It's hard to fathom the thought of doing data entries without Microsoft Excel. If you speak to your parents or grandparents, they could tell you of a whole different world, involving an obsolete machine they used back in the heyday of data tabulations. That's right, it's the keypunch, a device originally invented by Herman Hollerith to help in the process of information summarization.
This machine allowed the punching of holes into a stiff paper in predefined locations to represent digital data, which then acted as input, output, and data storage when being fed into a data processing system. However, it was difficult to present graphs using code, let alone using a keypunch, which was why spreadsheets became the holy grail, allowing data visualizations to be done in a structured way. Spreadsheets have become a powerful tool used by accountants, engineers, scientists, sales in presenting, analyzing, storing, and calculating complex data.
A data entry specialist is responsible for searching through databases and updating information in computer applications. If you are detail oriented and enjoy compiling data, then this role will fit you. This job requires a proficient level of Microsoft Suites and a good IT literacy level. A data entry specialist works the usual 40 hours per week and gets paid $14 per hour on average.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a data entry specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.85 an hour? That's $30,893 a year!
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a data entry specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 17.0% of data entry specialists included data entry, while 12.0% of resumes included customer service, and 7.6% of resumes included computer database. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
If you're interested in becoming a data entry specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 37.8% of data entry specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.5% of data entry specialists have master's degrees. Even though some data entry specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a data entry specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a data entry specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on data entry specialist resumes include high school diploma degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a data entry specialist. In fact, many data entry specialist jobs require experience in a role such as customer service representative. Meanwhile, many data entry specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as administrative assistant or cashier.