Data Analyst Interview Prep with the Pros

I'm I'm I'm great, you know. Um, I want to. Uh, great. Uh, looks like uh we are live. Um, all right. Yep, we're alive on the YouTube. Let's see if we're gonna pull up on the LinkedIn. I switched to a new email. sending provider, and I don't think they sent all my emails. So if only 2 people show up, listen, it's a, it's a, it's a show for 2 people. Um,

otherwise, so many questions.

Yeah, yeah,

cool, I'm down.

All right, all right, all right, we are on LinkedIn. There's gonna be a slight lag. Um, okay, anybody who's here, um, please Type in the chat that you can hear us. We can verify. All right. Looks like. Can you guys? Hello. Are we audible to the two people watching? Because Active Campaign didn't want to send all my emails. All right. They can hear us. All right, nice.

Hi, Shriram. I hope I'm saying your name right. Thanks for joining today.

All right, I'm all right, all right. Okay, it's gonna be a very intimate setting today, so I'm excited. Um, where's everyone calling from? Where's everyone watching from? Yeah, all right, Dina, thanks. All right, we can be heard.

Oh, thank you. That was, that was quite the guess, Truong.

Dallas, Texas is in the building. All right, what else? Where's everyone from? Nigeria is in the building. Atlanta is in the building. All right, where's everyone else from? I suppose come on in here. Where are y'all at? Yeah, my guest, where's the dream teams at? Where y'all— where y'all going?

I thought she was talking to them. Well, I'm in Rockwall, Texas.

Rockwall, that y'all don't have a wall made of rock.

Actually, the— in the city close to the lake, there is a rock wall right there. I don't know if that's the reason they made the name or they just thought it was going to be cool, but yeah.

Is that one word or two? Rockwall or rock wall?

No, rock— it's all one word. Rockwall. Oh.

Oh, there's some really pretty pictures. Do you guys have a zoo?

No,

no, no. I've seen like exotic rescue, wildlife rescue, a picture of a tiger.

I mean, they have like stuff like that around here, but the actual— the closest zoo is in Dallas. It's about 27, 30 miles away from here.

Oh yeah. Nice. Well, I'm tuning in from Mexico today, West Coast Mexico. For those familiar with the West Coast of Mexico, it's about a three-hour drive from Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta, if you want to say it not perfectly but better. It's hot today here, guys.

We need like some background music, you know?

Sing something for us, Pedro.

Oh man.

Is that one of your many talents?

You know what, I used to be in the choir when I was in middle school. And in high school. Yeah. Now how good I am these days, I'm not so sure. It's it's been a minute. I know I'm good at singing my daughter to sleep. That's it.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah. School school school.

Oh my gosh! Hey, we connected this week. Thanks for tuning in.

All right, it's 5 after. Let's get the party going. Uh, no matter how small the party is, it's still a party. Um, okay, so for those who are probably looking at or finding us for the first time, let's introduce the dream team.

So once again, it is so good to be with Kedisha and with Emily. So I'm Page Rose Zambrano, you see it on the screen. Right now I'm working as a senior technical recruiter for a company out of Knoxville, Tennessee. Prior to that, I did recruiting for a good amount of time while I was in the Marine Corps before I retired in 2023. So not very foreign from learning how to help folks as far as, you know, understand the direction of their future career aspirations, or just doing some coaching, counseling, mentorship conversations. And yeah, I'm excited to be here. It's always a blessing to be on the screen with Kedisha and with Emily. I'm the one who's always lucky to be able to join them, so I'm just glad to be here.

Well, I would say that I'm the lucky one because I found the two of you when it was already up and running. And I feel like I'm so lucky to have been able to join the group. Now I feel like one of the cool kids. So thanks for having me, guys. Um, my name is Emily. I'm originally from Wisconsin. Um, let's see, background in higher education and did some tech hiring for business intelligence at Wayfair. It was Wayfair Berlin, so not US Wayfair, but had a lot of contact with the team in the US. And yeah, basically hired for data analytics roles in Wayfair. Have a deep love of data myself. I've been following Kedisha for a couple of years, even before we connected. And now I'm working as a career coach. So happy to be on the, on the stream and giving you guys some tips today.

Okay, well, I am excited. For those who are seeing me for the first time, I'm Kedeisha, and I help people launch careers in data analytics without going back to school. And we are the dream team, okay? And today, what are we covering? We're talking interviews, data analytics interview prep with the pros, okay? And these pros are Pedro and Emily. And we are going to really dissect interviewing. We are in— we're about to hit Q4. And if you want a job this year, before the holidays, you better be interview ready. And if you're not, we're gonna get you interview ready. So, I mean, let's, let's, let's get started.

Awesome. Emily, you want to start us out? Or you want me to lead with it? Me? Okay, sounds good. So when it comes to interviewing, you know, we all ask ourselves, what are the best techniques when it comes to starting the interview? How do you prepare for the interview? What type of questions or what type of perspectives should you lean into before interview day? Like, there's a lot of things that run through all of our brains, you know. And for most of us, the big question is always like, am I ready? Am I going to be ready when the moment counts? What I can tell you is that if you break the process down into a simple manner, yes, you will be ready on the day of the interview. You know, there's a lot of different techniques to be able to utilize on that day. You know, if you paid attention throughout the time, you know, with myself, Kedisha, and Emily, We talk about resumes and we talk about everything it is to get yourself into the room and into the conversation. Because all the best resumes, they just get you into the conversation. Once you actually get into that spotlight, that's when everybody starts to get really nervous. And so what we want to do is we want to break away those nerves and put out some simple techniques on first how to prepare, then how to actually communicate during the interview process of like explaining yourself and your skills and techniques. And just a lot of it is through muscle memory on how you get ready on that day. So one of the first things I want to start off with is how to prep for your interview. So the very first thing on how to prep for your interview is really you need to understand the employer's lens. So you have to look at it from their perspective. What are they going to expect from you when you walk in the door? What are they actually expecting from you for this position. If you're not at first taking that perspective of what they would want to hear or what they're going to expect to see, then you're really getting behind the power curve because you're thinking of yourself first and not really that company and that actual job opportunity. So for example, for us, we look at it through a lens of like, is there growth in the role? You need to ask yourself that. You know, you got to wonder if there's evidence of problem solving. You know, and whether or not everything that you have is going to align with the business impact that that company is wanting to see from the person they're going to interview. You know, hiring managers, what are they looking at? They're looking at clarity. How well are you going to be able to explain yourself in the moment when they ask you questions about your skills, your experience, and most importantly, situational-based questions? The first way to actually, you know, kind of take it downhill in your interview is if you're not understanding from the employer's lens, the very first question you normally get, which is tell me about yourself, and you go down the rabbit hole of talking about your life story from when you were a child on how you got into data, or what got you interested in data. From me to you, that is not where you want to tell your life story. The first thing that you need to understand is that from an employer's lens, we are looking to see how articulate can you be with communicating in an organized manner who you are, what you've done, and where you want to go with your future. That is the number one thing that will make you feel confident at the beginning of your interview, and when done incorrectly will immediately rob yourself of confidence because you feel like you ramble in the beginning of the interview. So a lot of the prep begins in understanding from the employer's lens, what are they wanting to hear? What should you be prepared to explain? And the majority of that can come from understanding the needs of some research of the company, of the job, what are the requirements, and more so if they have preferences, do you meet any of the preferences that they're searching for? in the beginning. Um, that's my take on it as far as like doing the initial prep. There's some other pieces to it, but Emily, I know you did a lot of that for Wayfair, so I'd love for you to elaborate on that and kind of tell me from your perspective about the prep part.

Yeah, so Pedro, I think a lot of the things that you said resonated with me. One of the things was muscle memory. I feel like that is totally true. Um, it's It is really important to be prepared. Yeah. So let's maybe just start there, the preparation part. When I was sitting in the recruiter's chair, you know, really literally hiring for the type of roles that you guys, if you're in the data community right now, which I think most of you probably are if you're on the stream, you know, I wanted to know a couple of different things. So I wanted to know, can you do the thing that you claim to be able to do on your resume? Number 2, are you like a person that I'm gonna want, like, are you a sociable person? Like Pedro, what you said is absolutely correct. Like, I need to be able to talk to you, especially in like a data role, um, because I know that you're going to be having like internal clients, um, inside the company and you're going to be able to need to communicate well with them to get their, um, their requirements and be able to deliver and, um, you know, wrangle the data in a way that's able— that they're able to understand it. And then number 3, and something that people can sometimes underestimate is like knowing about the company. So when I was hiring for Wayfair, I was not hiring in Wayfair US, it was in Germany. And it was not really a known brand at that time. It was just, you know, it was another e-commerce company, a place where you could buy furniture online, but it did not have the big brand recognition that it did in the US. So a lot of times, and you could always tell when people would give a canned answer. One of the questions that I as a recruiter would always ask as a screening question, so why are you interested in Wayfair? Just like that. So why are you interested in Wayfair? And then they would say, I like your company. You sell furniture. It's like, okay, maybe you glanced at the website, but like, I'm wanting to know a little bit more. Like, what is that personal connection For you. So at that point, I think it is really important to you know not just like glance at the the the website, but really like go and read a little bit into you know what's been happening in the world of Wayfair. Maybe go into some news articles about it. You'll always find companies like that in the news. Don't Google it, guys. But yeah, I mean you'll always be able to find some news about about companies out there, and maybe from that you can you can learn a little bit about the industry a little bit more. What kind of challenges the company company's currently facing, what kind of developments there are in the market. So being able to connect something personal about your, about your, your interest in the, in this company or this industry, this field to what it is that we're actually doing. So yeah, research, super important. I would recommend always doing that because there is nothing that's going to get you hung up on, not that I would hang up on people, but like the call ended sooner than you having no idea like why we're having a conversation. Like, I would, I would really expect that the person who is interested in having the role is probably as prepared or even maybe more prepared than I am to have that first conversation. So definitely before you, before you go into the interview, go back, read the job description again. I always recommend when you're applying for jobs to save that text in some way because you never know, like, by the time you get invited for an interview, The text might be down and you might forget completely like what the role entails. So if you're applying on like LinkedIn, you can download a PDF or you can be saving it to a sheet somewhere, whatever works best for you. Make sure that you have that to refer back to. Always go to the company website, see if you can find people on LinkedIn. Like, what does the team look like if I'm going to be working in a data team? Like if I type data analyst in quotes and see how many data analysts are working at a particular company, then you'll get kind of an idea more or less of what the size of the team is. And that might help you prepare some questions, for example, to be asking during the interview. Things like that, news articles, just know what you're here for when you're on that first call with a recruiter. And definitely moving forward as well, should be even better prepared the second time.

100%. You know, it's interesting because today I had a— so for example, I had an interview prep with a professional who's about to knock out a virtual interview tomorrow. So we talked about prep, talked about doing the research, like Emily talked about, mentioning researching the organization, doing a little backstory, reading biographies of some of the C-suite professionals that belong to that organization, understanding their, their mission or their vision about where they want to take the company. So my advice was, hey, we're going to walk through a simple process. We're going to print out the job description that I sent you. You're going to take that with you and highlight certain areas that you feel your skills already apply to it. And then you're going to write your questions on a separate document, but you're going to tailor it towards the needs of what that actual organization is wanting and where you can bring solutions. So the research and the prep of already having these things printed out and ready to go, that's going to make it more in tune with how to describe the skill sets. So that was, that was the big, big ticket thing. Having, having material to write, extra, extra writing material. You know, you don't want to freeze in the middle of the moment, especially during virtual interviews where it's like nobody can really see your hands, but they can see you move around a lot. So you just want to be prepared in that manner. So have a notebook, have a job description, highlight it out, Be ready to go. Do some reading on the biographies, search those professionals on LinkedIn. If you can find more details about the organization, great. I sent her some websites to go, you know, check them out, looked on social media for them. So it was a good amount of like knowledge absorption that was taking place in preparation for the conversation, not to overwhelm, just to be extremely comfortable with knowing who we're going to talk to. After that, after the preparation piece, it was, hey, we need to do a mock interview. So before you step into your interview, you need to do a mock interview, okay? And you don't want to go with people that are just going to prime the pump and make you feel good about yourself. You want to get a mock interview with a person that is legitimately going to listen with purpose to what you say, take notes, And then be able to give you some reinforcing or balanced feedback. Reinforcing is positive. The balance is going to be kind of like the sandwich. You did something great, something else you got to work on. This is where we end pretty good. Let's reinforce that again, right? You want people that are going to be able to give you the truth and be authentic in the feedback you deserve. Because something that, that I've always honed in on, and it came a lot through, through the Marine Corps, and I've brought it into, you know, interviewing techniques Is the way you practice is the way you perform. So if you have horrible practice, you know, you're gonna perform in a horrible manner. You can't just wing it. And for those of us that know, and all of us at one point or another understand that if we have had to go through a period of time where we are interviewing for one role and we don't get it, and the next role and we don't get it, and most of us are subjective to not receiving feedback, even after you do an interview, you kind of don't know where you go wrong. And that lack of feedback from an organization can hinder your confidence, but also not point you in the right direction of where you should be improving. And many professionals do not do mock interviews before they jump on onto the Broadway show. They're winging it and hoping that they do well. They have too much confidence and believe, oh, well, I got so much skills. I know how to do this. I know how to do that. And in reality, somebody just really hasn't told you the truth. Your interview skills suck. And so we— you want that kind of person to be able to give you the feedback in a mock interview. The other thing about a mock interview that is very beneficial is that share with that person all the details about this organization, and then prune out some questions that should really tie into what that organization would expect. If we're looking at the lens from them of what they are really seeking, you want your questions to be tailored around that. You need situational questions to be able to explain strengths, weaknesses. There is a whole list of them that you could generate even through AI that could help prepare you. And I know, Emily, at times we've talked about that and mentioned utilizing AI to draw questions based off a job description and having AI tell you If you were this, this company and this hiring manager, this director, what would be the most highly probable questions you would ask in an interview? And therefore, let me allow that to, to go ahead and hone my skills in the preparation piece for the muscle memory that you should work on prior to getting into that room in the conversation. So it's preparation up front, the mock interview before you get to the interview. What are your thoughts on that, Emily?

Yeah, I think that makes, that makes a lot of sense. Like, definitely, I like to say practice makes better. And I think that you can get a lot of value out of doing like a mock interview with somebody who's not necessarily like a career coach. But if you are going to do that, it's really important to know that there are different kinds of like strategies to answer each different type of question. And knowing those structures and like the way that you can get all of the information into your answer that the recruiter or the hiring manager is looking for, it's going to, it's going to really like help you in the process because number one, you'll have a structured way to practice. And then number two, you'll already kind of go into the question knowing what type of information they're wanting to get out of you. So I would think that if you have that kind of strategy and that structure in your back pocket, you're not going to be as nervous when you actually go into the, like, the interview situation. So that being said, I thought maybe we could talk about, like, how to answer different types of interview questions and how to structure those answers. Do you think that's a good way to go, Pedro?

Oh yeah, yeah, that is like the heaviest thing when it comes to the interview is how do I answer it, right?

Yeah.

So now it's great for us to talk about it. Um, yeah. Yeah, no. What's your, what's your recommendation? Or like, for you that you kind of like, share with folks when they're seeking out, you know, your, your knowledge? Right. On how to answer questions. My favorite one that I always have is, I love to just help people with, with the easiest one. that I'm like, you can remember this, and it's the introduction. For me, when you knock out the introduction, um, the present, past, and the future, then you like organize yourself in a manner to where you're not running down the rabbit hole of life, right? So, uh, if I was to model that, for example, if I was to interview to join Kedeisha's team as, you know, a recruiter for her company It would come across as, you know, hey, Pedro, tell me about yourself. Well, you know, appreciate you asking me that question. You know, right now what I'm doing is I am working as a senior technical recruiter for a company out of Knoxville, Tennessee. I've been with them for a year, and it has been so amazing engaging in all the wonderful conversations with folks from tech. You know, in the past, what I did is I worked as a career recruiter in the Marine Corps. And I did that for nearly 2 decades, helping folks gain direction, gain perspective, you know, developing physical and mental toughness as far as enduring the rigors of Marine Corps training, but also preparation for life after service. And for the future, what I'm looking to do is I want to be able to give back in that same manner for organizations that are rooted in the same mission. So to be able to work for your organization, you know, and for the Data Academy would be so amazing. Because I feel like I can give that to professionals who are doing career changing. And it's just a mission I want to support. So I've modeled the present, the past, and the future. And little nugget for you, every time you mention the future and that company's name in it, you already have them imagining that you are serious. And you are dedicated towards the opportunity of being in their presence. But also you recognize the value you can bring. And it's not just a short-term aspiration, it's a long-term game. So for me, I always love doing the introduction because it's the number one thing I see people mess up when I'm observing virtual interviews. But I know we got the part for the questions piece. What about you?

Well, to that point, so that's the same strategy that I use. So I teach people, you know, present, past, future, past, present, future. And I find that in answering this question, the number one difficulty that job seekers have, if they haven't really been doing it before, is what to say when it comes to the future. So the strategy that I give them, I just tell them, fill in the blank. And you don't have to parrot this back during the interview, but this is really helpful to like kind of get your thoughts in order. I just say, fill in the blank. And now I'm excited about this role because, and then fill in the blank. And if you're able to do that and kind of repeat that a couple of times, you'll be able to say that in your own words naturally during the interview. So if you're having a hard time, what's my future? Now I'm having— now I'm excited about this role because— okay, so I think that's my contribution.

I like that one.

Yeah,

I like that one. Um, so, so when it comes to the The questions, right? So the one that really stumbles folks is the, what's— if you, if you had one weakness, what is it? You know, tell me about your weakness. They know you're going to want to talk about your strengths. Most of the time, folks are not prepared to talk about their weakness. So for the weakness, you don't want to Because me as an interviewer, my favorite thing to say is, you know, I'm enjoying our conversation. This is great. Um, you know, obviously, we're going to do, you know, some, some deep diving into, obviously, the references that you provide. If we were to reach out to one of the references, what would they say is your biggest weakness? And all of a sudden, folks are like, I don't know what to say, because they're gonna call my past employer. So in essence, they begin to be very forthcoming about what the true weakness is. So whether or not you're going to have somebody be that savvy to put you in that little Hurt Locker moment to where you have to be truthful, you really want to talk about your weakness in a manner to where in your own brain, think of weakness as opportunity for improvement. Always change the verbiage into something that's positive. And then when you, when you reply back, do the same. You know, you know, tell me about your biggest weakness. You know, one of the things that, um, that has really gotten me, and that I recognize as an opportunity for improvement, is the fact that I like to take on a lot of projects. I'm just extremely dedicated. I want to take a lot of ownership of whatever's brought my way. And that has been something to where I've had to learn how to improve on being able to share that with everyone else around me. And it's something that I'm continually working on. And I recognize it. And so I'm always seeking ways to improve from it. But that's for me, that's one of the biggest opportunities for me to improve is Just sharing the workload and just believing in my team. And so it doesn't come across as something bad. It's always something positive. So that's my take on it. How about yourself when it comes to responding to questions like that?

I think that the response that you gave is fantastic. And the way that I teach people to structure their answer is that I've identified a weakness. I've taken steps X, Y, and Z in order to overcome it. And now I'm able to do A. I'm just picking some letters. And so now the result, or even now I've gotten the feedback that, you know, I've gotten the feedback that I'm, I'm, you know, handling these situations a lot better, whatever the case may be for you. So that's also something, you know, Pedro, you got all those points in there as well. And then for people out there who are listening, like, this is the structure. I've identified a weakness. I've taken these 3 steps to improve it, or maybe it's just 1 step. And after, after taking these steps for a few months, I got the feedback that, or I've been able to, I don't know, improve my time management by, you know, I don't know, fill in the blanks, right? So that's how to answer the strengths and weakness question. I think that there's actually movement away from like this type of questions. I think like the biggest type of questions that, you know, especially when you look at Amazon, I don't know how many of you guys are familiar with like Amazon's hiring practices right now, but like the absolute gold standard and the type of interview question that you guys will always encounter in interviews, especially in tech. The majority of people I work with are in tech. And Kadeesha, you too. It's always the behavioral interview questions. Tell me about a time when you saved the world. Tell me about a time when, when you got a project done on the tight deadline, and then you have to come up with a situation, hopefully not in that moment, because like Pedro said, I mean, you've done the work, you've prepared, you've already thought through a bunch of these situations that you can be talking about during the interviews because you know these questions are going to come up. So number one, in order to prepare for this type of interview question. I like to build out what I like to call a situation catalog where you come up with a list of questions. You can either look at like generic interview questions that you find, like these tell me about a time questions, get like 10 of them, get 12 of them, get 15 of them and see how many different situations you can come up with and just practice answering those questions and make sure that you can answer questions with like different situations. You don't want to be always picking on the same situation. Because sometimes there will be like different questions that you could answer with the same situation. But I would say definitely, you know, have a variety of things to reach back on and like be able to share different stories with the interviewer because you don't want to sound like, oh, I did this one great thing this one time and then that's it. Like, I got nothing else. So like looking at questions like that and even like Pedro said earlier, you know, using ChatGPT. to generate specific interview questions for you for a particular role. So you can do that by just like going to ChatGPT, being like, this is my— this is my— sorry, I'm checking the comments right now. This is my profile. This is a job description. Can you identify any gaps between the resume I've sent you or the description I've sent you and what they're looking for in the job? And can you write some interview questions that would pick on those gaps and see if I can answer them. And then that way you can already be anticipating, you know, where there might be a little bit of a mismatch between— well, where you're not like 100% aligned, because who is 100% aligned? But if any questions like that do come up, be able to answer them. So I think that's like speaking to the preparation. And then of course there's also a structure and a strategy to be able to answer these questions effectively, which I'm sure a bunch of you have heard of the STAR method, everybody's favorite Method to answer interview questions. And Pedro, I see you nodding over there. Would you like to talk about the STAR method?

I was gonna say, who knows the STAR method? You go ahead and drop it in the chat. Let's see how many people really know it.

Oh, yeah.

No cheating. Don't go to AI or anything like that. Don't use your phone.

Is there anybody who's unfamiliar with the STAR method? Maybe, maybe that's a better question.

Yep, because all of a sudden, ain't no comments coming up.

Okay, maybe we can just go into it. Do you want to talk about it?

Sure. Uh, before I talk about the start, something that was really hitting on me and I smiled real big is when you mentioned the word story. Amar, look at Amar, he's so savvy. Amar, there you go. The— as a data analyst, be prepared to Be prepared to tell stories with your data in the interview, right? Like, you're going to be able to show it and demonstrate it, but be prepared to tell stories about it, okay? Um, one of the, one of the key elements that I've observed from data professionals for recent companies that I've done interviews for to get them into the rounds is a hiring team will always tell me, listen, I want them to be able to articulate either to a novice or a C-suite professional about whatever is being presented. I need them to be able to be a great storyteller. Okay, cool. So when you're talking to them, and you're in the interview, peel back on that and see if they can do it effectively. Even with you not being presented anything visually on the screen, see if they can tell you a story about data. Like talk, talk about it. like, okay, cool. That's kind of tough because I'm a visual person, but sure, whatever. So I wanted to bring home on that because then I know we're talking about like, hey, data analyst interview prep. Be prepared to talk about data using a story, all right? Because if you could talk about it and help illustrate it for me and paint the picture, you're gonna be able to do it that much better whenever you talk to somebody who's actually making a decision on hiring. Um, now for the STAR, and I love that you bring up the STAR, Emily, because it's the muscle memory, right? And in the Marines, you know, when you are just in the military in general, when you have to do remedial action on a weapon, it's called tap, rack, bang. And it's just automatic. It just always happens immediately. You don't think about it in the moment. It's just muscle memory. It just, it's just there. The STAR has to be the same when you're answering questions in an interview. This is where the mock interview comes into play. This is where the rehearsing comes into play. You could even be as foundational as saying the words out loud. I have never knocked anybody inside an interview when they have used the words because they're not really listening for the word. I'm listening to what they're actually describing. So you could use each word literally, and in my opinion, you're going to be fine. Vice the person who tries to wing it and then, you know, talk themselves into a circle. You may forget essential information that you want to convey to someone because you're trying to do it out just off of your, your charisma or whatever you call it, right? So this— the situation, the task, the action, and the result— in my opinion, the one that is the most important In that whole process is result. Because they want to be able to uncover, okay, yeah, you— everybody's gonna have a situation. We all know, we know that you're going to be tasked with something. We— it's, it's a no-brainer that you're going to take action on it. I want to know what happened. What happened after you did it? Like, was it a positive? Did it move the company forward? Did we save time and money and effort? Did you drive a great decision from it? What happened because of what you did. So the result part of that STAR method is gold. And when it's missed, and you can usually see it a lot inside resumes, because even when people label it outright, like action, impact, result, the result is usually the thing that is left off the most. It's always like, I've, you know, reduced the— I reduced the reporting by 30%. For, you know, 5 months when before it was, you know, took 10 months. Okay. And because of that, what happened? So the result is the biggest piece of the STAR that you have to be able to effectively articulate. And a hiring person, they're actually— that's what they're salivating for. They want to hear the result because they want to see like, are you somebody who gets stuff done? And then what happens when you get it done? How does that help us? So the stars is extremely important. I use it still. And when I do, I say it out loud. And I've been doing this a long time, and nobody looks at me weird for using the word star. You know, the situation that we had at that moment, this is what happened. And the task that I was given is, you know, this is what the task was. And the actions that I took as far as inside that project, were 1, 2, 3. And, you know, because of that, the results that came out is we were able to, you know, to do XYZ. And because our standard was this, and we actually beat the standard. It's like, it don't take long. It's real simple. Now, you don't need to be as basic as cornflakes on that, like the way I just said it. But when you master that process and just muscle memory it to how you describe those things, the STAR, it's going to do wonders for you in an interview. How about you, Emily? What are your thoughts on it?

Yeah, you know, honestly, I've never coached anyone to actually say the words out loud. But like, I as an interviewer, that never would have bothered me. And because what I'm getting from that is that you understand that there's a structure, you understand that there's a certain you know, certain things that I need to get from you and you're laying them out in front of me. So I think that's a really good idea, especially if you're having a hard time kind of like, yeah, drawing that out with, without, you know, without using those particular terms. Absolutely feel free to do that. I think when it comes to this particular type of question, what you said was that a lot of people leave off the result. Absolutely. A lot of times the result is left off. Like, oh yeah, when I was working at this company, you know, this was going on and I was tasked with A, B, and C. And then the actions that I actually— a lot of times people say we, um, a lot of the, you know, I was tasked with doing the actions that I took were da da da da da. Okay. And then, and I feel like at that point when I'm doing mock interviews with people, I'm always like, and so, and, and was there something else? So really always, and especially when you're, you're, you are a data person, I know that you are monitoring this stuff. Like, you know, all you're doing is tracking data. So I'm wanting to hear some numbers from you. And there are 2 different ways to, to handle the, the end, the result of the behavioral interview question. So there are actually 2 different, and there are probably more variations that I'm just not aware of, but there are 2 main variations of the STAR method. So one is STAR-I, which is S-T-A-R plus I, impact. So what was the impact? So making sure just like you're consciously thinking like, what, what happened? What were the KPIs? What did that look like as a result of this, you know, in hard numbers? And then there's another method called STAR-L. So sometimes the question will be like, tell me about a time things didn't go as planned. And then you have to really dig deep and talk about something that didn't go well for you. And then that's when you bring out the star L, where L stands for learning. You know, this was a situation I was tasked with X, Y, and Z. My actions were da da da da da, and the result was this. What I learned out of that situation was da da da da da, and going forward, I changed my strategy. It's just kind of like similar to how you would answer like, what's your weakness? You know, what was the result? What did we learn from this? And what are we not doing again next time? And I feel like, you know, a lot of times people think like, oh, I don't want to come off as like weak, but everyone is not like— everyone is imperfect. There is not a single person out there who's perfect. And if you come into an interview and you present yourself as this perfect person, that is not genuine. And I mean, that's a red flag for me. Either you think you're perfect, so you are a little out of touch with reality, or you're just trying to show off. And like, we're not here to show off. Like, this is a team. Like, I mean, in the interview, yeah, you should be showing off a little bit, but basically, you know, your work is like a team sport, right? You're generally working in a team. So I want to, I want to kind of gauge whether or not you're going to be able to do that. So those are kind of some, some expanded methods to answer the STAR. Um, this STAR structure questions. And then the final thing that I would say about this type of like the behavioral interview question, the number one thing that is an issue for people when I run mock interviews with them is they say we all the time. We, we ran this, um, we ran this analysis, you know, we decided to, we rescheduled stuff, we prioritized, but I, as an interviewer, like, that doesn't do a lot for me. Like, what was your role in the we? Were you making those decisions? Were you a follower? So I'm really wanting to hear what you did. And I wanted to hear every single time you're discussing actions, you're starting with I. Yeah.

100% agree. 100%. I know we're talking about data analysts, but listen, That is— that's like, I work with a lot of veterans. That is the hardest thing for them to do, is that, you know, my team, we, and what the result after— after— it's always a group. And yeah, they're not hiring the group, right? They're hiring you. So that if you have a tough time with it, I don't know, get somebody around you that'll pinch you every time you— every time you say the word we or something else about a group. and you're like trying to practice, like, no, it's always I. Um, you know, something else aside, along with the behavioral questions and the STAR method, as a data analyst, that ultimately that you, you should be prepared to do is like Emily talked about in the beginning, is an organization wants to see, can you do what your resume says? If you're working with someone who has an insight into what's going to happen in the interview, You know, if they're like, hey, look, this interview that you're going to do right now, it's purely like HR and culture. They want to figure out, are you a great fit? Be prepared to talk a lot about yourself and some situational stuff. But they're looking to see like who you are as a professional. And could you mesh well with the team? Do I like you enough to want to hire you? That's if you have an insider. If you don't, something else as a data professional you need to be prepared for is if that job description says you need to be great with SQL, expect an assessment. There is something that always happens whenever data professionals go into an interview, and they— it's on the resume, it is described, you know, it's been communicated. I can do SQL, I can do Power BI, I can create a visualization. I'm speaking from experience. I've had professionals who have this listed on the resume be provided an assessment. And for me, I will let you know ahead of time. But if you're doing this directly to a company, and you have nobody giving you the inside, inside scoop, and you show up, and you are not prepared to demonstrate your skills, you know, ability is not what you could do last week or tomorrow. It's what you can do right now. It's performance on demand. So as a professional interviewing for an organization, be prepared to do an assessment. Now, some organizations, it might be elaborate. Many of them are like, can you do the basics of SQL? Can you operate a query within our datasets inside our organization? If it's a virtual one, they're going to share the screen and you got to go on there and go ahead and knock out the actual query. I've had organizations say, hey, look, I want to be able to see them do SQL and I want to see them do Power BI. Okay. I don't need them to be an expert. I just need to evaluate, can they do an actual visualization utilizing Power BI? And people have crumbled underneath that. Okay, so all the conversation stuff, yes, these things you need to hone them in, put them in your pocket, write them down, don't lose them, record, record this actual thing, go back and rewatch it. The other part is your skills. You're going to have to demonstrate them. And if you can't do it on demand, there's not a second chance. You know, interviews in, in person or with an organization is like a Broadway show. It's not Hollywood. There is no retake. You can't go back and wish that you could do it better. You know, you either can or you can't. Um, I just, I wanted to make sure I tossed that in because I've been seeing it a lot lately, and I would feel remiss if I didn't mention it as we're talking right now about the interviews.

Well, I have another topic that always comes up in interviews, and I always throw this into my mock interview every single time, whether you want it or not. You guys want to know what it is? It's so important. The question: So what are your salary expectations for this role? Oh guys, the salary expectations. If you are working, or if you're, you know, interviewing with a company like in tech, let's say they've got a budget. This is a knockout question. If you give them a number that's way too high, you are done immediately with the interview process. You are out. And sometimes like people are just saying, oh yeah, I don't know, $120K. And it's just kind of like feeling it out. Like, oh, I just kind of grabbed that number out of thin air. So we don't want to be saying a number. This is what I teach people, and you always be prepared for this. Always think about it in advance before you go into the interview. Expect them to ask, even if they don't. Doesn't matter who you're talking to in the organization. Be ready to answer the question, what are your salary expectations? So the first thing that you can do, and there are so many different scenarios that you can imagine, right? Some states you have to put the salary expect— the salary range in the job description. California, New York, I think there are a couple of others. I've forgotten which ones they are, but a lot of times the salary expectations are there. But like in all the other states, it's not necessarily there. So if it's there and you're truly satisfied with the range, you can say something like, oh, I'm sure that we could find— I'm sure we could I'm sure we could find a level that works for us within that range. Or, yeah, I'm really, I'm really happy with the range that was listed. If you want to go even further, you can ask them, so what are you looking for in candidates who earn at the top end of the range? And just be quiet, like make them talk. Don't talk at that point because whoever says a number first loses, which I think is why now in a lot of states it's actually required to have that range listed. So that's if there's a range. If there's not a range, turn it back on them and ask. So they're going to say something to you like, so what are your salary expectations for this role? And you're going to say something like, oh yeah, that's a really good question. What is your budget? What's the range that you've budgeted for the role? And then you're literally just going to shut up. Like, just be quiet. Don't say anything. Even if it gets uncomfortable, just hold it. Wait, because if you say a number first, guys, if you buckle, I guarantee you, you are costing yourself money.

See, I wouldn't even go into the— and I always know the salary range before the interview. Like, I'm not— I always tell, like, ask the recruiter. Like, I don't want to have that conversation with the hiring manager, like, the first time anyways. But like, I'm not going in there without knowing what the salary range is. That seems— I don't know, I feel like that's gonna be like catching me in the corner or something like that, you know?

So, so are you— do you— are you saying then that if there's no salary range and the recruiter doesn't bring up the salary, that you would bring it up?

Oh no, I'm asking— yeah, I'm asking recruiter like the first time they call me, what's the salary range? Like, I'm not waiting Like, tell me what is that so we can like, you know, save time.

Well, you see, guys, Kadeisha wakes up with her boss pants on every single

day. You know, it's— I love that because I feel like there's a balance in between it. Yeah, yes, the person that's supposed to be like doing the evaluation, they're like, oh, you know, what's your— because I mean, hey, what's your, what's your, um What's your salary range you're searching for? Well, you know, if you don't mind me asking, what's the, what's the budget for the range? Before I even do that, and I'm looking at a job description, um, I do it a lot now. Um, somebody told me like, listen, before you, before you bring up anything or hear anything about money, research to see what the market value is for that position in that city, right? Because there's a market value that belongs all over the US But every city, based on the cost of living, is going to determine the rate of what the budget is of what that market value is for the role. There's a high end, there's a low end, and then there's a there's an in between, right? So knowing it before you get into the to the conversation and someone's like, oh yeah, you know, um, this is the range, or yeah, well, this is how much they're working with. Okay. Well, that's, that's great. So that range right there, that's a, that's a, you know, that's on the low end right there. So it looks like they must be hurting for people. Um, no, they're not. I mean, you know, the market value for that range is at this level right here. And so it's just me asking, you know. Oh, whether one of the biggest red flags— oh, they're just saving room for growth. Major red flag. If you ever talk to anybody and they say, oh, they're saving room for growth, red flag, yo. They're going to start you at a, at a low-level price because they want to, uh, use and abuse you, right? That's a— it's a room for growth. Ain't nobody got time to room to grow, you know what I mean? Like, save that for somebody else, okay? Um, but the, the salary thing— what is, what is the budget for this role? You know, what is, uh What is a high-level professional— what is a high-level professional earn at this role? Like, what does it look like for your company? You know, what, what is, you know, your top-level professionals— this, this role seems like it's a fit for them, so what are they earning, right? Like, what, how are you taking care of them? Whatever it is. Like, like Emily says, I love the fact that it's like, just shut up and just stare, because people get extremely nervous when you just stare at them. And just smile. I figured that's what you did a second ago when you were just like quiet. I was like, yeah, I'm getting nervous already.

Exactly. So I love that you said do your research. That's absolutely right. So if you are going into an interview, definitely part of the preparation for the interview— I can't believe I forgot that before— is like go on Glassdoor, see what salary ranges are, filter for not only your location, years of experience, you can also filter for industry. A lot of times you can go, if it's a bigger company, you can go and find actual salaries from, from people in that company. They submit them anonymously. So have a look at Glassdoor. Go to, if you're in like tech, levels.fyi, have a, have a look at what kind of ranges you can find in there as well. Both really good sources. So the strategy, so that you guys remember it, I love to call it this: be smart, play dumb. Do your research, know it ahead of time, go in and be curious. Let's call dumb, but be curious. Oh, so what is the salary range that you guys budgeted for this role?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And so something after the interviews are complete, or, you know, and if there's no mention of salary, cool, no worries. Let them be the ones to start bringing it up, right? Because when you get towards something that I encourage every professional, before they're done with the interview, make sure you ask questions that have nothing to do about benefits or compensation. Nothing to do about it. It's always— it needs to be questions that are related to the organization. And you, you know, as far as like, what projects are they working on? Yeah. You know, what does success look like here in the next 90 days? You know, one that I, one that I heard, and I was like, this is a major nugget, is they're like, do you have any questions? I do. So are you hiring me for this job, or are you really considering me and hiring me for this job now because it leads to a position where you see me impacting down the road? Like, do you see me having a future here, right? Like, cool. Um, if you, if you're able to squeeze that thing in there, that is a major— like, you put them all, you put them all in like a defense mode. Like, what do you mean? I can't believe they just asked me that, but I need to respond. If they say they're just hiring you for that job, then that's fine. That's okay. Just know that it's— it may just be a for-right-now move. If they talk about they recognize, yes, we want to bring you on for this position, but also We believe that from what you have inside your experience and, you know, what this position leads to, this is kind of the roadmap of like how to get there. If an organization can tell you that, that should give you more of a warm and fuzzy, like, I think this place is probably a good spot to want to hire and want to, you know, want to get employed with. So that is a great one to be able to toss in. But your questions need to be— I love using ones, and I tell professionals, Ask questions to have it paint the photo of you being in the organization already. You know, do you have any questions? Yes, one of the questions that I have is I see that you all, you know, you use— you have a project where you're trying to use SQL, and you're doing a transfer of SQL to another platform. When I'm on your team, how do you see me being able to help with that? And what would be the direction of what success would look like after I'm on the team helping do that transfer of of data. If you could tell me about that, that'd be great. And you start getting the hiring personnel to describe how you would be involved in that process, and what it would take for you to get this accomplished, and what it would take for you to be successful in it. And essentially, you are psychology switching in them. They're already thinking and envisioning you doing the job. The more you get people to envision you doing the job, the more probable it is that they can imagine hiring you and you being a part of the team. That's something that when I did recruiting, you always want people to paint the picture of you already owning the product or owning the process. So when you do it in interviewing, the same thing applies. If you can get the hiring team to envision you already being there, and you ask questions in the manner to where they see you being there doing the job, you are psychologically getting them to envision hiring you And they're saying the words out loud. And when they start to say it, it becomes believable. And each time that it has happened, I've seen more professionals than not get hired because they've incorporated that kind of questioning when it comes to, do you have any questions? The ones who I've seen ask questions that have stuff to do with benefits or compensation, they get entertained and then they don't get called back. So I wanted to make sure I tossed that in when we get to the part about like you know, salary or anything like that if that comes up. But essentially, you want to end an interview with a few questions that have nothing to do with compensation or anything with, you know, tangible items. It's all about something the company's doing that you can assist with, you know, a, a tool or product they're utilizing that they have a project working on and how you fit into that process. Are they hiring you for this job for right now, or is it this job because it leads to something else? You want to get them talking more. And a fantastic one, and I want to turn it over to Emily after this, is it won't even hurt, and it's a great thing to ask them. Yeah, I have a question for you. What do you think is, is great about working here? If you could tell me about like how you've enjoyed, you know, being a part of the team here and describe the culture to me, that'd be great. I'd love to hear about it. And get them to talk, because the more they get to talking it, everybody likes to hear themselves talk. And especially the interviewers. If you get an interview with someone and they don't want to talk, I'd probably run out the door immediately because I wouldn't want to work with those kind of people. Because that can almost immediately let you into— there's a toxic culture that exists in this organization. People are very standoffish and don't want to open conversation. I mean, you're probably just going to have a hard time there. But that's my 2 cents on it. What about you, Emily?

Yeah, I think, you know, there are 2 different types of questions that you could ask there. you questions and me questions. So avoid, I think, Pedro, the kind of questions that you're mentioning might be good to avoid are the me questions. What is this going to do for me? So like maybe in the interview scenario, ask not what your country, what your company can do for you. Ask what you can do for your company. What are your challenges? How can I help you overcome them? What is the 3-month plan? What will you need from me 6 months from now? How will you measure my success? You know, what can I be doing for you and what do I have to offer you? Yeah, but definitely I always tell people, and a lot of times people have like a couple questions prepared, you never know how that interview is going to go, who's going to do more of the talking. Sometimes, like Pedro said, sometimes people just really— hiring managers, they just love to hear themselves talk and they're going to like go on and on. So you never know how many of your questions you have written down are going to actually be answered before you have a chance to ask them. So I, and I don't know why I came up with this number, but I just find like 7 questions. I always tell people, if you have 7 questions written down, I guarantee you, you're going to have something in there that you'll still be able to ask by the end of the interview. If you write down 3 questions, maybe not. 5, good chance. But 7, there's no interviewer who's going to answer all 7 of your questions. Like you will have something left at the end. Lucky, lucky number 7.

I like it. I like it. 7. Yeah.

That being said, I'm— I have a hard stop right now. I'm gonna have to head out.

All right. All right. Um, well, it was great. Listen, um, I think everyone was riveted by all this information. Um, you know, I asked folks if they had questions. I think we answered pretty much everything. Um, and, you know, we're gonna respect the hard stop. Um,

you guys can continue. I'm so sorry about that. Yeah, I really have a hard stop today.

No, we are the dream team. Like, we're— it's all 3 of us. All

for one and one for all.

Yeah. Um, look, listen, this was great, action-packed. Um, I think everyone was so riveted that there wasn't a bunch of questions in the chat. Um, listen, we are gonna be back, um, maybe in 2 weeks, um, or 3-ish, we'll be back. Um, and, uh, yeah, follow everyone on LinkedIn. And Emily is on YouTube now, and I will actually just start sharing all that stuff, um, probably tomorrow. So yeah, Emily, send me your LinkedIn, uh, your YouTube channel, or shout it out really quickly right before we go.

I am. I— guys, I have recently started a YouTube channel. We have a couple of amazing Podcasts in the pipeline. Guest number 1, the one, the only, Pedro Zambrano. So we are just, um, waiting to get that uploaded, but it's, it's there, it's ready to go. And we're gonna have Kedeisha coming on pretty soon as well, right, Kedeisha?

Yep, just waiting, waiting to get that first, uh, edit up and going, right? All right,

it'll be up there real soon, hopefully by tomorrow. No problem.

It's their same names, uh, exactly. Pedro and Emily. And there's no one else in the world with that last name other than—

My LinkedIn is super easy. Posting you right there. Feel free to contact me. I chat with everyone. So guys, if you want to have a chat, you want to send me a message, feel free. I'm super happy for, um, for a couple of people I saw in the comments. I connected with a couple people this week and they're here. So thank you guys so much for showing up. And, um, I see your comment that you made. If you are still interested in continuing the conversation, private message.

All right. All right.

Thanks, guys.