In this video, data analytics professionals will discuss how to apply for jobs and prepare for interviews. What features of a resume and cover letter stand out when managers are looking for good data analyst candidates? Highlighting. Highlights are always good. Actually, I’m starting to like that. I didn't use to like that on resumes but I really like highlights because it tells me kind of where you progressed from. So it gives me a snapshot. The other thing is your resume shouldn't be five pages long. Please summarize. If you have been working as long as I have, I've had to consolidate my resume at times for different things. Then people would need to know that I used to work at a check cashing place. They want the highlights from today. Your most recent experience and play up those things that you want people to know, things that highlight your skill set. What's going to make you different, what's going to help me to decide if you are the best candidate for the job. The best candidate usually is the person who is willing to come in and work the hardest and is someone who is not necessarily looking to be hand-held through the process. So, you would talk about how you know projects were given to you and you had to decide how to make it work and you were able to successfully do so, or a project was given to you and you had to seek help from your team but you still were able to, at the end of the day, have a successful outcome. So, it shows you how you work with a team or how you were self-sufficient on your own because those are important traits. What are some particularly useful or notable developments for data analyst job seekers to have? Certifications are going to be good. Internships are great whether they're paid or unpaid. School internships. People just want to know that you did projects but those projects can't necessarily always be, "Oh, you know when I was in college we did this project on Excel." That's nice but I want to know what you did in a real world scenario not just something out of a book. How did you help a business or how you know how did you help a business to really go to the next level or solve a problem that they had. If they're trying to figure out for example there's a retail client, they are trying to figure out how much they have in sales and and where their sales are coming from. Were you able to pull all that data out of out of you know their system and slice off and give it to them in a way that makes sense to them? So, now they can make better business decisions, that's kind of what someone-- that's what we want to hear as the decision makers. How will you help us to make better decisions? How should a job seeker begin to build a network of contacts? What you want to do, especially nowadays, you can go on LinkedIn and look for people who have similar, who are working at companies that you want to be at. In this virtual environment we are still dealing with Covid, unfortunately, but in this environment, LinkedIn is your friend. Go, go connect with every single person that you can, the people from school, the people you know knew growing up, your mother, her friends, everyone that you know because you never know where your next job opportunity may come from. It may be somebody, maybe your mom's friends that works at a company now and they're hiring and once she puts a post on LinkedIn then by you being connected to them, you now see there's an opportunity. You didn't even realize it. So, you don't really know who you know until you put everybody in your network and then I would start to, not reach out, but start to connect with people that you admire and the people that you feel like, the companies that you want to work at because right now everyone is hiring. Everyone wants someone who's great. So, if you are connected to these people you're on the ground. As soon as a job posting goes up, you're almost the first person to know about it. What sets apart a great data analyst candidate? I think it's someone who has the skill set, a proven skill set and the work behind it. They've done things that prove that they have the skill because a lot of time now, in this day and age, people say, "Oh my Excel skills are at an eight," but then they are like a four. That's not great. So, what sets you apart is if you not only have the, you honed your skills, would prove it with your certifications but you also put it to work or you can give examples of how you actually are using that in your current position or how you would use it to help us improve something-- a problem that we have in our current business. Again, making yourself indispensable. That's going to be what people want to see and hear.
