Analytical Skills for the Workplace

When you apply for a job, it’s important to have a strong set of both soft and hard skills to help set you apart from other candidates. One set of skills that can help you succeed in the interview process and in the workplace are analytical thinking skills. No matter your profession, analytical thinking skills are widely used for various tasks. Read on to learn more about analytical thinking skills and the various types of analytical skills in the workplace.

Analytical thinking skills refer to your ability to gather, organize, and analyze or evaluate information. Not only do these skills help you identify problems but they also help you determine the root cause of them. From here, you can come up with creative solutions based on patterns you detected in your findings. Overall, analytical skills can help you better investigate problems and find a solution in a timely manner.

Types of analytical skills

Analytical skills allow you to make decisions and solve both simple and complex problems across several industries. In addition, they can improve productivity and help you discover new and innovative ideas while brainstorming. Now that you have a general idea of what analytical skills are, consider the following categories and examples of analytical skills in the workplace:

Communication

To effectively share your findings from your analysis, you need to have strong communication skills. If you face a problem in the workplace, proper communication allows you to elaborate on the issue and share your recommendations for how to move forward. Here are some examples of analytical communication skills:

• Teamwork: This refers to your ability to work collaboratively within a group. When you work as part of a team, it’s important to analyze how others work. Doing so can help you evaluate everyone’s strengths and weaknesses and determine the best course of action for this group effort.
• Active listening: As an active listener, you focus on and fully understand what someone is saying to you. With this communication skill, you’re essentially analyzing the speaker’s message to better understand what they’re trying to tell you.

Critical thinking

When you have critical thinking skills, you’re able to evaluate information, determine why a problem exists, and make a decision or solution based on your analysis. This skill is particularly helpful when solving problems within the workplace. Here are some examples of critical thinking that relate to analysis:

• Decision making: Decision making involves coming to a solution for a problem or other matter. Once you identify a problem, it’s important to communicate it to others and come up with effective yet logical solutions by way of critical thinking. Doing so can help you decide on a solution that’s in the company’s best interest.
• Troubleshooting: Troubleshooting involves solving complex problems for a company. If you ever need to troubleshoot a computer issue or a more general problem, critical thinking can help you identify the issue, determine what’s wrong, and come up with a solution to help you get back to work.
• Auditing: Auditing refers to a financial examination of a company’s accounts. To perform an audit, you need to objectively analyze the information you’re given in order to increase the credibility of the financial documents.

Research

Before you find a solution to a problem, you need to conduct proper research. Whether you do online research or compile spreadsheets, there are several ways to use proper analysis to aid your search. Here are some examples of research skills that use analytical thinking:

• Data collection: When you collect data, you’re essentially conducting research to use for your analysis. The data you collect can help you answer a variety of research questions, test hypotheses, and assess various outcomes.
• Checking for accuracy: No matter your industry, conducting research can help you fact check information. For example, tax specialists use their research and analytical skills to look up specific financial figures when preparing taxes. Conducting this research helps them identify the accurate numbers for their client’s tax documents.
• Investigation: Depending on your job responsibilities, you may need to perform investigative research. To do this, you need to ask questions, interview, funnel information, take notes, and assess or analyze your findings to come to a conclusion.

Creativity

Having a creative skill set can help you come up with innovative solutions that you might not have otherwise considered. These skills are particularly helpful when it comes to problem-solving. When you think outside of the norm, you’re able to discover new and effective solutions to a wide range of problems. Here are examples of creative skills that use analytical thinking:

• Brainstorming: Brainstorming refers to a group discussion to generate new ideas or solutions. During a brainstorming session, it’s important to come up with original and exciting ideas. A strong sense of creativity and proper analysis can help you come up with unconventional ways of thinking that can lead to fresh ideas.
• Strategic planning: Strategic planning involves analyzing a business or organization and coming up with important goals and objectives. Using creativity and analysis, you have an easier time creating strategic methods to improve your company.
• Budgeting: If you work in finance, it’s important to think of creative ways to allocate money. Analyzing the finances you’re working with and coming up with creative solutions can help you save money and ensure its sent to the right avenues more efficiently.

Data analytics

Having strong analytical skills can help you identify trends in a wide range of data. While you need to understand the data you’re looking at, you also need to know how to identify patterns that can help you make a well-informed decision. You can find data analysis in several industries. Here are some examples of this type of analytical thinking:

• Financial analysis: This refers to assessing the stability and profitability of a company. Having analysis skills in this regard helps you determine the financial health of your company and helps you determine how best to achieve a profit. It can also help make decisions regarding the future of the company.
• Cost analysis: A cost analysis involves determining the true costs of a service or product. To do this, you analyze data and research and determine any cost-saving opportunities.
• Business analysis: When you perform business analysis, you use a variety of data and documents to determine the best course of action for business-related problems.