How To Succeed In Interviews

Good Morning Data Scientists,

Last Thursday, I wrote to explain how a current client landed a data analyst interview just 3 weeks after working with me.

After his interview, he was informed that he got through to the next round!

Here’s 3 things we focused on to ensure he smashed his interview.

1. A Strong ‘Tell us about yourself’ answer

When most people hear this question, they think they have to list every job they’ve ever done in chronological order.

But interviewers don’t want your life story - they want to know if you’re a good fit for the role.

My client was about to make this mistake.

But with the interview prep templates we used, it was easy to spot this.

Instead of boring the client to death with his life story, we prepared an answer which showed off his main qualities and summarised his career history.

2. Motivation for the role

There’s two aspects to getting a job.

A) Showing you have the skills

B) Showing you’re keen for the role.

Most people LinkedIn easy-apply to any job possible.

This makes it hard for them to show why they’re excited for the role, which makes it hard for them to get interviews or callbacks.

With my client, we made sure he could explain why he wanted to work as an analyst at that specific company, and provided specific examples to show that.

3. Being Specific

When using the ‘STAR’ (situation, task, answer, result) format to answer interview questions, you want to make your result part as specific as possible.

This makes it easy for employers to trust you and see the value of your work.

For example, saying ‘I improved the efficiency of a system’ is too vague as you haven’t quantified the result.

This is what my client had initially written in one of his practice answers.

Saying ‘I improved efficiency of the system to 98%’ is better because the quantification persuades the interviewer that you weren’t lying.

But it’s still not clear how much he improved the system (if it was originally 97% efficient his work made almost no difference).

So finally, we reworded it to' ‘I improved the system from 90% to 97% efficiency.’

Now that the answer is more specific, it’s a lot easier to for the interviewers to trust and see the value of my client.

P.S.

If you want help like this to find a high paying data science/analyst role, you can sign up to the waitlist for my mentorship program The Confident Data Scientist.

I don’t currently have space to take on new clients, but signing up for the waitlist will give you priority access when new spots become available.

The longest you’ll have to wait for a spot on the program is one month.

So If you're not sure if you will need help (maybe you want to try things on your on for a bit, but might want help later if things don't go well), I recommend joining the waitlist now.

That way, when I'm available to take you as a client you won't have to wait. It's free to join the waitlist, and you can pass on available spots while keeping your place in line on the list.

So reply ‘waitlist’ if you’re interested.

Speak soon and God Bless!

Albert