How to Land Your First Data Science Job - Tina Huang, Data Scientist at FAANG and YouTuber

hey everyone how's it going thanks for the intro and also thank you everyone for joining join today um i was i'm gonna make a confession first of all right i was gonna make slides for this presentation but unfortunately that did not happen so you are gonna have the uh amazing experience of listening to me talk straight for approximately 15 to 20 minutes so shall we get started let's do it okay so um this is titled how to get your first data science job and i'm actually going to be addressing two major populations of people the first one are students whether you're an undergraduate student or you're a master's student generally not phd students because i feel like those are pretty different in terms of the process and then also career changers maybe you've had experience at a relevant career a slightly relevant career maybe you're a software engineer where you're a data engineer or you can be completely irrelevant like um in my case my background was in pharmacology it was in bioinformatics or so there's people who i've met for marketing so career changes as well all right so this is going to be the breakdown okay so the what i'm going to talk about is first to addressing these populations and what it is that you should be focusing on um and then i'm going to talk about having a little session just on networking itself because it's something that people have a lot of fear towards myself included i networking but i'm going to see if i can help you break that down a little bit so you see it from a different perspective and it doesn't feel so scary anymore um also a little disclaimer i'm not very huge into networking itself so that's also something how i will explain how i managed to get the things done and just get my current position get these things uh to whatever state i needed to be without doing a lot of networking all right so what i get a lot of people asking me on youtube or just like in person it's like hey like i learned data science like maybe i have a degree that's actually relevant as well but um i can't actually get a job like i send out like a hundred different emails um to places i apply online i do all these things and you know like i don't actually get a job afterwards so how do you actually get a job well i think what's really important first of all is understanding um from the perspective of the recruiter in the company right not just as you as the applicant like what do you think it is that a recruiter who's trying to hire you as a data scientist cares about the most well seeing as i can't actually get answers right now what they care about the most is experience they care about data science experience relevant experience because that is the best predictor of how good you will be as a data scientist at that company right obviously they also want things like you know they want to make sure that you have the correct skill set but you know if you wear data scientists you probably already have the correct skill set and they'll know they also want to make sure that you're the culture figure not someone who just doesn't fit into the culture at all right but really the biggest thing that they're looking for is experience so it becomes a bit of a chicken or an a question though doesn't it it's like how do you get experience if you have no experience it's a very good question that's indeed um but so i'm gonna tell you so like i think people view data science experience as too formal you know like they see like the experience like oh i have to get a job as a data scientist at a certain company call myself a data scientist and that council experience but i don't really see that at all like that experience just means that you want to have a experience in which you use your skills and have real life impact because that mimics what a job does right you want to just get as close to having a actual real-life data science job as possible but it doesn't mean that you need to exactly like get that job and hold that exact title you just need to show that portray that in some fashion so what i the philosophy that i like to go by is like how do you get that experience and then help you actually land your first proper data science job do you like um i like to see in terms of trying to think about more holistically right think about what your strengths are and what your circumstances are how you can take advantage of those things in addition to your interests and combine that together in order to form a cohesive story of you as a data scientist your skill sets all the experience that you've had and all the impact that you've had so then that can shine through in your application and then you will be much easier for you to land a data science job so let's focus on the first population students okay so if you're a student you're actually in a really good position um to just in general like you're in a really good position because you have so many resources available to you maybe you don't even realize this but um there's a lot of resources that are available that you can easily take advantage so you can actually get mimic having a data science job and just get that on your resume um and it's also most often with very low barriers of entry my favorite version of this is uh research is my favorite if anybody's actually watched my youtube videos i've like preached about this many times i just think research is such a great position um because it allows you to really use your data science skills right and it really it does count as a proper job if you're a research assistant a lab for example and it has a low barrier of entry because you know when you first set it when you just contact professor you're already a student at that university for example they're usually like travel you out right i personally don't like the idea of not paying students um to do research but if it's your first time ever you know you might have to deal with that um in the beginning but you know most research professors are willing to give you a chance especially we can prove the skill sets of having statistics skill set and if you know how to code and you can demonstrate that like to them this is great right they neither don't have to pay you uh where they pay very minimal amounts and you're able to help them a lot with your with their data analytics or data science so me personally i had a lot of wet lab experience because i was in pharmacology i actually was pre-med before and then over time i got bioinformatics research positions and then i also got a job paid bioinformatics job um also as a research assistant at a lab in cancer research and that really was kind of the first bridge for me to become what it is i am now right so bioinformatics is where all started and all started with a professor taking a chance on me because i just demonstrated i have these skill sets and he was willing to take a chance because it was a low

uh okay i think that pause a little bit anyways okay so moving on some other great resources out there are consulting clubs um a lot of universities have these as well when i was doing my master's at the university of pennsylvania there was a penn consulting club um if you go into these clubs it's also a great way for you to demonstrate real life data science impact that mimics having a job and the reason for this is that a lot of companies usually like very small companies will allow students to come in and give them consulting advice they do some analytics or whatever and present that to them in order to help them so if you came in and you took over most of the data science portion of the analytics then you're able to craft you're able to like take that over and then you're actually able to have real life impact on a company so um when i was there i think the example i'm trying to recall what it was that i did there was like a yoga store i believe um and then they were looking into expanding their revenue and there was like specific things that they wanted to investigate into so i guess some of the opportunity sizing to see which one is actually the most profitable thing to do um and then i think i don't even recall it i made a couple models as well just like for forecasting um and then that was that and that was it i put on my resume and a lot of people when i was applying to jobs that they said that was one of the reasons including in addition to my research experience that was one of the reasons why they actually interviewed me for that job because it was different from the other people because i showed that i could do data science not just from personal projects not from not just things that are not real right like i had actual impact and that's what they were looking for as a data scientist quickly another example that um is hackathons if you're a student so this one is not as good i would say as a researcher consulting but it's also a low it's much lower effort and lower dedication because it's usually like 36 hours uh where like just over a weekend or something like that um also into a bunch of hackathons both at university of toronto where i did my undergrad as well as at the university of pennsylvania okay so next population is career changers so career changers i thought that what i get most from career changers is the mindset like okay i'm going to be a data scientist now like you know everything i did i don't want to do that anymore i'll be a data scientist and what i always urge people to think about is don't quit your job first of all and don't throw away on your experience all that experience that you have is your advantage you know that is to your advantage and you should leverage that and demonstrate how transferable those skill sets are like you don't want to be competing with people who are fresh out of school you know you have all that experience already so take that use that as your strength um the advice i generally give people like the first thing is that you should try to gain experience at your current company if you are currently employed so for example um and like when i say experience i mean like data science related experience again it's going to have impact because it's clearly in data science and you're demonstrating that skill set um and it's also not usually not too much effort because it's not like you have to go through the entire hiring process within your own company so an example if you're a software engineer working in a company you can try to pick up some projects that involve data like maybe instead of doing just software engineering you can be building like a data lake for example or something in data engineering so it's like tangentially related um but it's something that gives you like that foot in the door right uh for example if you're in marketing you know really in a lot of different companies now there's just a lot of data that's available and people are doing analytics on it all the time so instead of just you know using doing your normal analytics however it is like try writing a python script to do it try using some sql if you if your company doesn't use that already um generally like i have had generally i feel like most companies wouldn't be like no like you shouldn't try to be more efficient and try to be better at your job you know um but i actually have had people actually say like for some reason there's some companies that wouldn't let you do that and if that's the case two things at least for me my opinion okay so take this with a grain of salt first one i think you shouldn't ask for permission you should ask for forgiveness if for whatever reason like obviously don't do that with like sensitive data or something like that but for like if you feel like it's reasonable then i personally at least don't be accountable i would just go and do it you know instead of using a ui maybe i'll just write a python script instead of just doing a modeling thing using whatever it is that they're usually doing i'll probably just write my own model for it um and also if you it's a company that really just wants to they're like don't do that then do you really want to be working for a company that doesn't want you to be improving that's at least how i see it anyways that ramble aside so uh that i would really highly just encourage you to try to take on jobs for just like projects that are data science related at your current job if you can also make friends with people who are data analysts who are data engineers and data scientists you'll find that you have a lot more opportunities um if you actually are friends with them which is part of the networking which i'll which i'm touching on a little bit now and then the second part is that i really encourage you to leverage your skill set outside as well there's a lot of um like charities for example like open source projects that are maybe related to the field that you're working right now instead of going in as your current position you can try to contribute from a data science perspective and actually use your industry knowledge to improve whatever products it is that they're trying to build whatever services it is that you're trying to build as well um i so let's see okay that concludes pretty much my whole like what you should do if you're a student and also you are a career changer

should do if you are a career changer the one note of caution again i guess you want to make here i feel like i'm going to get i think a bash for this potentially but um i don't like kaggle i don't like haggle competitions i don't like competitive coding for jobs okay they're great for learning they're very fun and you can increase your skills that's very good but i don't think it's a good approach to use cowboy use competitions and put that on your resume and hope you can get a job from that and the reason is very simple it's because it's not realistic right these competitions they're really fun they're great for learning they do all these different things but they're not realistic like you can do a good catwalk competition if you're a grandmaster that doesn't mean you're a good data scientist at a company right so for in the perspective of a recruiter um you're also like that doesn't demonstrate that as much as if you actually had experience um in one of these things that i mentioned previously one of these projects that you can do okay so i'm gonna talk a little bit now about the topic of networking so obviously you know you get your experience put down your resume you should you know do your portfolio make sure that everything looks great um but then you know there's the aspect people who would come and ask me like what about networking right like how much networking do i have to do um because sometimes they're just like oh should i just apply online directly should i network and here's my philosophy again just from my perspective a lot of people have a lot of different perspectives and also depends a lot on industries and experience which is probably why it's so diverse in my case i just want to put that in the context of my own experience which was um i came from like a site i did my master's degree in computer science but i come from like a slightly non-traditional background uh in pharmacology and bioinformatics so there was like a little bit of risk-taking on um when i recruiter looked at my resume it was a little bit strange but i also did have the like leverage of the university of pennsylvania which is a really good university that you know having that name allowed me to do allow me to get interviews just because of that so i just want to put that into context right so okay not working um if you have a similar you also have a relevant degree in your student right now even if you yeah i would just say you have a relevant degree in your student i would actually recommend that you don't really need to do that much networking like i wouldn't recommend going to those huge career fairs that you often have um in universities because honestly what they're going to do is how to apply online anyway like it's just like lines and lines of people hanging their resumes but honestly they're just gonna tell you to apply online i shall use from my experience so if you have um a similar background to what i have that's what i recommend just apply online like seriously like if you just apply online and you already have all that experience it shows that you have projects that are relevant as a data scientist then you should be fine you should be able to get interviews from that however if you have a non-traditional background you don't have a relevant degree or your career changer then networking plays a more important part so how i like to see networking is also i try to see it as less formal because i really don't like the idea of like approaching someone and just be like oh like help me get a job you know i just i don't know it just doesn't i just really dislike that um so i like to think of it more in terms of just learning like showing up being like i'm just trying to learn stuff um you can ask people who you can ask me to introduce you to other data scientists to people who are working at companies that you might be interested in and don't approach it as and like give me things you know approach it in terms of i want to learn more about your position what it is that you do i want to see if it's something that i'm also interested in as well and just like keep just keep that conversation going like don't just like be like asking for stuff you know just think about it in terms of the natural relationship right like you wouldn't want to hang out with someone who's just constantly asking you for things right try to see it more as like a relationship as a friendship even um if you can and then also another thing i like to keep in mind is just you can networking doesn't have to be done in isolation you know you don't have to like wake up today and be like today i'm going to do three networking activities you know trying to think about in terms of more of an open mindset um if you're just approaching it in terms of you just like tell your friends hey like i'm looking for a data science position or something related if you know anybody that could be that would be okay talking to me like let me know right like this very just like kind of almost like planting your seeds in a lot of different places and also of course giving back right so it's like if anybody's interested in your role in what is that you're doing great experiences give back to that that's how the whole networking ecosystem works right it's about giving and taking um so if you just plant those seeds you know tell people you're interested maybe post on linkedin post on different social media platforms what it is uh that you're interested in exploring things like that you actually find there's a lot of very natural relationships that come out of that um that would be my two cents on networking even now like i honestly don't like networking at all so this is just like my way of dealing with having to do like um networking but not really thinking about it in terms of networking thinking about more in terms of how do i like formulations people how do i learn more things how do i give back to the community as well and just be part of that community well i think that is um everything that i had to talk about today all right very good thank you so much tina i appreciate you um presenting to us this afternoon a wonderful uh excellent presentation um question for you uh i've seen a couple of studies that um uh that claim recruiters spend as little as 30 seconds to look over somebody's resume and make a decision what is one tip that you would suggest to those who would want to stand up above the crowd so to speak and uh grab the attention of those people since they've only got that uh 30-second times uh time slot so to speak i don't know the validity of the 30 second thing i've actually heard about that myself as well i don't know if it's actually true because i from talking to recruiters i think it kind of varies you know but assuming they have 30 seconds all right and i don't think my advice would actually change otherwise um it's about telling a story if you want to stand out like when they see your resume that is you right unfortunately you don't get to like show up and be like hey like you know i mean like show my personality all these different stuff you don't have to do that um so your resume is your is you it's a representation of you i think about it more in terms of storytelling like honestly if you list out like 50 different skill sets that you know how to do the recruiter like they've seen the 56 different skill sets on every other resume they've already seen like whatever you know it's like and it's not really about how many skills it is that you have it's about demonstrating those qualities through storytelling um for example you want to demonstrate that you have that real life experience and data science right how can we demonstrate that well by having projects like consulting for example by having projects and research experience that makes you stand up that makes you different because you have that experience you want to demonstrate um you have these skill sets instead of listing like a laundry list of skill sets embed that within the projects what you're saying like i use python to do xyz instead of just writing i o python right it's far more right um yeah so that would be my recommendation just view it in terms of a representation of you don't be afraid to put in things that uh you feel like might not even be relevant like if you have certain hobbies and you did a data science project about that hobby where it's related to your job in some fashion put that in there express your personality but always think about it in terms of skill sets and how you demonstrate things how to tell the story of yourself excellent and to me that hearkens to what kind of value can you bring to the organization and if you are seen as one who can bring that value i'm certain that's going to make people stand up about stand up above the rest of the crowd don't you think yeah absolutely

absolutely all right uh let's see um and forgive me for looking away from the camera so i can see the questions here uh what other ideas do you have on leveraging your non-traditional path that's a really good question um what was it that i listed earlier it was pretty much about like oh you can do i'm like i like took some notes i actually forgot what i wrote but what i even talked about because i was like pretty free form i think what i talked about was gaining experience in your current company um all right and leveraging like your different skill sets right so uh the ideas that i talked about i believe were more in terms of open source projects uh charities um also like meetups have also been pretty interesting because if you like some examples that i can give you so far i come from a pharmacology background so like a biomedical background right and i think about it if i go to biomedical meetups it's like i'm related to these people because of my background but i also come up with a fresh skill set and that generally makes me stand out you know because i'm not just someone with a biology background i'm just biology background also knows how to do statistics and knows how to code decently so that i think by being there that will make you stand out and you're able to incorporate everything like the background that you currently have and then try to use your new skill sets to do something even better i like to think okay this is also a mindset that i have i don't really like thinking very narrowly because i have to be the best like ex right like i have to be like the best data scientist i don't really like to think about it that way i wanna i'm more in terms of like having the skill sets and the strengths that i have how is it that i can incorporate that together so it's unique and it brings value to whatever company it is i'm working for it also brings value to different people as well it's like i want to actually play on those strengths and i think there's a lot of ways that you can think of how to do that if you just kind of adapt very good all right uh here's another question from our audience you spoke about kaggle competitions not being great at the eye at the eyes of recruiters if you had only one way to catch their eye what would that be i guess that's similar to what we were talking about earlier about catching their you know creating value or whatnot but you know maybe from a different angle yeah i mean i think this is what i've been preaching about like just from a very abstract perspective demonstrate experience as a data scientist right i give a lot of examples of how you can possibly do that from different projects but the closer it is to show that you have a job as a data scientist that makes you the most much more attractive to a recruiter absolutely

absolutely as creating content helped you to in grow i guess in growing as i think is what they meant though has cr let me start all over has creating content helped you in growing your data career or was it the other way around that's a very good question yeah like tough questions here right like i'm just gonna like start start feel that starters feel about my inner fears now i'm kidding yeah i think content creation has been really interesting for me because i wouldn't really label myself as like a pure data science creator because i don't i it's for me it's it's a lot more than just data science the way that i see my channel i see as a way that i learn and grow as a person um i think in terms of being a data scientist it has helped me not really in the sense of like acquiring new skill sets except for being better at public speaking um that has been helpful in communication but mostly what it's been helpful for is that it forces me to reflect because when i make videos about my experiences i make things about my life i kind of have to think about it right and i think a lot of times people don't really reflect so well fact a lot and when i'm forced to reflect i actually noticed like hey um this is something that i could have done better you know this is something that i wish i had known and then now it becomes more conscious in my brain it i then know what it is i have to do to actually improve those skill sets so the reflection component has been very helpful um skill set acquisition not so much all right uh we have time for one more question uh from uh kevin clayman asks are there any recruitment firms that specialize in data analyst or business intelligence roles i don't know of any in particular myself on top of my head but i will not be surprised you will probably so i have talked to a few different recruiting companies before um and they usually lump together data scientists unfortunately with like software engineers and i. t professionals i mean it kind of is fair if you think about it because oftentimes especially if you're on more like the data science from an engineering perspective like for example i come from a computer science background working more like a stats person as opposed to a business analytics your skill set is kind of similar enough to it professionals to engineers so they actually like um often do them together but i don't think like those companies also do help in hiring data scientists as well okay oh goodness well this is just absolute gold today tina thank you so much for being with us today uh where can people find you uh or the best way for people to connect with you if um you want them to connect or if you know you said you don't like networking so that's probably not a good question i don't know i'm teasing i don't like the idea of like conscious networking right right people i love connecting with people that's why i love doing these talks these um and i also do youtube and content creation that's absolutely why connect with me on linkedin um i also on youtube if you're not there i do i also do study streams so i do monday tuesdays and fridays and that's like a more casual way of interacting with me if you want to do that although we will have to study in order to do that because we take breaks and we chat but it's also more like keeping each other accountable um there's also discord if you just check out my youtube channel all the other social medias everything is linked over there excellent uh certainly a wonderful resource to check out um it's great when you can combine what you do and you do it so well and then you just happen to love doing it you know you combine passion and ability with drive and it's just a wonderful combination i guess that's also good for job seekers as well right you know doing what you love you're really good at it you're driven to it you have a passion for it and you just move forward and you can't help but succeed in a matter of speaking yeah for sure for sure all right well tina huang thank you so much for joining us this afternoon we absolutely enjoyed your presentation and we wish you all the best in your future endeavors ma'am thank you so much yes ma'am all right you too