Is there competition in IT?
Is there competition in the IT market in analytics?
Once upon a time, my team needed a new product analyst and I was asked to interview candidates and find a suitable one. We were looking for a Middle – Middle+ level product analyst.
Initially, I assumed that I would now come across cool guys who are well versed in SQL, Python and, in general, have a good product vision.
But I was very upset.
A lot of people couldn't solve the easiest technical problems in SQL (for example, on temporary tables and window functions), Python and pandas in particular were not even mentioned there. Despite the fact that candidates had 1.5 – 2 years of experience, they rated their SQL skills at 8-9 points, and Python at 7-9, for some reason they couldn't cope with the technical interview. Sometimes there was a feeling that a person was using a tool for the first time, although the resume said the opposite.
There were a lot of strange situations: someone left the interview at the very beginning because he couldn't cope with the tasks, someone didn't show up at all. Once, when asked: “What tasks do you like to do?”, the candidate answered that he liked to analyze data and that's it, what kind of data analysis, why he did it, was completely unclear and there was no depth. I also noticed that few people know how to talk and present their results, although in my opinion, this is one of the most important skills of any analyst.
Therefore, in order to successfully pass the interview and not repeat the mistakes of those people I wrote about above, I highlighted the following points:
prepare a text about yourself and your experience. No matter how trivial this advice is, but in life I have met few candidates who told interesting stories about themselves and their experience
clarify what tasks will be at the interview. Will there be algorithms or just pandas, or maybe there will be dynamic programming. You need to be prepared for any outcome.
solve problems on the necessary tools in advance. Do not go to the interview unprepared, do not waste your time and the interviewer's time.
watch mock interviews to stay informed. It's a really cool way to understand what they might ask in real interviews. And if you want to go through such an interview yourself, write to me in a private message
Prepare yourself for the interview and most importantly, don't worry. There's really nothing scary about it.
And after all my interviews, I got the feeling that there is competition only at junior positions, but at higher grades it seems to be non-existent. Because out of the huge number of candidates I interviewed, only a few people were really suitable.
Maybe it's worth going straight to middle, not junior? What do you think about this?
