The Secret To landing Data Science Jobs

July 2023 I was 6 months into my Dream Data Science Job.

I loved it so much I started helping people like you land their own dream jobs, talking to them on LinkedIn to give them advice.

One thing I loved at my job was my manager. He was great at ‘backsolving’ problems — i.e., he would solve problems by starting with the last step and working his way back.

Let me show you what I mean: 

You want to host a party that starts at 7pm. That’s the goal — being ready and prepared for the party by 7pm. It takes 2 hours to prepare the food. If it takes 2 hours to prep the food, we should start prepping it at 5pm (I hope you agree 7 - 2 = 5 lol). 

Before we prepare the food, we need to go to the shop to buy ingredients. This takes one hour. We can apply the backsolving method again to work out that we need to leave for the store by 4pm. Using backsolving, we now know that we will be ready for the party if we leave to get food before 4pm.

If you take a traditional ‘forward-facing’ approach to the problem, the opposite of backsolving, you have a list of things to do (go shop, prepare food) but you’re not sure how and when to do them. This can stress you out and lead to poor results. If your first thought is ‘when should I go to the shop’, you’ll be stressed as you don’t know how much time you need to do the shopping or prepare the food. You might forget ingredients, make a terrible appetizer, and watch your guests sit awkwardly wishing they could go home…

For a simple scenario like this, you might be fine if you start from the beginning because it’s only two steps.

But backsolving is crucial when your goal is more complex.

Because backsolving problems makes it easier to form a plan and reduces stress and challenges throughout the journey.  

After endless conversations with aspiring Data Scientists, it was common to see people taking loads of courses, doing projects, and applying for hundreds of jobs without success.

They felt so frustrated.

After all, they were only following the traditional advice given to them. 

Whilst strategies they used to increase their chances of landing jobs made sense, like trying different CV formats and networking, I felt it lacked something and wasn’t building the foundations which would make them a Confident Data Scientist.

It was like applying lipstick to a pig.

I also thought back to my successful job searches - I was picky about the jobs I wanted, each time only applying for around ten roles.

This was one thing that made me tailored to the role - because I actually wanted the job. I wasn’t throwing mud at the wall just to see what would stick, or trying to get my ‘foot in the door’.

It helped me achieve a 50% interview rate in my first job search, when I was a uni student with no experience.

One person I talked to, Sarah, applied for hundreds of jobs with no interview success. This included jobs in completely different sectors, like finance and health. I thought there was no way she could appear tailored to all those roles.

Then it hit me harder than Will Smith.

I could apply backsolving to help people find their Dream Data Science Jobs.

Clearly Sarah had taken a forward looking approach to the problem by starting on courses and projects, instead of working backwards from the end goal:

‘How can I land my Dream Data Science Job?’

Whilst all the individual pieces of advice people received were useful, they meant nothing if they weren’t applied by working backwards from the end goal. That’s when I realized I could help people find their Dream Data Science Job with Tailored Projects.

It made getting results for my clients a lot easier.

It helped Lodo get his first Data Science job, even though Mcdonald’s was his main work experience (yes seriously).

And it also helped Adam pass an interview at a global AI & Data Consultancy.

So don’t listen to all the other advice you get.

Backsolve from the Data Science job you actually want, and build the relevant Tailored Projects

Some of you might recognise this story from my Tailored Project guide.

My head is killing me and I’m heading to South Africa for a work conference later so I whipped something up quickly.

But I’m rereleasing the guide on the Wednesday 10th July with some sneaky new additions - so keep your eyes pealed 👀

More original thoughts will be coming your way soon you lovely lovely lot x