Fail first then land a data job
Before we get into it, a huge shoutout to everyone who joined the Discord the other day! Within 5 hours we reached our first milestone.
There will be more rewards for people so make sure you join
Outside of that, we have great stuff in there already like a dashboard challenge (with dataset), career help, poll, resource page, etc.
This is just the beginning so I will see you there
Ok now that that’s over let’s dive in.
Failing is a part of the data analyst journey. It's one of the best, if not THE best, ways to learn something new.
Embracing the failures will make pushing forward a lot more appetizing.
Here are a few parts you will fail(and that's ok!):
- Resume
- Interviews
- Charts
- Dashboards
Knowing where you might fail is key to being ready for it and pivoting your strategy when you realize something failed.
Resume -
Roughly ~80% of the resumes I see are failures.
I am not saying I am an expert at the best practices but I will tell you what has worked for me and hundreds of others I have talked to at this point.
If you are not seeing the results you would expect from applying, it may be due to your resume.
Parts you can adjust to optimize views for your resume:
- Color: Make it stand out and make it unique
- Keywords: This is huge for being ATS compliant and these need to match for the job requirements you are applying to.
- Job descriptions: You need to quantify your wins at previous employment or even in your projects. Make sure to add the metric you are showcasing in the beginning of the sentence.
- Summary section: Maybe you are being to generic or used too many words. Use tools like ChatGPT to help you curate a perfect summary!
Personally, I love using an online resume builder. I have heard great things and bad things about using one so it's up to you. But for me, I can easily split test multiple types of resumes depending on the industry or even make ad hoc resumes.
Interviews -
This is a tough one because I do not know what your interview will be like, nor do you.
If you are failing to get to technical interviews, you are failing your "soft" interviews.
We will be strictly talking about non-technical interviews and there are ways to handle ANY question thrown your way.
The answer is the STAR method.
S - Situation
T - Task
A - Action
R - Result
A quick Google search or even a quick ask to ChatGPT can generate you all of the STAR questions you will need.
I recommend grabbing 10 and answering them. After that, memorize how to answer them! This will prep your brain in how to answer ANY question thrown your way.
Charts -
Your data will not always be prepped in a great way to help you build charts.
When you come across a certain chart you just can't seem to get right, the best thing here is to use Google.
Luckily, just about every problem you had, someone else had and received the answer online.
The more problems you can figure out by struggling through, the easier it will be for you the next time you need to create that same type of chart.
Dashboards -
You won't initially think you failed to build a dashboard but your first handful WILL be failures.
This is because it took either too much time to create or doesn't answer a business question.
The best thing to do is to create more and more dashboards. You will get better and quicker at creating amazing dashboards.
Conclusion -
Each failure will make you that much better.
Learning to think of failing as a POSITIVE rather than a NEGATIVE will have a massive ROI moving forward with your mental health.
See you next time