I got an email a few months ago from a woman who was a delivery driver. She was interested in joining The Accelerator, and said "I will be one of your success stories."

That woman was Jen Hawkins.

Today, she's a six-figure analyst for a FAANG company. Here's how she did it & how you can too! 👇

Treated Her Job Like a Data Role

Jen was a delivery driver. I don’t think many of us would exactly consider this a “tech role” with tons of analytics opportunities.

In fact, most of us would probably say, “I’m a pizza delivery driver. My job has nothing to do with data.”

But not Jen. She decided to think like a data analyst on the job. She:

• 🍕 Brainstormed on how her company could more accurately estimate pizza wait times

• 📱 AB tested messages to see which got her into coded buildings faster

• 📦 Optimized how to best handle large deliveries

Now obviously, none of this is making a dashboard in Excel or writing a killer query in SQL, but it’s something. She was flexing her analytical mindset & creating killer bullet points for her resume that could reflect her data skills.

You can do that as well.

💪 Take 60 seconds and think of 1 way you can “use analytics” at your job today.

Focused on the basic skills

You’d think that at a FAANG company, Jen would be using AI to write machine learning models in Python or something crazy, right? Wrong.

Jen mostly uses Excel & Tableau. Simple.

You don’t have to know EVERY data tool on planet earth.

You don’t even have to know most of them.

Start small: Excel, Tableau, SQL.

Leave Python for later.

💪 Stop overestimating how much you have to know.

p.s. read to the bottom of this for living-proof of what I'm telling you here.

Created a Magnetic LinkedIn

Jen didn’t even find this FAANG job—it found her. Recruiters were reaching out to Jen daily.

In fact, she had so many recruiters reaching out that she started to forward on the roles to her Accelerator peers inside the program.

How? Jen had a great LinkedIn.

I mean, check it out.

She optimized her:

• Cover photo

• Profile picture

• Headline

• Portfolio link

• Featured Section

• About Section

• Experience Section

We cover how to do all of this in The Accelerator, even give you templates for each.

💪 Take 1 minute & check your LinkedIn headline.

If you don’t like it, here’s the template I give in DAA: "Data-Driven [YOUR CURRENT ROLE] at [YOUR COMPANY NAME] | Data Analytics | Data Visualization | SQL | Tableau | Excel"

Held Herself Accountable (With a Little Help)

Landing a data job is friggin’ hard work. It’s even harder with no path, no mentor, and no accountability.

Jen recognized that. That’s why she joined The Accelerator—she suddenly had a plan, a coach, and built in accountability.

In fact, when Jen joined, she sent me this email:

“I’m so excited to take your course. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I will be one of your success stories!!”

Talk about calling your shot.

Jen was also super active in our community. She did her bi-weekly accountability check ins. She also answered other students questions & gave advice where applicable. The best way to learn is to teach, right?

All 4 of these steps (and a few others we talk about in my interview with here) led to a recruiter from a FAANG company reaching out, an interview or two, and one six-figure offer.

Jen is amazing. But she’s no different than you.

If she did it, you can too.

Can’t wait to hear about your offer soon.