To not think an analyst=admin?

[itswednesdayy]

I am starting new job. I studied a stats degree at university and will be working as an an analyst in a finance function so very happy to be working in my degree field.

My manager made her manager aware today and their comment was “sounds like a nice admin role”. Aibu to think analyst work is not quite admin work? I would be investigating issues and presenting solutions to senior leaders. In comparison, I feel like my current job is more full of pointless admin work😂

I'd say that it is a type of admin, yes (and there's nothing wrong with admin work anyway but you see it as pointless?).

It sounds fun! I suppose you could double-check your understanding of what it entails in case there's been some massive miscommunication, but probably that manager simply misspoke or misunderstood.

No I wouldn’t say that is an administrative job description, but “analyst” covers a huge range of jobs so perhaps the one the manager has most recently had experience of was more administrative. I wouldn’t be worried about it!

Conversely I recently accepted a new job that should be admin but apparently is “effectively an analyst role” and that has given me the fear.

It sounds like admin without any of the sorting, to be honest.

I am a supply chain analyst. My job is to investigate trends, reporting using power BI and various other tools, analysing data and preparing presentations. There is not much admin, but I do send weekly emails of various reports, which I would probably consider admin.

I’ve worked in various analyst roles and no they were not particularly admin-heavy.

What's the operational part of the company? Sometimes back office staff are seen as admin but it's not intended to denigrate them - they're an important team.

What does it say in the job description?

I have a role in my team as a Compliance analyst and it does involve some admin tasks like arranging and minuting steering committee meetings, logging and following up continuous improvement actions, initiating and following up on 3rd party risk assessments.

There are also analytical components, like identifying and scoring risks, determining whether continuous improvement activity has been effective etc but there's a fair bit of admin.

The word admin covers a multitude of things.

I have had to browbeat my work into accepting that a Database SysAdmin is a significant role in structuring and deploying work systems that's usually pretty well paid.

It's not exclusively someone who does data entry into a database.

I'm a chief finance officer, but, to an outsider the whole job is "admin" in that it consists of pushing computer keys all day.

In reality of course quite a lot is in fact data analysis.

I work in finance. Our analyst roles I would not describe as admin.

No, I've always thought of it more as a research/research interpretation than admin role that requires significant skill and ability, and I'm an outsider (in that I've never worked with an analyst before)

If you are going to be a financial analyst of some sort, I wouldn't equate that to admin at all, no.
I was once a "business analyst" in a management consultancy. It was essentially what they called the most junior consultants, the ones without MBAs. It definitely wasn't an admin role.

Its not admin at all. You might have some adminy tasks, but producing and presenting reports, analysing data and helping business decisions is not an admin role no.

I'm an analyst. There is an administrative element to almost any job really isn't there? Doctors and lawyers fill out paperwork but it doesn't make their job 'admin'.

Mine isn't admin and isn't paid like it is either. But in some industries analysts are recruited like analysts and then treated like admin, so I would definitely check the job description and have a conversation about what your job will be.

As an aside, I've been in my job for years and years. When I started it was a lot more administrative because technology wasn't available the way it is now. Nowadays I do barely any actual admin at all.

Senior manager was probably not paying attention to what your role was and misheard, either that or they have no idea what is going on. Analysts are not admin.

This is your current manager saying your new job elsewhere is "a nice admin job?" Your manager sounds like they think admin is a shit job and is trying to do you down. I don't consider an analyst job to be admin.

Same here.

Perhaps she read the job spec and has enough experience within the company to know what the role will really entail

Seems to be particular to finance. What I would view as admin (client contact, updating the files, general correspondence etc) is quite often given an analyst title. Which confused the heckity feck out of me as analyst to me (based on my experience) is either a technical (IT related) role or looking at trends (as a pp said upthread supply chain)

Hopefully it’s a miscommunication and the manager just doesn’t really know what an analyst does. However, I’ve had several jobs with very interesting sounding job titles where in the job description you needed loads of qualifications and skills. When I got there it was basically sending emails/diary management/minute taking.

A couple of the adverts made it sound like I’d be leading a couple of people, but no. Organisations often want the best people for as cheap as possible. It sucks but it’s true 🤷‍♀️

So presumably in that scenario, where you thought you’d be managing people, you were able to see the salary?

Similar with intelligence analyst, it's a mixed bag

Analysts, to me, are executive level admin, so up there with your project managers. I love the admin support in my team, they're absolute life savers and I will protect them at all costs. As such I will not hear anything derogatory said about administrative work.