SDS 396: Five Job Hunting Tips

(00:15):
Welcome back to the SuperDataScience podcast everybody. Super pumped to have you back here on the show. Today I’ve got something very cool prepared for you. So you may have heard that we are hiring at SuperDataScience, and specifically, we’re looking for a data analyst. In this past week, as over the recording of this podcast in the preceding week, I interviewed six data analyst candidates. Five who applied through our careers page and one who was scouted for us by a recruiter. I’ve got some very interesting insights to share with you that you might be able to apply into your job applications. 

(00:59):
So in a nutshell, out of the six applicants, all five who applied through the careers page have not been successful. So I’ve spoken to each one of them and unfortunately, in every single case, I decided not to progress them to the next stage of the interview process. The candidate who was scouted for us recruiter was successful and she, as of recording this podcast, she’s progressing through our entry process. She’s already done her case study. She’s had a few interviews. She’s going on to our final interview very soon. That is not to say that you cannot be successful if you apply. If you were not found by a head hunter or a recruiter, then you won’t be successful. Not at all. The point of this podcast is to give you those tips to show you the contrast between successful and unsuccessful applications so that you can incorporate the right approaches in your applications wherever you’re applying, not necessarily to our company, to any company. I think these will be valuable. 

(01:59):
So here we go, five tips plus a bonus one at the end. Number one, be very careful when you write your application. So we have a careers page, we’ve got our job positions listed there, you click on a job and then there’s an application form that you need to fill out. And then those forms come to our hiring managers and they, so basically the managers of the teams that are looking for those people. And they then look through these forms. When I posted on LinkedIn that we’re hiring a data analyst, we’ve got like 60 plus applications within one or two days. A lot of applications came in, as you can imagine, it’s a lot of work to go through. So if a candidate is writing up their application and make a lot of grammatical mistakes, or they’re just careless, for example. 

(02:44):
So for example, we have a field that’s asking about the availability to start. So when are you available to start? Some candidates put in their expected salary range into that field. So that’s a clear indication that the person was doing it very fast or didn’t care enough to do the application process properly. So things like that, as soon as that comes up, in most cases, the application’s discarded right away, simply because of the sheer volume of applications. Why should a company be investing their time and effort into reviewing an application which was submitted carelessly? So be very careful, reread your application several times, check for grammatical mistakes, make sure you filled in the fields correctly. That’s like the number one filter when you’re applying. And moreover in many cases, these are processed automatically by AI. So you want to be extremely careful, especially in those cases. 

(03:38):
Tip number two is submitting a cover letter in addition to your CV. You cannot imagine how much that stands out. If a candidate just throws in their CV and fills in the application form, okay, that’s a good start. In our case, we have a field where you can add some text and explain why you think you’re the perfect candidate for this position. So that kind of acts as a cover letter. But if you go the extra step and you write up a professional looking cover letter about how you would add value to a company, those are extra bonus points. And one of the candidates did that and that really stood out to me. 

(04:12):
The key here is that it has to be well thought out. It’s not a template cover letter. Your cover letter needs to describe in detail what value you bring to the company and why you are applying for this position. You need to show that you’ve done your research and that you know the pains of the company, you know why the company has created this position. What’s the purpose? What are the pain points and how are you going to address them? So make sure it’s not just like one of those standard templated cover letters. It has to be a thought through cover letter. You’re actually communicating. This is your chance to communicate to the hiring manager that you understand the pains of the company and you also are there to address them. It’s a very powerful tool and it’s extremely overlooked these days. 

(04:57):
Number three, include examples of your work. Your online portfolio speaks 100 times louder than your CV. A few people included their portfolios and we are hiring for data analyst, with specific experience in Tableau. So the few people included Tableau public as a portfolio. And that is good for two reasons. One is if you have a great portfolio, basically you should have a great portfolio in your perspective, but why is it great? For two reasons. Is that on one hand, if your portfolio, the work is showing in your portfolio, whether it’s Tableau public or it’s your GitHub repository, or it’s your blogs and things you write on Medium, your blog, your LinkedIn blogs, whatever it is. If they are adequate for the level required in the company, then you will more likely get selected to go through the interview process because it’s clear indication, is a demonstration that you have the right skills. 

(05:55):
On the other hand, even if you think your portfolio is great, but it’s not adequate to the level that’s required by the company, then that will be a good filter for the hiring manager. They’ll see that unfortunately you don’t have the right skills and guess what? That’s a good thing because it will save you time. It’ll save the hiring manager time and it won’t burn your chance with the company. What’s the point of you applying not having the right skills, going into the interview process, just for the hiring managed to realize that it’s clear that you are not ready for this role, then they probably won’t want to speak with you for another year, at least until they think you have the right skill. So why burn your chance with that company? Your portfolio acts as a filter in both ways and in both cases it’s good for you. 

(06:42):
Okay. So those are the three tips that you can apply in the stages of when you’re applying for the job, when you’re submitting your applications. So write your application carefully and avoid grammatical mistakes and avoid being careless. Submit a cover letter along with your CV. If there is no field for a cover letter, one of the applicants in our application she actually added her cover letter, merged it with her CV and added it as a first page of her CV in the PDF format, which showed us that she put in extra effort to do that. 

(07:18):
Number three, include examples of your work is very powerful tip, especially applicable to data science. It’s going to save everybody time and also if your work is relevant, will get you on the front foot. Now, the other two tips, number four, number five are about that first catch up, the first interview or first introductory call that you have usually with the hiring manager or whoever’s making the decision to progress you to the next stages of interview process. Or it could be an HR manager or it depends on the company how it’s set up. 

(07:54):
So tip number four is confidence. The applicant that we head hunted was much more confident and much calmer. Why is that? Why was she much calmer and much more confident than the applicants that applied through our careers page? And the reason here is not because they applied and she was headhunted. That’s not necessarily the case. I’ll give you an example at the very end in the bonus tip. The reason why she was calm and confident is also not just because she already has a job. Some of the applicants, several of the applicants who applied through our careers page also already have jobs. So they’re secure in their jobs. They’re not desperately looking for a job. So that’s also not a thing. So why was she calm and confident? The main reason is that the recruiter had already done the matchmaking. 

(08:52):
So she knows defacto that her skills are exactly what the company is looking for. Otherwise, the recruiter wouldn’t have contacted her in the first place. So she’s got that part checked off by the recruiter. She doesn’t have to go in and do all the research, even though it’s advisable, it’s useful, but that part’s checked off. So she knows the skills she has is what the company is looking for. In addition to that, she is extremely comfortable in that domain. She knows her worth in terms of those specific skills. 

(09:28):
In this case, it’s Tableau and building dashboards and reporting, business intelligence, things like that. The thing is you can replicate this whole same situation. You can put yourself in exactly the same situation without a recruiter. If you have a recruiter contacting you, and one of the previous FiveMinuteFriday episodes was like, get a head hunter or get a recruiter, build a network of recruiters. If a recruiter’s contacting you, then you’re going to have this defacto. But even if you don’t have a recruiter, you can replicate this. And the way to replicate it is simply apply for the right job, right? I’ll just say it again, apply for the right job. If you’re punching way above your weight, then when you get to the interview, A: you will be nervous, right? You will know that you don’t have the skills that were clearly indicated in the job description, and this is different. 

(10:20):
So in some cases, yes in data science, the job description lists too many skills, everything under the sun, because a hiring manager doesn’t know what they want. That’s a whole different situation. If the job description is written up properly, and it’s clear what they want, make sure you have that, because otherwise you’ll be at the interview, you’ll be very nervous because you know you don’t have those skills and B: the hiring manager will see right through you anyway. And you will eventually inevitably burn your chance with that company. Also you’ll waste your time, you’ll waste their time. Make sure you are applying for the right job and make sure you are confident in your skill. 

(11:01):
It’s better to not rush for that job. So it goes back to actually understanding what is it that you want to do in data science? We’ve discussed this with many guests on the podcast and in FiveMinuteFriday episodes as well. Data science is huge. There’s lots of things. You can do data modeling, data preparation, presentation skills could be your focus, data mining, dashboards, what tools, is it Python, is it Tableau, is it R, is it Power BI? Do you want to go into AI? Do you want to do deep learning? There’s so many things you want to do in data science. So if you’re just applying for all sorts of jobs, then you’re going to be like a jack of all trades, master of none. 

(11:41):
First step in all of this is to identify, okay, what am I passionate about in data science? Take a step back, spend six months, spend the next 12, 18 months, understanding what you’re truly passionate in data science and getting good at it, building a portfolio. And then when you’re applying for job, if it’s a Tableau job or whatever other job. Let’s say Tableau in this case, you’re already an expert. You have your certification, which is the first level of certifications is not hard to get at all. You know your worth. And then applying for these jobs will be very easy because you’ll be laser focused on a specific type of job, a specific field that you want to get into. 

(12:20):
So if you already know what you want to be good at it, and what kind of jobs you want, let’s say again, in this case, Tableau, you’re already using Tableau. Then don’t stop there. Don’t stop at your professional skills. Go and learn. Go and take courses on Tableau. Do challenges, join something like Makeover Monday, explore projects on your own. Find datasets. Become really comfortable and confident there. Which leads us to tip number five. 

(12:50):
And tip number five is on this first call, you need to show… Basically, you need to make yourself desired by the company. It shouldn’t be like a lot of people and especially on this interview, the interviews I had this past week. A lot of people were, I could see that they’re desperate for this job. That they really want this job, which is nothing’s wrong with really wanting a job. The problem is that you need to show the company, you need to position yourself in a way that the company also really wants you. In fact, it’s better that the company wants you much more than you want to join them. How do you do that? 

(13:27):
Well, I’m reading a book right now. It’s called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. One of the tips he talks about there, one of the psychological concepts is paraphrasing what he says in the book. He goes like this, “In order to make a person want something, you need to make that thing difficult to attain.” So in this case, you need to make yourself difficult to attain. And how do you do that? Well, first things is that your technical skills need to be out of the question, right? You need to be so confident about your technical skills capabilities that you’re applying for the right job.
(14:06):
This is a combination of being passionate about this specific area and having grown in it for the past months, years, and knowing you’re an expert in and applying for the right job. So if you’re an expert in Python, no point in applying for a job in Tableau, unless you really want to start at a junior level. First, go and learn Tableau and then apply for jobs in Tableau, for example. So if you have all of that, you should ultimately get to a point where your technical skills are out of the question. Of course, you should still be able and open to demonstrating these skills in the interview process. For instance, we ask our applicants to take the Tableau exam. We give them a case study to do at home, and then we also provide a time pressure test on the technical interview. 

(14:52):
So in all those cases, you should be absolutely confident that you can do those things and you shouldn’t be struggling there. The negotiation process shouldn’t be about your technical skills. It shouldn’t be like, I don’t have these technical skills, but I can develop them and things like that. You should just have them and demonstrating them with grace and then move the interview. So effectively by doing that, the interview will move into a non technical into discussion of nontechnical and non-monetary things relating to the role. So you shouldn’t be talking about, okay, my technical skills and what’s the salary range. You should start talking about things like, what are the values in your company? What is the company culture like? How do you all work? How have you been dealing with this pandemic? What facilities do provide for working from home? What are the career growth options? How do you cater to… How do you make sure people are constantly challenged? You should be asking questions that really matter in the workplace that will make you feel fulfilled. 

(15:56):
It’s important for you to really evaluate the company and mean it. Not just for show, but for yourself. You need to evaluate the company. Understand is this the right company for you? Not just in terms of technical skills and remuneration, but is it a nice place to work? Are you going to grow there? Are you going to fulfill those career aspirations and learning needs that you have or whatever else is important for you. And that way then the company sees that you a: have the technical skills b: you’re not super focused just on the monetary aspect and c: you’re talking about things that matter to you. And they don’t know if they have them, the company doesn’t know for sure if they have those things the way you want them. They don’t know if they can fulfill your growth needs. They can help or make sure you can reach a career aspiration and so on. 

(16:52):
So all of a sudden, now they have to discover that about you and they have to prove to you that they are worth your time. So you’ve changed the psychology of the whole interview process. You’ve become difficult to attain, and now they want you more. They want you more out of all the other candidates they have interviewed because all the other candidates they just talk about, hey, they show they have the technical skills and they talk about salary, probably. So the basic thing is that all companies expect, that candidates want to talk about and they’re desperate for the job. 

(17:23):
You, on the other hand, gracefully show that you have all the technical skills. You’re applying for the right job. It’s very easy for you. You’re not desperate for this job. You want to work here, yes, but you also want to make sure it’s the right place for you to work. All of a sudden you’ve become difficult to attain and therefore you become much more desirable. So that is a way to leverage what Dan Ariely calls in his book, predictably irrational. That we’re irrational thinkers, even hiring managers. And it’s predictable how we got to think irrationally. So just make yourself difficult to attain and that’s how I would do it. That’s how I would personally do it by talking about non technical and non-monetary aspects of the job and asking questions around that, because that is very unique to everybody. 

(18:10):
Finally, the bonus tip is about you don’t have to be headhunted, right? It’s nice again, if you have a network of recruiters and head hunters, and if you’re really good at what you do, then I recommend creating that network. Working on that, because that will bring you opportunities. But an example, I have an example to clearly illustrate this point. It’s not even a question in my mind, because we recently hired a general manager for SuperDataScience and this person, she applied through our careers page, but she did all these steps, right? She wrote a very careful application. You could see it was very well written, she was very thought through. She submitted not a cover letter, but she put in a lot of information into that part of our application where we ask, so why are you the right fit for this role? So effectively like a cover letter. 

(19:04):
But she didn’t just write, how did she find the pain points of the company? She went and not only read the job description of the general manager position. She read all of the job descriptions in that same division. Like the marketing strategist, the product designer job position, whatever else we had at the time, she read through all of them. And that gave her a clearer picture of what the pain points of the company are. So there’s another tip for you. If you’re applying for a job, don’t just read your job description. Look at job descriptions in adjacent departments in the same department, adjacent departments in that same division and other divisions in that same company. What are they looking for right now? It’ll give you a clearer understanding what are their pain points and then address that, use all that information to address how you’re going to help. 

(19:56):
It will inevitably shape your cover letter because you will now know. Oh, okay. So they’re hiring a data analyst, not just to analyze all sorts of data, they are hiring a data analyst specifically to connect the product team and the finance team, because that’s where the missing gap is. It seems like they already have everything else or they’re covered on other sides. This data analyst positions for that. You should be able to understand that from reading all those other job descriptions that they have on the website. 

(20:29):
What else? She include examples of her work, like where she’s been a operations manager before. What other start ups she’s worked on them where she’s a mentor, definitely had confidence at the interview because she was applying for the right job. It was clear that she had the experience. So that was out of the question. And that put her in a position to be able to ask questions about what the culture is like, what career aspirations she can fulfill her career aspirations needs and so on. So basically that definitely is possible. Whether you have a head hunter approaching you, recruiter approaching you or if you’re applying through a careers page. 

(21:07):
Just keep these five tips in mind. Plus the bonus tip. We’re going to put them into a cheat sheet for you. So you can get it at a www.superdatascience.com/the number of this episode. Whatever the number of this episode is going to be. Just go to superdataascience.com/ the number of this episode. You can get this cheat sheet to put in front of you if that’s going to be helpful to you. But other than that, good luck with your job applications. Less is more better to apply for less positions, but very thoughtfully and for the right ones, rather than a spraying and praying, as they say, just shooting out your application and a template cover letter to hundreds and thousands of companies. That doesn’t work anymore. You don’t live in that world. There we go. Hope that was useful and helpful to you and I look forward to seeing you back here next time. Until then happy analyzing.