I used to want to be an engineer, but found I just wasn’t strong enough in math to keep up. So I switched to business, jokingly because I though I was a bit better at math than the average student there. I figured it’d be an easier path.
Of course I never thought math classes I took in high school and college would ever be something I’d use much in the real world, even in business. That’s always the joke right?
But as I found my way into digital marketing and then marketing ops, I suddenly found all those math skills start coming in handy again. It starts small. A simple conversion rate calculation. But then I was doing survey analysis, or forecasting our lead & opportunity trends.
This kind of stuff scares off students. It scares off most adults too. People hear math and assume it means calculus. And yeah, sometimes there are areas where calculus could be used (though I’ve never needed it). Really the majority of it is about basic arithmetic and maybe a bit of algebra.
Sure, the tools do most of the math for you. But where it comes in handy, and why I like to test for math skills, is in verifying the results. In understanding what’s going on behind the numbers. In showing the work. I am always amazed at how easy it is to take a number at face value, and to later find out it’s not what you thought it meant.
The type of people I like to work with are willing to question those assumptions, and do the math themselves to confirm. There’s a general shortage of proficient marketing ops talent, but an even smaller subset of talent that really embraces the math. If you want to stand out, that’s a decent place to start.