Many freshmen with data science skills struggle to get their first job as data scientists. One of the main reasons behind this is that an interviewer doesn’t find the perfect personality in you to fit into a data scientist role. So, to prepare for your first data science job, you need to have the skills that a company wants to see in a data scientist. So in this article, I’m going to introduce you to some of the skills that companies look for in a data scientist.
Skills Companies Look for in a Data Scientist
If you’re not ready to do the job of a data scientist, you’ll never get a call for an interview. If you get interview calls but aren’t able to clear your interviews, that means your resume indicates that you’re ready to do the job of a data scientist, but a company doubts you by examining your soft skills and personality. Thus, to land your first job as a data scientist, it is very important to understand the point of view of a company or an interviewer on what they are looking for in a candidate to offer them a position as a data scientist. Here are all the necessary skills that companies look for in a data scientist.
Passion:
Each person has a definition of passion. I believe passion is something you love to do without expecting anything in return. You will get paid for the services you provide to a company, but an interviewer always judges how passionate you are about your job. So it should seem like you are very passionate about working as a data scientist rather than just getting paid for your services.
Personality:
A good personality is one of the most important attributes that every profession demands. As a data scientist, a company wants to see you working with a team of data science professionals, so they will prefer hiring someone who can work as a team. There is no ideal personality to become a data scientist, you just need to prepare yourself to work with a team so that it shows in your personality that you are ready to work with a team of data science professionals.
Coding Skills:
If you are very good at coding, you are ready to work as a data scientist. If you’ve never worked as a data scientist before, you don’t have any coding experience as a data scientist. But if you’ve worked on advanced data science projects that can show off most of your coding skills, then impressing the interviewer will be easier for you.
Experience:
Experience is where most freshmen fail to impress the interviewer. As a fresher, there isn’t much you can do to gain experience as a data scientist, but you should continue to participate in data science competitions at Kaggle and continue to work on end-to-end projects related to your domain. If you have the opportunity to work as a data science intern, you should always grab the opportunity. Participating in data science competitions, working on end-to-end projects, and having experience as an intern will help you show your experience as a data scientist.
Summary
So these were all the skills that a company or an interviewer look for in a data scientist. If you’re not ready to do the job of a data scientist, you’ll never get a call for an interview. If you get interview calls but aren’t able to clear your interviews, that means your resume indicates that you’re ready to do the job of a data scientist, but a company doubts you by examining your soft skills and personality. Thus, to land your first job as a data scientist, it is very important for you:
- to be very passionate about working as a data scientist
- prepare yourself to work with a team of data science professionals
- work on projects that can show most of your coding skills
- and gaining experience by working on projects, participating in competitions, and working as a data science intern.
I hope you liked this article on the skills companies looks for in a data scientist. Feel free to ask your valuable questions in the comments section below.
