181: I Got 285 Data Analyst Applications. Here's Who I Hired.

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285 people applied for

this data analyst position.

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Only one got hired.

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I'm going to walk you through the

brutal six step hiring funnel that

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eliminated 99% of candidates and

show you exactly how to survive it.

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Now, here is what the hiring

process looked like for a

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real data analyst job posting.

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They got about 285 applicants

in about a week, 12.

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Made it to a phone

screen with a recruiter.

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Seven passed the sequel assessment.

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Six got an interview

with the hiring manager.

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Four, made it to the final round

with the entire technical team,

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and only one person got the offer.

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So what happened at each one of these

stages, and more importantly, how do

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you make sure that you're not one of

those 284 people who got rejected?

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Well, let's break it down step by step

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let's dive into stage one, which

is application reviews stage.

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And in this stage there was 285

applicants, and that's quite a bit,

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but not uncommon in today's job market.

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And you remember that only

12 made it to stage two.

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So what the heck happened in this stage?

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Well, usually I tell you that the

majority of applications are never

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even seen by the hiring manager at all.

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Instead, they're filtered by the applicant

tracking system or a TS for short.

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But this hiring manager ensured me

that she looked at every single resume.

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Now, I think this is the exception versus

the rule, and it really goes to show how

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cool this hiring manager is in particular.

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But that's also why they took the job down

after a week when they got 285 applicants.

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Many companies would honestly just leave

this job up for a long time, collecting

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maybe double or triple the candidates.

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And honestly, you'd probably have

a low chance of being considered

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if you applied pretty late.

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And that's actually my first set of

advice and that is to apply early.

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The earlier you apply, the more chance

you have of actually getting noticed.

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Next, I'll tell you that if you're

not getting into stage two, which

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is a recruiter screen, we'll

talk about that here in a second.

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It's likely because of

your resume at this point.

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That's all the company

really knows about you.

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That's all they have on you.

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So you probably need to change

something about your resume.

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Now, I don't know exactly what that is.

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There's lots of places you

could be going wrong here.

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But here is a quick checklist to consider.

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Is your resume a TS compliant?

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The biggest mistake here I see with

like most job applicants is they

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put tables or multiple columns in

their resume, and that's a no-no.

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A lot of ATSs can't read

those properly at all.

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So you could be getting your

resume rejected right away.

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Next, are you missing keywords?

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If the job description wants someone with

Tableau skills and you don't have Tableau

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listed anywhere on your resume at all.

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The a TS will probably auto reject you,

but even if you do get past the a TS,

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the hiring manager isn't going to spend

much time on your resume if you don't

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have those Tableau skills on your resume.

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In fact, this is exactly what

the hiring manager told me.

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She said, quote,

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"If only half of applicants have

experience with Tableau (which is what

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we listed in the job description),

I'm going to talk to the half with

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Tableau skills before I talk to the

other half with Power BI or Looker.

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You have to prioritize on the

things just because there's a

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lot of people coming through."

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So there you have it

from the horse's mouth.

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Lastly, you could just be

overqualified or underqualified.

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If you're too experienced with

this role, they'd probably get

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worried that you're going to get

bored and leave in like six months.

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And if you have absolutely no experience,

well, they're worried that you're going

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to need to require too much training and

it's gonna be too much of an investment.

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And that's really how 96%

of the applicants may be

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including you get rejected.

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But before you feel very sad and utterly

depressed, let me just tell you a

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secret tidbit that never gets talked

about hiring manager said this quote,

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"Honestly, when I looked at them,

probably 70% of the applicant pool

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could have been successful in this role.

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So that makes it really

hard to narrow down."

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Guys.

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Let this soak in for just a minute.

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You may not be getting rejected

because you're unqualified.

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You might just not be the best candidate.

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So please, guys, I implore

you pretty please do not take

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these rejections so harshly.

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I know it's tough.

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I know it doesn't feel good, but

realize often it's saying less about

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who you are, what your skills are,

your capabilities are, and more to

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do with your resume and maybe someone

just had a better resume than you.

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That's it.

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Don't take it so personally.

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Avery Smith-3: So in stage two,

which is the recruiter stage, this

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is where you're going to be talking

to someone from human resources.

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This person usually isn't super technical.

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They're not going to grill you on SQL

or statistics or anything like that.

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They're usually checking for

things like, is this applicant

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actually a real human being?

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Which I know sounds crazy, but

it's: 2025

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important in today's day and age.

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There's lots of scams out there.

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Number two, can this

person communicate clearly?

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Are they able to express

themselves thoroughly?

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Three, do they actually have any of

those key skills listed on their resume?

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Once again, this is nothing

super technical here.

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Just making sure you don't list every

skill possible on your resume, even

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though you know nothing about those

skills, that would be a huge red flag.

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So that's what they're checking for here.

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Number four, does this person

actually seem like they're

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going to be a good cultural fit?

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Are there any red flags?

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Obviously the recruiter doesn't

wanna waste the hiring manager's

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precious time with an applicant

that's just kind of a jerk, right?

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And wouldn't fit in the team

anyways, so check in for that.

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Number five, they wanna make sure

that the location and work style that

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you want to have is a fit for you.

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If the job description is in person

in Houston, but you live in Dallas.

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That might not work.

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Or maybe you want to commute

three hours a day, I don't know.

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Uh, or if you're looking for remote

work and this job is actually

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hybrid, it just might not be a fit.

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So they're checking for that as well.

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And lastly, what are your salary

expectations and do they match

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what the company had in mind?

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And this is a big one.

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If the budget for the role is 70,000 to

85,000 and you're looking for a world

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that pays like $130,000, it's likely

that they're not going to really.

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Interview you any further.

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So due to candidates not responding or not

having a salary, a location, or work type

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fit, the applicant pool went from 12 to

seven applicants that made stage three.

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Avery Smith-4: Stage three is the

technical assessment part, and

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this is where the team is actually

looking at your technical capability.

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They're trying to get a feel

for your technical skills.

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Now, most of the times these

technical assessments are in Excel,

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sql, or some other coding language.,

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Because these tools are used the

most in industry, but also because

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they're the easiest to evaluate skill

quickly and in a standardized way.

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For our hiring manager in particular,

she chose SQL because it's one

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of the core skills to the team

and it's really easy to test for.

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Now, I will say I've seen a lot

of entry-level roles, have more

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of a take home assessment that you

can do in like a 72 hour window

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than doing like a pressured test.

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And I'm a big fan of the

take home assessments because

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they're a lot less pressure.

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These technical assessments can be

really scary and high pressure because

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it's like taking a live test that

may or may not determine your salary

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for the next decade of your life.

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That isn't fun, right?

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So with all that pressure aside,

what can you do to perform well

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in this stage and get past it?

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The number one thing

you can do is practice.

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Like you guys, there are so many different

data interview practice platforms out

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there that you can try and it's a cliche,

I know, but practice makes perfect.

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Now you might be wondering, well, what

do I practice, what might be included

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in this particular SQL assessment?

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And for this one in particular,

they asked two questions.

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Number one was a group by question,

and the other one was a little bit

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more advanced and it was a window.

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Function question, sql.

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So make sure you know both of those.

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Uh, but luckily or maybe less

lucky and more skill for our

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candidates, all seven of them

actually passed the SQL assessment.

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Uh, but one candidate did end up taking

on a different offer and bowed out.

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So we're moving into step

number four with six candidates.

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Avery Smith-5: So in stage four, we

are now down to six applicants, which

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is crazy from 2 85 to six, and this

is the hiring manager round here.

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The hiring manager is meeting you

face-to-face for the first time.

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So you're going to be doing some

pleasantries, some small talk, and

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then some background questions.

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Uh, and then eventually you're going to be

getting into more of the problem solving

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questions like, for example, what's a

cool project you've worked on before,

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either at work or in your portfolio?

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What would you do

differently in that project?

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Maybe like what type of data would've

been helpful for making decisions?

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Hey, how do you use data

in your personal life?

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These are just some examples

of questions they may ask.

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In this stage, our hiring

manager dropped two of our six

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remaining candidates from six.

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To four.

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And the reason, well, the hiring manager

felt that two of them had a bit lower

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data visualization and data exploration

skills than the remaining four.

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That's just from those questions

that we talked about earlier.

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The best way to not get left behind

here in the dust is to make sure

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that you have an awesome portfolio,

projects, and multiple if you can.

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The hiring manager told me that

they don't have to be big projects

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or use millions of rows, but if you

can make them novel and personal

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to you, that would be really good.

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And so I made an episode recently on the

five Best Project Ideas that you can start

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today if you're just getting started.

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So you can watch that on a YouTube card

up here or in the show notes down below

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if you don't know how to get started.

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But once again in this interview,

you're just gonna try to be yourself.

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Just try to explain not

only the what, but the why.

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Think out loud and try to

show that you are a go-getter.

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So those four candidates are now

entering what we call team interview,

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and that is stage number five.

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Avery Smith-6: The fifth stage is

the technical team interview, and

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this is where the hiring manager and

herd team of two senior analysts went

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through some more technical questions.

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It's almost like a combination

of the hiring manager interview

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and the technical assessment.

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Put together.

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So they'd probably ask you things

like, Hey, explain a project

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you've worked on step by step.

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So that's very similar to the

hiring manager, but it'll also

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focus more on your thought process.

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Well, why did you choose

this instead of that?

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So if you chose to do a calculation

in sql, well, why didn't

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you just do that in Tableau?

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Why did you choose that way?

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And hey, how did you end up deciding

that this honestly shouldn't

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be that scary at this point.

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They already like you a lot.

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They've already invested a

lot of time in you, and that's

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because you're a great candidate.

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They're just trying to figure out

which of the four candidates left

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is the best fit for the team.

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And after this, well, it's the last

stage, and that is the hiring decision.

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At this point, the hiring manager and her

team get together and collect scorecards

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of the team, interview each interviewer.

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Gives a score based on how technical you

are with SQL and with Tableau, but also

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how good of a problem solver are you?

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How clear of a communicator are you?

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How weird are you?

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Just kidding.

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Hopefully you're really normal and at

this point our hiring manager was able to

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narrow it down to two front runners that

scored slightly higher than the other two.

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So after cutting 283 other candidates,

how did the hiring manager go

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from first to second place?

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Well, honestly, she flipped a

Coin Hez Candidate One tails.

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Candidate two.

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Nah, just kidding.

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She went to candidate who had a closer

domain related to the company's industry.

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You know, both candidates,

they were both great at sql.

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They could write good SQL code.

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Both candidates could create

awesome dashboards in Tableau.

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Both candidates were pretty clear

communicators, and both candidates

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were pretty fun to talk to.

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They could get along with the team.

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So what was the differentiating factor?

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It was, well, what have

you done previously?

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What do you know about this domain?

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What do you know about this industry?

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What do you know about our

company, what we actually do?

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So to all my career pivoters out

there, I hope this gives you hope,

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and I hope it gives you confidence

because it should what you studied

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in school, it can be really helpful.

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The job that you are leaving, that you've

had for the last 10 years, it could

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honestly give you the edge in the end.

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So that is my advice to you guys.

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Your domain matters if you

land an offer, celebrate it.

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You've earned it.

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If you don't get the offer, just

know that you are close and move on.

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Don't get depressed.

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Don't dwell on it.

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It's not the end of the world.

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I promise.

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Your next offer is right down the road.

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So there you have it, the full

data hiring process with tips

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on how to pass each stage.

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If you want a copy of this diagram or

you just want me to explain it via text,

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I'll have a link in the show notes down

below where I'll send you all of this

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and hey, if you enjoyed

this video, hit subscribe.

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Keep going, you guys, you've

got this, I believe in you.