What is the Best Way to Assess an Analytics Candidate’s Technical Skills?
When hiring an analyst, it is absolutely critical to validate that a candidate is truly able to apply analytics skills and techniques to your business challenges in a robust way. Many candidates include analytics skills like SQL, Power BI, Python, machine learning, etc… on their resume and even include past work experience using these skills, but actually only have a surface level understanding of them. If your organization is only asking behavioral questions in an interview, such as “tell me about a time you performed an analysis that drove value for your organization”, the candidate could easily have a rehearsed example that could paint a rosy picture or, in some cases, that was complexly made up. Even if your organization is asking general questions about analytics skills required, such as “tell me 3 parts of a SQL query”, a candidate who has simply watched a video or 2 about the topic, but who has not actually applied the technique, could easily answer the question correctly and pass the check. In reality, even candidates who suggest they’ve worked in a platform for years and answer a general question correctly, may not have the skill of actually applying that platform to a business challenge in a robust way.
In contrast, when you use a case question to ask a candidate to apply an analytics technique to a specific business scenario on the spot, you drastically reduce that risk. You’re then not only able to see in real time whether the candidate actually has a real understanding of that analytics tool, but you’re also able to assess whether they can actually robustly apply it to a real business scenario; this is exactly what they’ll need to do to successfully drive value as an analyst at your organization. If your company doesn’t currently have the expertise to ask analytics case questions in an interview, consider booking a 1-hour analytics consultation with Value Driven Analytics, which can be used to have an analytics expert assess your prospective candidate using technical case interview questions.
