How to prepare for a Data Analyst Interview I

After a lot of interviews I will prepare a compilation what I learned and what you should study before a data analyst interview.

Normally the process have 3 steps: Human Resource interview, Technical Interview and Client interview.

Human Resource: you must show proactive attitude, smile, be your own and tell a short history of your career with focus in what you did best. You can jump most of your experience, you must tell the experience where you generate value for the company, like "I helped the business to increase the revenue doing data analysis" and using the tools that they are asking about. Also, the cultural fit will be important, to learned about the business before the interview will prepare you to be more formal or more informal, even with the clothes that you are using to that. The TED with Amy Cuddy is essential to learn how to act in an interview.

Technical Interview: this normally where we are more confident, because you are applying for position that you like and you have the knowledge. For most is where we have more afraid, because you will never know what kind of question that they will make, but if you are practice everyday, how should be, so that will be a question of breath, relax and enjoy. More details here.

Client interview: if you get here you will think that vacancy is already yours, I wish, but is not so easy how you are expecting. These for me where I has more fail. Some point to consider:

  1. You must have a portfolio to show and know how to explain your projects (details here).
  2. You need to have an expertise to any subject that are write in the opportunity, if they are asking for BI, you should know some DAX functions (what is the difference from SUM and SUMX?), Tableau or Power BI, and normally more one.
  3. You need to know about the cloud, all the company's are using the cloud so learn the basic about Star and Snowflake.
  4. SQL, Python or R is what you has been learning, keep on it you will need it. I can't tell here what you need to learn, if you are applying for a vacancy that request these language, be prepare for all kind of question, since write code in notepad until answer some test online.

That was a short article to prepare for what will come next, where I pretend to go deep in technical interview and client interview.