3 Tips for Aspiring Data Scientists to Accelerate Your Transition Into the Field
If you’re working towards a career in data science, you should spend your limited time on activities that directly impact your chances of breaking into the field.
Focus on the signals that matter to employers
A hiring manager is looking for anything that shows you’re hard-working and you’re willing to put up with the challenges of the role. They want to see whether you’ve faced these challenges before and how you managed to resolve them.
They want to know how you’ve applied the knowledge that you claim you have, in a real-world project. What were the decisions you made and why did you make those decisions? Did you have to make any assumptions and can you justify them?
You need to show that you can create solutions rather than just consuming knowledge.
You may not need a master's degree or another certificate
This is especially true for anyone who already has a technical background and/or a STEM degree.
Completing a data science program will not automatically open up job opportunities for you. You need to be clear on why you’re starting the program and what you’re looking to get out of it.
Make sure you’re not just avoiding the bumpy road ahead by starting a data science program. This could send a bad signal especially if you already have a technical background.
Learning by doing is the #1 predictor of your technical success
Focus on building personal projects.
You need to show that you can be trusted with solving real-world problems and that you can solve problems beyond course projects.
There are lots of non-technical dimensions that are important for your success as a data scientist, but in order to show your technical capabilities, learning by doing is by the far the greatest accelerator of your transition into data science.
