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.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
    1·
    3 months ago

    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…

    • hstde@feddit.de
      3·
      3 months ago

      Or, they did listen and they don’t have any questions because they are still processing that information dump and don’t know what to ask yet. You can’t dump 10-20 years of experience on one person in 30 minutes and expect them to understand it all. Some might, but those are the outliers. I’ll mostly tell them to try it out and see what they can remember of the things I told them and we’ll do the specific things they can’t together. That way they get a fuller picture of the topic and you don’t waste time by babysitting them with things they already know or remember. But that requires that people trust you’ll help them when they have problems.

      • jg1i@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        ^^^ This is the real answer. I often don’t know what questions to ask until I actually get my hands dirty. I don’t know what I don’t know.

        In math class, I often remember listening to the teacher and thinking I understood everything, but once I started the homework I realized that I didn’t.