to have at conferences or. you know, even get on here who are like, uh, yeah, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t show up and talk about the company at all, which is very annoying.

00:35:50.39 [Dylan Lewis]: I mean, what’s really secret, right? I mean, you, you go to e-matrix and you’ve got 40 different frameworks and it’s, it’s not, everybody’s doing it slightly different. It’s a really great opportunity to understand how people think through problems, but it’s really, you know, every business is quite different. The only thing you worry about is, is your competitor going to be listening. And if your competitor is going to be listening, then you, you tailor appropriately.

00:36:08.94 [Tim Wilson]: Right you’re not given you’re not usually giving price points right i mean that’s the thing is it to me it is just so horrendously short-sighted because even. even if you say this is exactly what we’re doing and giving the perfect, you’re giving somebody the perfect formula, well they still have to go and apply the formula and they have different people and different process and different, and their business is a little different. So yeah, I’m not defending it at all, but that almost seems like one of those questions from a, if you were leaving to go somewhere else, I could see that being absolutely one of the questions that you’re asking the company of like, hey, I’ve been out, You know, speaking and involved and engaged and it’s helped my career. Am I, is that going to be supported and making sure they’re not kind of trying to duck and weave on what the, on answering that question.

00:36:59.71 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah. I mean, you guys are both are companies and where you probably had that conversation before you signed the, signed the contract and saying, Hey, look, I’m out there. I’m doing stuff. Is that okay? Is that gonna be still supportive while I go here? And that’s one of the things that you have to look for. If that’s something that’s really important to you, you’ve got your list, your shortlist, right? I remember June Dershowitz talking about her list of things that she wanted to have in her next company, and she wrote them down in a post-it note and put them on the wall and found symphonic, and it fulfilled all those things, right? And you’ve got the things that are on your shortlist that are on your post-it note, and that’s one of the things that’s on my post-it note. And hopefully, if there’s something on there that’s not your current company, you can make it be part of your current company. I think that’s one of the things that makes it so that you’re growing your career without changing companies is you’ve got that list of things you want to accomplish and you actually are accomplishing them, right? And if you’re not, then is that you or is that the company? That’s one of those questions you have to ask yourself.

00:37:53.25 [Tim Wilson]: And yeah, and not be instantly looking to blame, say it’s the company, not you, right? You got to be pretty brutally honest with the answer to that question.

00:38:01.92 [Michael Helbling]: And it’s challenging because obviously the path of least resistance is to not grow yourself, but go to a new company.

00:38:09.07 [Dylan Lewis]: Yeah, but I don’t know if that’s the path of least resistance.

00:38:11.45 [Michael Helbling]: I think that’s the best resistance because it can feel like that because there’s so many people willing to give you another job where you don’t have to tackle the thing that’s holding you back that it’s you, not the company. At least that’s what I’ve observed.

00:38:26.68 [Dylan Lewis]: There’s something to be said for walking in every day and knowing 30 faces when you’re getting a coffee, right? I mean, there’s, there’s a, it’s like a small town where I work and it’s, it’s pretty amazing to know people. Um, and to feel like you’ve got a trusted network or you’ve got a network of people that are, um, you know, it’ll feel bad if you’re out for a week or something, right? And so we’re like, oh, I haven’t seen you in a while, right? And so it’s, it’s, it’s not like cheers, um, but it’s, it’s not, it’s not, you know, but it sounds like cheers.

00:38:51.54 [Tim Wilson]: Although, I think that sometimes is a draw for people to be in the comfort zone. I’ve always been amazed at how quickly when I’ve joined a new company, how quickly I feel like I’ve established and grown. I mean, I don’t think that takes a full year before you feel like you’re there. Now, you don’t have the, hey, I remember back in ought seven when Leroy got hammered and did whatever.

00:39:13.58 [Dylan Lewis]: Well, no, you’re right. I mean, you don’t have the history when you go to another company, and it’s one of those things where a few people still have the history where, you know, five years ago we did this thing or this thing or this thing, right? And so you may not have that when you go to a new company, but you also, that first year is tough. Like, knowing what it is that you’re gonna be doing in a year from now is one of those things that you may not know as you jump to a new company. And so growing career, I know what it’s like. I know what planning season is like and I know what tax season is like. And yeah, I mean, I’ll be doing the same thing, but I’ll be, I’ll be into it and I’ll be growing myself, which is great.

00:39:48.24 [Tim Wilson]: You’re pretty not, you’re not planning a vacation from April 1st to 7th any, any year.

00:39:53.29 [Dylan Lewis]: That’s funny though. I’ve got friends who are on Facebook who said triple tax or tax season, ha ha ha ha, right? And they were just laughing about how this is the first time they never, they didn’t work in tax season for many years.

00:40:06.17 [Michael Helbling]: All right, so this is really good stuff. And actually I think really helpful for a lot of our listeners who kind of run the game and across all levels of the analyst, you know, from junior to senior, but really helpful to kind of hear some perspectives. So Dylan, thank you very much. And as we kind of wrap up, Why don’t we go around one more time and if you could just pretend like you’re talking to one person, what one snippet of advice would you give to them as they kind of think about how to consider where they’re at now, what job opportunities are in front of them, what would you say to somebody like that?

00:40:43.38 [Dylan Lewis]: I think what do you want to get out of where you’re at right now? What is the one thing that would make this week better than last week? What is it that you want to do for the rest of your life? an interesting question and one of those things you never actually really figure out. It’s one of those things that Avinash asked me. He said, what is it that you really want to get done while you’re into it? And I said, well, you know, I want to have a family and I want to have a great career as an analyst. And those are two things that I was able to accomplish quite well, although it was crying in the background, but whatever.

00:41:11.34 [Tim Wilson]: I think as Dylan was talking a lot of that, and this is echoing kind of even what you just said, was knowing yourself and being clear on what it is you’re looking to get. And I think that probably also includes recognizing when you don’t really know, like you’re kind of interested in this other thing. Do I want to do implementation stuff or do I want to go more of the data science route? That actually can be a reason to stay at the company you’re at too, because you could say, well, I can move into a role to try one thing or the other out potentially, but it does seem like that thinking that just jumping to another role that has, you know, it’s going to have better money and maybe going to have a better title. But going into the interview without being really clear on where you’re trying to head, how this is the next dot on the scatter plot that’s going to be moving you in the direction you want to go is kind of a recipe for randomness and not necessarily getting you to somewhere where you are there for the long term.

00:42:12.42 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, and I think, you know, early in my career, I think I was focused on certain titles and certain amount of money. And I think as I’ve grown and tried, I don’t know if I’m more wise, but hopefully I’ve become more wise. Those have receded and become less and less important. And my own happiness and what I do and the impact that I can have has become much more critical to how I view myself and how I view my job.

00:42:40.35 [Tim Wilson]: But you are recognizing that you’re getting to the point where you’ve got more the money, I mean, just to be the cranky new person saying,

00:42:48.42 [Michael Helbling]: Well, okay, if you work in analytics, if you work in analytics and you can’t make good money, you’re a terrible analyst. Like, come on, like nobody is hurting, like that’s not a problem for our industry really. Like not there’s degrees, but it’s not like people are good.

00:43:11.26 [Tim Wilson]: Well, I think that’s sometimes though if you if you were at hired in is a mark on and find yourself then doing analytics I mean, I think there’s certainly way so there’s there’s some I’m trying to give a little bit of a nod to don’t piss off the millennials I Totally get it and hey what I’m trying to tell the millennials is

00:43:31.03 [Michael Helbling]: Those things are important, but less important than your own happiness and your own achievement in terms of what you really want to do with your life. So I guess I’m sort of just saying what Dylan said, but in a more long-winded, less organized fashion. So I’m going to get a post-it note out, and I’m going to write on it each week. Like, what could I do better this week? And we’ll see how long that lasts.

00:43:54.74 [Dylan Lewis]: Well, you can have tick marks, too, right? You can have a post-it and have tick marks for good weeks and bad weeks, for good days and bad days. Then you have more bad days than good days, and maybe it is time to rethink how you become a change agent, whether it’s in your own company or in somebody else’s company. Or we can all become data scientists.

00:44:13.02 [Michael Helbling]: Well, if you listen to our last episode, you’ll know that we’re all going to become data scientists. Two episodes ago. Two episodes ago, right? All right. Well, if you’ve been listening along and obviously hearing what Dylan had to say and Tim and to a lesser extent me too I guess but if that’s interesting to you we’d love to hear from you figuring out your career in analytics is one of the more challenging but obviously super meaningful things that you’re going to be doing with your life and so if there’s anything we can do to help you know we’re always happy to do that reach out to us on the measure slack or Facebook or on Twitter and I did notice, as I mentioned before, careers.intuit.com, there’s some jobs out there. So I think if you’re listening and you like what Dylan was saying about Intuit, you can probably check that out. And there’s worse places to end up than San Diego.

00:45:13.76 [Dylan Lewis]: You have Opposites Moeuntain View, too, if you’re in Moeuntain View in the Bay Area.

00:45:16.84 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, there you go. And Dylan says you can camp out on his porch until you find your own place. It’s, and the weather’s perfect. You could just pitch a tent and it’s really great. It’s super, super great. Anyway, thanks so much for listening. We love to hear from you. And for my co-host, Tim Wilson, this is Michael Helbling saying, keep analyzing.

00:45:44.22 [Announcer]: Thanks for listening and don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter or Measure Slack Group. We welcome your comments and questions.

00:45:52.51 [Announcer]: Facebook.com forward slash analytics hour or at analytics hour on Twitter.

00:46:07.31 [Dylan Lewis]: I was explaining to some of my coworkers that I was going to be on this, and they’re like, real power hour? And I said, well, it’s the digital analytics power hour, so, you know, it doesn’t last a full hour. And they kind of laughed. No, no, no, like the real power hour. Like, who came up with that name? Are you going to have 60 shots? What are you going to do? And I was like, oh, no, it’s not like that at all.

00:46:27.37 [Michael Helbling]: Well, yeah, Tim officially came up with the Power Hour name, I believe.

00:46:32.66 [Tim Wilson]: You just, like, ripped that out and, like, as a placeholder, and then we just didn’t come up with anything better. No. Because I’ve always thought it was terrible. We all thought it was terrible.

00:46:45.62 [Michael Helbling]: But we couldn’t come up with anything better. All right, well, we own it now, so what are you going to do?

00:46:52.70 [Dylan Lewis]: You guys have your phone zone. What’s that all about?

00:46:55.80 [Michael Helbling]: Because that’s how the audio reaches my brain.

00:46:59.79 [Tim Wilson]: I do it so it’s isolating the input from the output.

00:47:03.43 [Michael Helbling]: That is what he said. That sounds more professional. Well, I mean, I’ve got everything in Bitcoin now, so. Oh, good, good. I’m about one of those guys, you know, peppers, you know.

00:47:16.56 [Dylan Lewis]: Both Tim and I have no idea what we’re talking about.

00:47:18.22 [Tim Wilson]: I mean, I keep all my bitcoins under my mattress. He said he’s a prepper, and he’s growing rabbits.

00:47:24.81 [Michael Helbling]: Is he a fluffer? He’s a fluffer.

00:47:27.27 [Dylan Lewis]: That’s right.

00:47:29.29 [Michael Helbling]: That’s the whole other thing. And you hear when we do 26 episodes, you can do the math. Hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah, if you can’t, what are you doing? Maybe that’s why you’re still at the same company.

00:47:44.37 [Tim Wilson]: If not, I can go to searchdiscovery.com slash careers. I love that you give a little shout out to the search discovery every time.

00:47:51.86 [Announcer]: Okay.

00:47:58.79 [Tim Wilson]: Nicely done.

00:48:00.43 [Michael Helbling]: Carry on. Get your Peterson job history timeline down there, Mr. Wilson. Well, there’s a joke in there somewhere. Yes, we’re going to start out, right? Anyways, do you really want to talk about analysis? That’s okay. My kids have been screaming in the background this whole time.

00:48:27.86 [Tim Wilson]: Rock flag and staying at one company.

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