As with many things in my life, I approached the task of writing blogs and documenting my time at The Data School rather backwards. It's hard for me to begin before I feel fully informed, so the few opportunities I had to sit and write during training were derailed by an all-consuming indecisiveness. After all, how can I say I know how to best do X, or how I feel about Y, when my training isn't over yet?
No longer can I hide behind that convenient shield! Having officially "graduated" on the 26th of January in the year of our lord 2024, I can now confidently say that I still have no idea how anything works or what I'm doing.
However, I did learn a lot about myself and what it means to know something. And I certainly understand what it was that got me hired a lot better than I did on my first day in the office. Hopefully, I can pass on that insight now, to whatever aspiring souls might be reading this in the distant future.
The hiring process is broken into what I perceive be two phases - the technical half, and the talky half. Your initial application is going to be the technical portion, showcasing your ability to use Tableau and tell a story with your dashboard. You will be free to use whatever data you want. Take advantage of that and pick a topic you're actually interested in and know something about. This is also, in my opinion, the easier part to do a good job on, even though it requires much more time to prepare for. The things you need to do well here are almost entirely to do with non-abstract skills.
Let's start with the simplest, most actionable fundamentals:
1. Learn how to use Tableau
Is that a bit obvious? However, you'd be surprised at how many people don't put in the effort to truly understand the tool. It's going to be harder than you think, so if you are taking this seriously, set aside a fair chunk of time to familiarize yourself with Tableau. I would say that a month, assuming you have a job or other full-time obligation, is ideal. This will mean spending a lot, if not most, of your free time fiddling with charts. If you aren't ready to sacrifice your hobbies and social life for a while, then start prepping longer in advance.
2. Submit early for feedback, and take the advice given to you
When applying, you will be given an opportunity to get your application in early. Someone at the company will review your work and email you back with suggestions for improvements. For the love of god, take them. Besides the fact that it will likely be very good advice from a technical perspective, one of the things that is key to the hiring process is you showcasing your ability to take criticism and direction. Acting on feedback is the absolute best way to do that, and moreover, NOT acting on it immediately raises questions you probably don't want asked. Questions like, "Does this person think they know better than the professionals already working here?", or "Do they just not care enough to make even a few small changes?"
3. Look at successful applications AND those applicants' Tableau Public
The dashboards that got others hired are an invaluable resource. Let them inform your own planning and level of effort. Perhaps even more importantly, if you poke around on the linked profiles of these applicants, you will often find older WIP versions of their dashboards. These can be a fantastic benchmark for your own skill growth as you learn Tableau, and a great way to study the evolution of a thought process from rough draft to finished version. I don't think it needs to be said that plagiarism isn't the look, but there is nothing wrong with being inspired or guided by the ideas of others who walked the same path you are now.
4. Imagine your dashboard from the perspective of a stranger
Whoever looks at your dashboard needs to be able to tell what it's about. A seemingly obvious bit of advice, but it's very easy to get into your own head and forget that others have no context for what you are doing. If there is interaction on your dash, is that made obvious? If there is some meaning to certain colors, would anyone but you know that? If certain charts are meant to work together to provide insight, can a person who knows nothing about the topic reach said insight by themselves? Strike a balance, of course. Avoid walls of text or cluttered tooltips. But do make sure that you explain everything that needs explaining. A good test is to ask a friend or family member to look at your dash and ask what they have gleaned from it. If you notice that they are not able to figure out or find certain features or meanings from what you have made, that's a strong sign that you need to make the story your data is telling more clear.
All that is the easy stuff, on account of it being specific tasks that are mechanically doable with enough time. Anyone can learn how to use Tableau. Anyone can just...do the things they are told to do. Anyone can literally look with their eyes at past applications. Being technically competent is important, of course, but in many ways it's less about your actual ability to use Tableau and more about what the acquisition of that knowledge means about you. A rather vague sentiment that demands more detailed examination. So, examine we shall.
I am sure you have likely heard the term "soft skills" before - a slew of behaviors, traits, and abilities related to social intelligence. Communication, conflict resolution, time management...all of these are absolutely essential for any job, despite not being quantifiable the way passing a certification or having X years of experience is. That is what I mean when I say it's not the Tableau skills themselves that matter. The job can and will teach you whatever it is you don't know how to do with the software. What it CAN'T do is instill in you a willingness to learn, to understand and be understood, to make inferences based on the success or failure of others.
The second half of the application process, the aforementioned talky portion, is going to focus on sussing out whether you have these soft skills. There will be a short follow-up interview that is going to, frankly, basically just be a vibe check. Are you timely, well-spoken, intelligent, personable? Do you have any glaring red flags?
If you do well in the follow-up, you will be asked to make another dashboard, this time on a much tighter timeline and using data given to you by the interviewer. It is likely you will skew a bit more professional with this one, since this you won't just be building around whatever you happen to be interested in. You will also be working with the same information as the others who succeeded with their first dashboards, which is important to keep in mind. This is where employing creativity in your interpretation of the data is going to be critical if you want to stand out. When you present your work, I promise you, whatever you manage to do is not likely to be impressive on a technical level. It's impressive because you learned how to do it on your own. You showcased drive, originality, and capacity for self-improvement. Ideally, anyway.
Many soft skills are not ones you learn in a month. I caution anyone who is not a people person against applying, because it is first and foremost a client-based communications job.
If you do feel you fit the bill, here are a few core takeaways to focus on:
1. Know your own project well enough to make others interested
You will be presenting your work to people who have seen, at minimum, 10 other projects based on the same data you are using. The challenge for you will be pitching what you did in a way that makes it sound new and intriguing. Speaking to a panel of interviewers may be quite stressful. If you are the type to clam up under pressure, practice what you're going to say and what functions you plan to demonstrate. Be enthusiastic. Do you sound like YOU care about what you're saying? If you don't, why should the people listening? While you can follow a script for the demonstration portion, the only way to be ready for the follow-up is to know your dashboard and the data inside and out. You can't predict what the interviewers will ask, so instead, you must be so confident in your work that you can formulate a response on the fly with ease. It's the difference between memorizing the multiplication table as a child, and being able to multiply at need as an adult.
2. Be gregarious and at ease
Greet the person who meets you for the interview. Make small talk. Strive for eye contact. Do whatever you can to come across as someone who will be comfortable talking to a variety of people in a professional environment. The hardest part of the job is not going to be making the dashboards, it's going to be explaining them in a way that makes your work sound worthwhile. Often, you will be speaking to clients who don't know how Tableau works, which requires all the more skill to keep their attention. Coming across as likable builds rapport that much faster, making clients more willing to work with rather than against you. Selling the fact that you are easy to get along with makes you stand out as a potential asset to the company.
3. Answer the real, underlying questions
When an interviewer asks you about hypothetical situations, especially stressful ones, they aren't looking for a "right" answer. There very well might not even be one. What they are trying to see is if you display certain desirable patterns of thought. Empathy, abstract thinking, professionalism...Listen and consider what it is you are really being asked. "What would you do if you realized you couldn't complete your project in the time frame the client asked for?", for example. You could try and answer this in a straightforward way. Say you'd try and move the deadline, or work late, etc. These responses might be reasonable, but they don't adequately display those sought-after traits. Even small adjustments, such as including that you would apologize, or reach out for advice to coworkers, exhibit a capacity for consideration and cooperation. Key skills that, vitally, cannot be taught on the job. With every answer you give, think about how to pepper demonstrations of your non-technical positive qualities.
4. Don't slack on the basics
Another seemingly obvious piece of advice, but small things can add up to a big impression. You may be a genius, but if you dress sloppily, speak rudely, or show up late, that won't matter. For better or worse, there are more important things than raw talent in this life. Everyone who meets you, including the interviewers, is going to be gathering dozens of tiny clues about who you are without you telling them. If you say you are a meticulous worker, but your appearance is disheveled or unhygienic, then it doesn't matter how flawless your dashboard is. The image you present will make make you sound like a liar even if the actual product you present is very good. Remember, you can be taught to make better dashboards, but no one at work is going to school you in maintaining your appearance or being polite. One is forgivable ignorance that can be made up for, and the other is a fundamental flaw that is beyond the scope of your potential boss to deal with. Don't remove yourself from consideration by neglecting the basics because you think your work is so good that it'll speak for itself.
Applying for a job, any job, is always going to be a stressful process. Even if you are totally confident in yourself and your abilities, you might worry that others will not see the best you have to offer. The advice I have given here is molded specifically to applying to The Data School, but it applies to all interactions you will have with people. They can't know the good things about you if you don't show-and-tell your way through life. Do yourself the favor of leveraging everything you can, from your vocabulary down to your body language, to let everyone know why they would be missing out not having you around.