How to find a Data Scientist Job III

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

Recently the team I am working for recruited two new Data Scientists, during the interview preprocess, I summarized several tips that might be helpful if you want to find a similar job. You can find my other tips about finding a Data Scientist job here.

Things to do before interviewing:

1. Polish your resume. Make it concise and convincing. I’d prefer to use bullet points to summarize projects/experiences. Not only list your historical positions but also your responsibility/techniques you’ve been used and the contributions you’ve made. Don’t go too detail — everyone is busy. During the interview, the interviewers will ask you to explain if they are interested in your experience. Keep your resume two pages at most. Here you can find a latex CV template. By the way, I’d prefer pdf resumes rather than word version. Resume in pdf format looks professional and the font and typesetting won’t change with pdf.
2. Make sure you fully understand every piece of information on your resume. Most of the interview questions will be around your resume: projects you’ve done, why are you using this model rather than others, etc. If you cannot explain a technique you’ve mentioned on your resume, it will give the interviewers a terrible impression.
3. Investigate interviewers’ information. Before the interview, typically the company will send you the interviewers’ names and positions. Make good use of this info using Google and Linkedin: If the interviewer has many years of managing experience, he/she will probably ask questions about culture fitting/behaviour questions, if he/she has many years of hands-on experience, then he has a high probability to ask questions about engineering/project experience. If the interviewer holds a PhD degree in Math/Stats/Physics, he/she’ll very likely ask theory related questions.
4. Consistency: a. Check your resume and your Linkin page, make them consistent. b. During the interview process, answer the questions with your experiences shown on your resume. Consistency means you are honest and reliable.

Keep in mind if you’ve passed the resume screening:

1. Take-home exercise — Mind your coding style & show your effort. A great take-home exercise can even make the interviewer have the impulse to give you an offer without an interview.
2. Request a face-to-face interview if you can. During the pandemic, many companies have a hybrid working style. From my point of view, one can give the interviewers a much better impression if the interview is conducted in person.
3. Prepare questions for the interviewers. No question means you have no interests in this position, it will be a red flag.
4. Ask for feedback from the interviewers. Then you can know where to improve. By the way, you can send thank you letters afterwards.
5. Even if you failed the interview, check the company’s LinkedIn page several months later. Then you may find who recently joined the company with the position you’ve applied for. Have a comparison with their experience and your own, you may find the direction to put your effort.
6. Stay in the same position for at least one year. Otherwise, you’ll look like a job hopper after changing companies several times. The recruiter will question you why are you changing jobs so frequently and how can you guarantee you’ll stay for a long time for this role.

Comment if you have any question. I have also written another story to share some frequently asked data scientist interviewing questions.