How To Answer Data Analyst Interview Questions to Get a Job

[0:00]Here's how to answer data analyst interview questions to get a job. I've used this exact framework to pivot my career and land data analyst roles. And today I'll be sharing with you what this framework is and how you can apply it to your projects. First off, what is a data analyst interview? A data analyst interview is a combination of a technical assessment as well as behavioral questions. The technical assessment will most likely be in SQL, and I have a video going over real data analyst interview questions that I'll link up here for you to refer to. Now for the behavioral part of the interview, they'll be asking you questions about your past. They'll be questions like, tell me about a time you faced a challenge, tell me about your work experience. And basically, what they're trying to get at is what is your previous experience to determine whether or not you'd be a good data analyst in the future. And today's video will be all about the behavioral questions of the interview. So what is the most common interview mistake? The most common mistake is to ramble. You're nervous and you're put on the spot, and so you just keep talking and talking without any structure. And I've seen this very commonly even as I've interviewed data analysts. They are extremely qualified on their resume, but they show up and they can't communicate their thoughts clearly, which is the reason why they get rejected. The interviews go something like this.Can you tell me about your most complex project from start to finish? Sure, I was working on a project with a large data set and the data set came from this team that I was unfamiliar with. And so I had to ask the team, and then I went and had a conversation with my manager. What did you learn from this response? It sounds like the challenge was the data set, but that's unclear. Had the person just clearly explained their thoughts with a structure, the person interviewing them would have known exactly that they had data analyst skills and easily would have hired the person, but instead because of this unstructured flow of thoughts, they get rejected. Here's a tip.The interviewer wants to hire you. They are not looking for reasons to reject you. Their goal and your goal is actually the same because the interviewer has already looked at your resume and thinks that you can do the job. So all you have to do is show up and communicate very effectively that you can do the job so that the interviewer can just check off the boxes and say, yes, I can hire this person. So what is the structure I use to answer interview questions? I use a framework CARL, CONTEXT ACTION RESULT LEARN. The C and CONTEXT stands for giving a background of the situation. So clearly in about one to two sentences, you want to set the stage and give a description of what the task was. For ACTION, what is it that you did specifically? The interviewer will be listening closely to listen for what was it that you did in the story? Then in RESULT, what was the outcome? How did you measure success? The interviewer is looking to really understand the impact of your work, and it doesn't matter so much that you saved hundreds of hours or made this huge impact. It's the fact that you're able to quantify it and understand what measuring success means. And for LEARNINGS, what did you learn and what could you have done differently? The learnings part is really important because it shows that you're able to self-assess and grow from your experience. And the learnings is particularly really helpful for anyone trying to pivot their career because they have experience and it shows that when they can self-reflect and grow from each experience, that this is someone who's able to take on a different career and learn a new path and become a really good asset to the company. Now, you may be thinking, this sounds really similar to STAR situation, task, action, and result. And you're right, it is extremely similar, but there are two key differences. First of all, the situation and task is combined into the context, thus leaving more room for your actions, results and learning. And honestly, you want to use your time efficiently. And what the interviewer really cares about is seeing, what is it that you did and what were the results and learning from it and less about the context. The second reason it's different is because of the learnings. This is something that's not in the STAR format, but the learning is so important because it shows that you're able to learn from each of your experiences. And it really prepares you for the common interview question of, so what would you have done differently? You're not put on the spot and you've already thought about, well, this is what I've learned and this is what I can bring to the table. So this is how you can use the CARL framework to answer the same interview question from earlier of, tell me about your most complex project. Here's what I would say. I was automating the company's sales dashboard which entailed tracking six different states across three different teams and aligning on the data set and metrics. First, I met with each of the three teams and had to align on their data sets. They were tracking the same processes differently, so that required me to understand their data using data exploration, as well as creating a data model and cleaning it up so that I can aggregate it into one data for reporting. With the aggregated data set, I was able to automate over 30 hours of manual work for the sales team. From this project, I learned the importance of defining your metrics before moving on to the data. And you may be thinking now, well, what if I don't have work experience? Can I still use CARL with projects? And the answer is yes. CARL can also be used with your projects. Projects are great because they give you hands on experience, something to put on your resume, but also they are great talking points for someone who doesn't have the work experience, and you can use the same call format for your project. You start with the problem statement in the context, and then in the action, highlight your data analysis skills and any tools that you've used specifically and include the outcomes in your result and then what you've learned from this project in your learnings. So for a project, this is what I would say. In my personal projects, I've analyzed data sets containing exam scores, homework completion rates, and attendance records to see if it had an impact on student performance. This was challenging as I had to clean and reconcile five different data sets, and I used data cleaning and then aggregated the data to do a descriptive analysis using histograms and scatter plots to see if I could see a relationship between any of these variables. The results showed a strong correlation between student exam scores and attendance records. It even showed that if you increase the student attendance rate by 15%, that would improve the student exam scores by 10%. Through this project, I have enhanced my analytical skills and deepened my understanding of statistical analysis that I believe will be assets to my next role. My recommendation is to think about the CARL framework not only after you do your projects, but as you're doing them, because you know that you're going to have to use these for your interview. So think about, okay, what are the actions that I'm taking here? What are the results that I can show? And what are my learnings that I want to highlight during my interviews? Now, please smash the like button and subscribe, as you do not want to miss my next video with data analyst tips. And if you want to learn more about the habits that I use to become a data analyst, I'll link that video over here. Thank you so much, and I will see you there.