What you should have on your Data Scientist Resume (Especially in the Pandemic time)
What you should have on your Data Scientist Resume (Especially in the Pandemic time)
Know what your resume is before applying for the Data Scientist position
Know what your resume is before applying for the Data Scientist position
Applying for a job is stressful enough. Applying a job for a Data Scientist position is way more excruciating because there are many more things to prepare as compared to the usual job application. In my time, I have seen many Data Scientist resumes and know what I want to look for in the aspiring Data Scientist. Moreover, with a pandemic comes special needs.
At the very least, I know what to have in your resume when you are looking for a Data Scientist job in a pandemic because I managed to move into new employment during the pandemic (although I already have some experience).
Nevertheless, I want to share what you should have in your resume to apply for a Data Scientist position. For the record, depending on where you are applying for the Data Scientist position, you should tailor the resume to fulfil the job application.
Header and Description
The top of the page is the most important thing in your resume. Not just for Data Scientist, but also for any resume.
Many of the people in HR that I know say that when selecting the candidate for the interview process, they only take a glance at the candidate resume and decide in an instant which resume is worth taking their time to look at deeper.
So, what kind of header and description is the eye-catcher? I would give you an example of my own resume and the kind that I look for in a resume.
So, above is the header and description example that I used for the Data Science job application. Let’s break it down one by one.
Header Profile
The top of the page should be your short profile and maximize the space to give concise information. The information we need here is your name and contact number/email (including LinkedIn if you want). Don’t add too much information that is not necessary here. You need the space after all, and you can put additional information on the description page.
Professional Description
This is the most important part of your resume, your short description deciding if your resume is worth taking another look or not.
What should I write in my short description then? It would be as easy for an experienced data scientist to write that they are data scientists and how long they have become data scientists with their expertise.
How about for fresher/non-data scientist professionals? In this case, we need to write our description that could attract employers. What attract employee then? For the Data Scientist position, it would be our data science related skills.
Expect to write something like,
“{Your major} Fresh Graduate with a passion for {the business you apply} and data science. I am experienced in analyzing data and implementing machine learning with {Programming Language} in the {Your previous project/internship/thesis/Coursework/Online Course/ Dependent Project} with {Some result you find insightful}”
In the above example, what we need to focus on in our description are:
Your interest in their business
Necessary Data Science Skills (Machine Learning, Programming, Statistics, etc.
Your most important experience related to the Data Science
Fresh Graduate and Non-experience person description at the very least need to showcase your interest and potential as a Data Scientist. Although, there is an extra point you need to add during this pandemic time
4. Your capability to adapt and work quickly with showing communication skill
Why is this an extra point? Data Scientist is teamwork, and many of the projects need to be presented and communicated well with the others.
During the pandemic time, with social distancing and work-from-home situations, you would need to rely on your communication skill and quick thinking whenever problems arise. This is why it is important to showcase your adaptability, communication, and quick-thinking skill in your description.
For your consideration, keep tailor the description suit to the company business. Don’t just blast the same resume to every single company. The HR know which resume is specifically made and which one re-send to many.
Professional Skill Description
Many of us often put our technical professional skills at the bottom of the resume with a list of points. In my opinion, this is the wrong thing to do.
We want HR to know what skills that the candidate possesses instantly. If you put it in the bottom part of the page, the HR potentially missed it when they only read the page's top part. In this case, we want to put our skills in the most visible part of our resume after the description part.
In your skill section, you could outline your capability in each of your skills and showcase your data science portfolio example. For me, I often put the link to my project in this section.
I never recommend anybody to use the percentage or bar to show how capable you are with each skill because it looks unprofessional. It is better to say you are proficient, capable, expert, or any other word explaining your skill capability.
Experience
This section is often glossed by HR, but when the HR already takes notice of your resume, they would certainly read this section in much deeper. Let’s take a look at what kind of experience we should put in our data science resume.
Employment History
I would show you what my example for an experienced data scientist employment history looks like. We show our employment history first, with the latest employment at the top.
You could also include any internships here for you who did not have any employment history. If you only have volunteering or organizational experience, you need to put your education section first.
Above is an example employment section for an experienced data scientist. In this section, I outline four bullet points important for the Data Scientist position, especially in pandemic time. The points are:
a. I have mentioned previously that communication and adaptability are important in pandemic time. Point a is an example of how you could show your communication and adaptability skills in employment.
b. Showcase your project with the necessary tools and technique and how your project impacts the company (use number, it is always good to have a number).
c. Data analysis and Decision Making is an important skill to have as well for a data scientist. Show that you have it during your employment history.
d. Show that you could quickly adapt and up-to-date with the current data science situation because the field is always growing.
That is the above example if you have experience as a Data Scientist, but what if you don’t have one? You need to explain what you do in your previous employment/internship as close to why you are a good potential as a data scientist in the company you are applying to.
Let’s take a look at the non-data science position I previously have.
Just like what I explained previously, my employment history contained points that important as a data scientist. They are:
a. Team Work is a non-technical skill that every data scientist needs, and Statistical Analysis is a plus for a data scientist.
b. Data Analysis and Communication are shown here.
c. Communication and Decision Making are shown here.
d. Adaptability and Programming skill are shown here with the impact on the company
That is the example if you do not have any data scientist experience. Try to over-sell your employment experience as that is the point of having your resume, but do not lie in your resume. It is fine to glorify what you have done in your resume because you could explain what you do, but lying in your resume would only backfire to you in the end.
Education
The next section after your employment history should be your education. This section often short and concise, but depending on your employment history, you could explain more what you did during your learning time.
Above is an example of my education history. It would be best if you put your recent education on the top and going backward from there. Actually, I did not come from a computer science or math/statistic background but could still secure a data scientist position. This means that the Data Scientist position is not reserved only for people from computer science and/or math/statistic majors.
In my example, I only show my previous major and what focus I did in my study. Please note that I only show the important thing for the data scientist position (data analysis, statistic, programming).
Try to put things you consider important for a data scientist position during your education time. If you think you did not have the technical skill, try to put the non-technical skill but the one still related to the position.
In case you did not have vast experience, you could also explain your thesis/project here. Try to relate it with the data scientist position.
Additional Information
In the bottom part of your resume is everything important to the data scientist position. You could put many variations here, but this is the one I am always looking for in the data science resume, especially if you did not have any previous employment history.
Relevant Experience
This section is where you would put any relevant experience to the data scientist position, but it was not a permanent/internship. It could be an organization experience, event experience, part-time work, and anything else you deemed important for the position.
For example, in my relevant experience section, I put my experience as a writer in the Towards Data Science.
Never take lightly what relevant experience you have previously; I have seen some people manage to get employment not because of their employment experience or education but because of their out-of-the-box experience they put in their resume.
Course and Certification
You could put it in the other section for many of you who take an online course or boot camp.
You could list down any informal course and certification you find relevant to the data scientist position, and you could also explain a little bit about what you learn during the course here.
Non-Technical Skill
While you already present the necessary technical skill at the top of the resume, you could also include any non-technical skills in this section. Let’s take a look at the example below.
Technical skill might be self-explanatory already for a data scientist position, but it was different for the non-technical skills. It is better when you said that you have the non-technical skill; you explain why you have that skill.
Many ways to explain it; you could relate it to your employment history, education, or even certification. It is important to showcase this non-technical skill in a pandemic time because it is a massive extra point.
Conclusion
Many of the companies are looking for an experienced Data Scientist, but do not afraid to apply for the position if you are fresher. Sometimes, the company itself needs a fresh graduate which they could mould.
What is important is that you tailor your data scientist resume to fulfil the job application, but in the pandemic time, you need to go the extra mile to show your potential.
Other than necessary technical skills (Machine Learning, Programming Language, Data Analysis, Statistics), try to show non-technical skills (Communication, Teamwork, Adaptability, Quick-Thinking).