Data mining jobs are found primarily in the technology, finance, healthcare and pharmaceutical fields. They can range from social media and digital media analysts who focus on enterprise-level data mining to PhD-level quantitative analysts who mine millions of data units for investment banks and hedge funds. In the pharmaceutical industry, data mining analyst jobs tend to focus on statistical work involving analysis of pharmaceutical marketing information and sales.
The ability to effectively cultivate product development capabilities is an important skill to have for anyone considering data mining jobs in the technology field. Particularly in the Internet realm, jobs in data mining are highly valued. Professionals in these positions support the immense data mining work that must be in effect for a consumer-facing technology company to succeed.
Many search engine companies and technology companies that build on search and web crawler technologies, such as social media analytics firms, offer critical data mining job opportunities for those who are qualified. Experience working with web analytics platforms and databases built using Structured Query Language (SQL) constitute the bulk of the data mining jobs found in companies offering search engine technology.
Finance firms all over the world are also places where people with data mining skills are in increasingly high demand. In finance, data mining professionals or, quants as they are more commonly called, are charged with creating better ways to visualize prediction curves, valuation models, and other important aspects of financial quantitative analysis. The data mining job description for quants typically involves a great deal of programming work in C++, a popular computer programming language used in banking and enterprise information technology systems. In addition, a quantitative professional in finance or banking must have a strong grasp of Visual Basics for Applications (VBA) to use in Excel modelling and analysis.
Although not thought of as a particularly quantitative field, healthcare firms and large pharmaceutical companies oftentimes present opportunities for data mining jobs. Using statistics to predict future sales or to calculate the amount of risk involved in a product launch or a branding change are some of the tasks that quantitative analysts in pharmaceutical companies are required to do. Usually a master's or a PhD degree in mathematics, statistics, economics, or another quantitative-based discipline is required for this position.
Quantitative analysts for pharmaceutical firms provide much needed insight into which drugs perform best on the market. Their work can also demonstrate why one product performs better than another. Through analyzing product distribution channels as well as constructing financial valuation models, the pharmaceutical quantitative analyst is able to use data mining techniques to serve the firm's interests.