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Ace your Data Science Job Interview

Social Engineering Tips to Land your Next Data Science Job

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash
Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

TLDR:

Make yourself trustworthy, answer questions in the form of a story, send a thank you note, research your interviewers on LinkedIn.

Introduction

Most people think the goal of a job interview is to demonstrate how awesome you are … this is incorrect; the goal of a job interview is to demonstrate how trustworthy you are. We can use the lens of evolutionary psychology to understand this. In ancestral conditions, it was far more important to assess how trustworthy a stranger was than how competent they were. If we think about the interview process, they are trying to decide if they want to spend 40+ hours a week working with you, based on a limited number of interactions and fairly limited information. Building trust is far more valuable than demonstrating competence.

Most analysts, data scientists, and other technical professionals spend their time cultivating their hard skills. This article assumes your hard skills are sufficiently developed for the position you are interviewing for, and consequently will focus on the soft skills associated with job interviews.

Job interviewing is a skill, and like all skills, you will get better at it with practice and will atrophy if you haven’t done it recently. If you’re ready to change roles, I suggest applying for jobs you genuinely don’t want but will likely call you in for an interview, just to practice in a real interview setting. You want to clear off the cobwebs before you interview for a job you really want.

An outline of a typical interview process:

While the specifics change from employer to employer, my experience has been that most places follow a general structure to how they perform interviews.

  1. The First Stage is a phone screen, usually with a recruiter.
  2. The second stage is an interview with the hiring manager.
  3. The third round is a panel interview involving more stakeholders.

Sometimes the third round happens over a couple of days, sometimes you have to do two phone screens with the hiring manager, sometimes there is no third round. The advice in this article is still applicable.

Tactics that will be used throughout the whole process:

Answer questions in the form of stories. Think of 4–5 stories regarding projects you’ve worked on or work you’ve done and outline them in the STAR framework.

  • Situation: Briefly set the stage for your story
  • Task: What was the specific problem you were trying to solve?
  • Action: Describe what you did to solve the problem
  • Result: Discuss the impact your solution had.

This is a real example of an answer I gave to the question "what is your greatest strength?"

"I was hired into my current role for my excel skills and my ability to deal with numerous data sources using excel. Unfortunately, the amount of data I needed to process was beyond Excel’s technical limitations. I asked other analysts at the company what tools I should look at and one of them recommended Python. I didn’t know how to program when I started that job, but within 3 months I had started to automate large parts of my own workflow, and a month later I built an application that automated a business function that took about 10 hours of manual work a month."

Breaking down that story:

  • Situation: I was new in a role, hired to use a specific technology.
  • Task: I needed to synthesize data and the tech was inappropriate for the task.
  • Action: I learned a new technology.
  • Result: In a short amount of time I delivered a valuable automation to the company.

The answer to my question is actually I am adaptable and learn quickly, but the story demonstrates that so much more vividly.

LinkedIn Research:

Look up anyone you’re interviewing with on LinkedIn before your interview and see if you have anything in common. Maybe you went to the same school or see if you volunteer for similar organizations. If they’ve written any articles or blog posts and read them. Look at the kind of content they share to get a sense of who they are. Don’t explicitly reference their LinkedIn profile in the interview, rather use this information as a lens to focus your answers. This doesn’t always pay off, but when it does it REALLY does. This story demonstrates how:

I was interviewing for a position, and my interviewer asked me what my hobbies were. During my research I saw that they sat on the board of a not-for-profit dedicated to the great outdoors. In my answer, I told him when I can I like to go hiking and that a few years ago I went on a trip to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This segued into him telling me how he proposed to his wife on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. Using that research I built a rapport that buoyed the entire interview process.

Thank you email:

~ 24 hours after any interview send a follow up email with this template:

Dear (person you interviewed with),

I really enjoyed our conversation yesterday and I am really excited about exploring the opportunity at xyz corp (put company name here). I particularly enjoyed discussing (insert specific thing you talked about here). Please let me know if you have any questions or if I can help you in any way. I hope you’re having a wonderful day,

(Your name here)

Hand-written note:

In addition to the email, you want to mail a handwritten note (via snail-mail to their office address) that basically says the same thing. If you’re doing an on site interview you can pre-write your thank you notes, and after the interview add a specific detail to each one, and leave them with the office receptionist if they have one. Even in the post COVID-19 world, when they might not get it for several months, you should still send a hand-written note.

Almost no-one outside of sales and marketing sends handwritten notes after job interviews.

There are three ways the handwritten note can help you:

If they went with another candidate, the interviewer is far more likely to remember you if you send them a handwritten note, and if another opportunity comes up is more likely to reach out to you.

If the hiring process is taking a long time and they still haven’t made a decision by the time your handwritten note arrives, this can make you top of mind again. Whoever they hire, they’re going to spend a lot of time with, and people prefer to spend time with polite and thoughtful people.

If the handwritten note arrives after they hired you, your new coworkers will think you’re pretty swell.

As a final note: With so many of us working from home, do not look up where the interviewer lives and send it to their home, that’s creepy.

Write down what went well:

Immediately after your interview write down what went well in the interview. You will have no problem remembering what went poorly so you don’t need to dwell on that. Even if you don’t get make the next round you can use the experience to learn what you did well.

Breaking down the stages of the hiring process:

Image by Author
Image by Author

Tactics for the initial screen:

The initial screen is usually done by a recruiter who is either with an agency or are in-house at the firm and your approach to the interview will be informed by what kind of recruiter they are.

If they’re an in-house recruiter:

Before the interview:

In addition to the LinkedIn research, look at the company’s website and find their corporate values page. Make sure you understand their values and ask them values-based questions. Also begin to research the company more generally and make sure you understand their products and what they sell. The goal is to be honest, forthright, and affable.

During the interview:

The in-house recruiter is trying to do two things; the first is they’re trying to assess how good a cultural fit you’ll be. The in-house recruiter is the vanguard of the company’s culture. They’re also trying to determine if you’re a good structural fit for the role. They often ask you what you know about the company and will give a broad overview of what the company does in the process. The recruiter will also often start the compensation conversation now even if it’s vague, because if there is an enormous mismatch between what they expect to pay, and what you’re expecting to be paid, they don’t want to waste anyone’s time. They don’t want to run you through the entire interview process to find out that you need 30% more than they’re willing to pay. Towards the end, they will outline the next steps and timeline.

After the interview:

Approximately 24 hours after the interview email the recruiter the template outlined above and mail a handwritten note.

If they’re an agency recruiter:

Before the interview:

You don’t really need to do anything. In the last year, I’ve spoken to agency recruiters about 20 times and it’s always some version of the same conversation that requires basically no preparation. You don’t really need to do LinkedIn research on them either.

During the Interview:

Agency recruiters see you as a commodity and they are trying to figure out if they can sell you easily. These interviews tend to be short and ask you about your experience and skills that make sure you tick enough boxes to get the hiring manager to speak to you. They’re also trying to see if you’re a fit for any other roles they might have.

After the interview:

Send a polite follow-up email Approximately 24 hours after you’ve spoken to them thanking them for taking the time to talk to you. You don’t need to send a handwritten note to an agency recruiter.

First interview with the hiring manager:

After the initial phone screen is usually a phone interview (nowadays it might be via Zoom) with the hiring manager. The technical scope of this interview varies; the manager might be incredibly technically proficient, or they might be a professional manager who isn’t as familiar with the tech side of things. It doesn’t really matter because this interview is all about trustworthiness.

Tactics for the first interview with the hiring manager:

Before the interview:

Company research: Do as much research as you can on the company. If they’re publicly traded, look at their SEC disclosures. Read their press releases, look at the company’s social media posts, and see what press they have. Look them up on Glassdoor, subscribe to their email newsletter. If you haven’t done it yet, also look up the cultural values section of the company’s website.

Questions: Using the research you’ve done ask specific questions about the challenges the company is facing and how the role you’re interviewing for will help solve those challenges. The research you’ve done will influence the questions you’ll ask. Ask questions that demonstrate you want to help them.

During the interview:

Bring a pen and paper with your questions written down. If anything relevant came up in your LinkedIn research, have brief bullet points outlining them. Interviews are high-pressure environments, and you’re liable to forget useful information.

You can also have a STAR bullet point version of your stories, especially if you haven’t used them in an interview before.

Take notes during the interview as well. Notetaking forces you to pay attention and stay present. It also makes you look like you take the process seriously.

Finally, the most important words you can use in any interview: "I’m going to take a minute to think about that." If you find yourself at a loss for words, or don’t know how to answer a question, you are allowed to take a pause.

After the Interview:

Approximately 24 hours after the interview email the hiring manager the template outlined above and mail a handwritten note.

Overview of the Panel Interview:

If you survive the screen with the manager, the next round is a series of interviews with a variety of stakeholders. My experience has been you’ll usually interview with other members of the team, someone senior to the hiring manager, someone outside the team, and the hiring manager. The panel interview is an endurance test as much as anything, and the goal is to be the consensus candidate for the panel. They will not hire you if they don’t trust you. Have your 3–5 stories ready. It’s ok to use them with different panelists, they won’t care if you told them the same story.

Tactics for the panel interview:

Before the panel interview:

LinkedIn research will be your best friend here as it will give you an idea about what each person will talk to you about. Craft questions appropriate for each interviewer based on their role. If one panel member is an executive or senior member of the department, ask them questions about the challenges the company is facing or emerging strategic opportunities. If they’re a fellow data scientist, ask them specific questions about the tech stack, and problems they currently face. The goal of the questions is once again to build trust. You want to present yourself as someone who took the time to get to know them.

If the interview is on site, write a brief generic handwritten thank-you note to each of your interviewers and pack them in your bag.

During the panel interview:

Shortly before the interview, use the bathroom. You don’t want to be distracted by biological necessities.

Follow all of the advice from the initial interview with the hiring manager. Bring a notepad with notes, and stories sketched out, and questions written down. Bring something to drink, these can take a long time and it’s as much about stamina as it is about anything.

On your way out, give the handwritten notes to the office manager, receptionist, or the person who escorts you from the office.

After the panel interview:

Approximately 24 hours after your interview, send the thank you email based on the template to each person who interviewed you separately. Do not send it to all of them on one email chain.

If you haven’t heard anything in three business days, follow up with the recruiter about how the process is going.

What to do if the process stalls:

The hiring process can take a long time. Once, I was hired for a job 9 weeks after I submitted my application. Another job asked me to come in for a panel interview 8 weeks after I had interviewed with a hiring manager (I declined as I had just started a new position that week).

If the process stalls, follow up with the recruiter once a week, the goal is to stay top of mind.

Send the following email.

Dear (recruiter),

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to see what the next steps are. I’m really excited about this opportunity and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for your time,

(Your name here).

Always follow up with the recruiter, that is their job.

If the process stalls it doesn’t mean things have gone wrong, it just means something has come up they need to deal with.

In one case I interviewed with one hiring manager, and then 3 weeks later interviewed with another hiring manager. I later found out the first hiring manager left the company and my second interview was with their replacement.

Interviewing over Zoom (or similar):

In the post COVID world many interviews have shifted to be via teleconference. All of the above advice still applies as well as some specific advice for teleconferencing.

Set up a quiet space for the interview with a neutral background. Avoid being having lots of light behind you. If you can, set a light source off camera about 45 degrees from your face to further illuminate you.

30 minutes before your interviews test all of your equipment to make sure it’s working and that you are well lit.

Final notes:

Interviewing is a social engineering process, treat it like one and you’ll be in a much better position to succeed.

About the Author:

Charles Mendelson is a marketing data analyst at PitchBook. He’s worked in and around sales and marketing organizations for the last five years and has succeeded at a number of job interviews (and failed at way more). He’s also getting a masters degree in psychology from the Harvard Extension School. If you’re looking for a speaker for a conference or seminar or if you’d like to ask any questions you can connect with him on LinkedIn: where he sometimes publishes articles.


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