I just spent 30 mins explaining something they didn’t teach you in school and all the ways to avoid fucking up.
Ya don’t got it boss.
I hire for data analytics, management, etc. Your typical entry level roles require fairly good understanding of Excel, basic querying (beginner SQL or M/PQ usually), and the basic concepts that come with that like tables, ETL, wrangling, etc. Anyone interested can self-teach in their spare time up to a really solid level in a few months, so qualifications and short experience is not at all an issue. It’s really beginner stuff and easy to get into.
Unfortunately I get a lot of the Excel warriors of their current job applying. They have limited and basic Excel skills, almost no knowledge of basic data concepts and have listed SQL, Python, and R on their CV because they’re aware they exist but have done a 30 min intro course online at some point.
So, one of the questions I ask is, “If you were an Excel function, which one would you be and why?”
Most people say VLOOKUP which immediately tells me all I need to know. I’ve even had “Pivot Tables” a few times which isn’t even a function or something you’d be caught dead using outside of quick one-off tasks.
So that’s how I watch my candidate pool of 40 quickly dwindle down to the 3 or 4 actual data people that applied. But if not for that, it’s months and months and months of double-checking everything, mistakes everywhere, days spent on a 30 min job, everyone’s capacity and patience spent helping the new guy learn the basics. You give them some intro courses, they don’t do 'em. You spend your Friday afternoon starting from scratch and completing all the tasks they broke or didn’t complete in the past two weeks. Monday comes around,
“So hey, just gonna show you what I did here and how I quickly got it done… You understand that?”
“Yep, definitely!”
“You suuuure?”
“Yup!”
Rinse repeat over and over…
Well, which excel function are you and why?
I’m embedded python because al reason has left this earth
Well the ‘why’ part is to get insight into someone’s personality too. That’s the other point of the question.
So, for me, CONCAT because I’m simplistic and like bringing everything together neatly and efficiently. No band-aid solutions with a bunch of ampersands. But also a bit of a VSTACK kinda guy because I’m lazy and always looking for the smartest way to get things done with minimal effort. I guess that’s basically the vertical version of CONCAT for arrays, really…
Some of the best people to teach are the ones who come back to ask, incredibly apologetic, because they only properly absorbed 60% of what you told them. They need some clarification on the last 40%
Meanwhile, most absorb 20% at best, and try and blag it from there.
Definitely. No question is a stupid question. No pace is too slow if you’re learning. Every brain learns with a snowball effect that it doesn’t notice, until one day someone says, “Damn. You’re like a whiz at this stuff, huh?”
The “most” people you mention are simply doing something they’re disinterested in. Sadly, this seems to be most people. But I could have a career in many things; mechanic, business planner, conservationist, counselor, physician, goes on and on, they’re all appealing. I like problem-solving. I used to do graphic design and people said I was great at it, but I realised I just like learning the software and nailing the criteria. I actually really didn’t like creating new stuff. Tried learning and my brain would just switch off. Beyond the basics of art theory, my brain just didn’t give a fuck. So I realised I liked the problem-solving part and started learning analytics and that’s certainly scratched the itch. Years on, can’t stop learning, must level up. Must solve harder problems. Must get Eureka dopamine hit after a soul-crushing week of data riddles.
Got a new hire that started five months ago that was definitely not the strongest candidate and very new to the field. They’re a sponge and knew they would be. But a few times I’ve busted them still on Teams way after work hours. I don’t like that at all and there’s definitely no reason for them to be, but clearly playing with data and learning it has become a hobby. We’ll see after their honeymoon phase with it is over…if it even ends.
They have no questions because they weren’t listening to begin with.
