Hiring channels for entering the data science field

Quite often I receive emails from people wanting to enter the field of data science in the actual sense. They have acquired an initial data science skillset through various means (such as university degrees, online courses, active participation in kaggle or other platforms etc) and they want to land their first role in a company. From my experience (in the UK) it is not easy to land your first role. However past that first role, it becomes much easier to find better roles. The main difficulty is to “enter” the field. Once you are in, the future seems bright.

I don’t have a definite guide of what will land your first role, but I have been through this process from university (as a foreigner) to present time (7 years in the field) and I have explored different paths to landing a job. In previous articles I have explained a starter-pack of skills required to enter into the data science field. Today I will share my experience with some potential recruitment channels that could help you enter the field.

Before I do this, let me highlight one more time that the most important thing is to ENTER the field, even without payment (for a short time). Also your first role may not be your dream role, you can see it as an extension of your studies, another test you need to pass. You will be able to get your dream role later. I know this does not sound ideal and contradicts many inspirational quotes you’ve heard about your first role and how it should be, but moving quicker into the field, may require from you to have lower expectations upon entering it (in my opinion).  

Now I will list the different options.

University job boards

Every University that you attend (almost) should have a job board and/or career section in their main website. I landed my first role using Southampton’s career webpage/service . This is a good option because companies posting there are interested for people with limited experience (other than their studies) and should ideally consider many graduates’ applications. The downside is that these are likely to be internships with limited pay (if any) and for short periods. Still there is a good chance they will hire you after the completion of the internship (and this is what had happened with me following a three-month internship). Additionally the University helps you (for free in most cases) to prepare for interviews and they also give you advice about your CV. I had mine checked by a dedicated career advisor in that University department.

Graduate programmes/schemes

To learn more about what Graduate schemes are, you may have a read here . They are basically with-pay training programmes, normally from big companies that you essentially start working, while studying and/or getting new certifications funded by them. I had applied myself to an actuarial programme (which I thought was close enough to data science back then), without much success, but many friends of mine managed to enter the field through this route. What became apparent is that the hiring process through this channel is quite demanding. It involved various interviews, online tests, on-site visits and group assignments and may take up to 4-5 months to get an answer assuming you pass the various stages.  The big 4 are infamous for these programmes and they should have a certain section regarding data and analytics. For example in PWC (or KPMG , E&Y, Deloitte ) .Another such example is AXA . You need to be on the lookout for these. Some websites like milkround (in UK) often post updates about these programmes. You should look for equivalents in your country.

Companies’ Job boards

Many companies have a career sections where they advertise their roles. Providing a list here could be chaotic as the number of companies that do this is very large, irrespective of the size of the company.  Look for companies that have reputation in data science and hover their website for potential career opportunities.

General Job boards

These are basically websites that you create an online cv and you can keep firing applications at will. Most of these jobs are uploaded by recruiters, but there are a few that come directly from the companies. The good thing is that you can literally make many applications within the day with only but a few clicks. There are many roles for data science uploaded daily (depending on the focus of the job board). You get an idea of the market, salaries and required skills through this channel. The downside is that the response rate seems low. Also you really need to make your electronic CV standout in this situation and may need to spend a lot of time to achieve that, because the volume of applications may be quite big with this route. I landed my role using https://www.reed.co.uk/ and I was lucky. Apparently out of all the people that had applied only a few showed up on the agreed date. Out of those that showed up, some did not know English, some others came ill-prepared and I got lucky I guess.

I don’t intend to advertise such boards and I am not saying one is better than the other. For the sake of completeness, I will list a few of them that do have analytics role (and are technology oriented) to get an idea:

1.      Kaggle Job Board

2.      Reed

3.      Monster

4.      Guardian

5.      efinancialcareers

Also have a look at this article that makes some other suggestions.

Analytics and/or Data science Recruiters

In this space, much of the recruitment happens through professionals. I did land a role through this channel in the past. This is probably not the best path (likelihood-wise) for someone trying to enter the field but he/she should not ignore it. I would say it is more suited after you get 1 year of experience. I had difficulty getting to interviews via agents when I was trying to enter the field because there were not many roles through this channel. I know recruiters normally get paid a % of your first year salary (or equivalent deal) and entry-level salaries may not worth the effort. But I might be wrong about this assumption. How to find these people? Some are known and you can find then in google.  Others contact you if you use job boards. You can find many of these through LinkedIn. These people want you to land their role as much as you do, therefore they can give you good advice on your cv’s (presentation)  and can guide you well through the process , quite often giving you insight about the people interviewing you (if they know them) which can yield some advantage. However I do have some bad experiences through this route, hence I am not keen to provide a list. For example you may have a job offer and expect an answer from another company too and the recruiter for that company may make it appear like there is 99.99% chance you will receive an offer for that other company soon (although the chance is more like 1% chance) and you should therefore give up (or delay) the one you currently have jeopardizing it.

In principle this channel can really increase your chances for landing role. Even if you are not interested for a role at the present time, you should write down the emails from people that contacted you as you might need to contact them in the future. You may want to filter out some that use only keywords to query your resume. For example even today, having 7 years as a data professional, I keep receiving roles for PHP developer (because I have limited knowledge of PHP to build my personal website) and accounting assistant (because I studied BA in accounting and Finance).  

Likendin

LinkedIn connects the dots among all previous channels. It helps you to find recruiters and recruiters can find you. It has job boards or people can talk/advertise jobs. You can find professionals to speak to about potential roles and opportunities in their company etc. I also (shamelessly) tend to scan through my interviewers if I know their name (and they have a LinkedIn account) which may prepare you better.

Role emergence

I have seen this type a few times. An employee can start with a role in an innovative project but not really in data science but in something else (i.e. programming/development) and then can either switch from inside if there is a data science department or make a case that there should be one, demonstrating potential benefits of this role. It is a longshot but it can work.

Word of mouth and referrals

After a couple of years in the field, this is probably the best means to land a role. Expanding your network, collaborating with different colleagues could help you land interviews in different companies “pushed from inside” which have the greatest chance of success versus all other channels, but it is not really applicable for entry level.

Conclusion

 These channels have helped me or people I know to land roles in the data science space. It can be demanding to land a role, even more if it is your first role. Once you are inside the field, it gets much easier to land a better role. Be prepared to spend many hours updating/bettering your CV, making online applications, talking with recruiters and don’t be demoralised if it is hard to even get an interview. This is a process that you become better over time. I know some people took them a year or so to get their first role and after that it went smoothly. Make certain you dedicate some time to sharpening your overall data science skills too and never stop learning new stuff.