The Search for Talented Data Experts: Advice for Managers / Hiring

In an earlier blog post, I discussed the skill sets necessary for an individual to stand out in today’s Big Data job market. But what if you’re the one actually responsible for attracting, identifying and retaining the best analytics and data science talent?

In this blog, I want to share three steps companies should take to ensure they have the right strategies and tools in place to secure the next generation of smart, savvy and data-driven employees.

1. Attract: Innovative Organizational Culture.

If you expect to attract the best data talent from the Millennial or Generation X groups, then you need to make sure that your company’s culture aligns with their interests and expectations. These populations are seeking experiences and corporate values that are very different from previous generations and it is important that you are in-tune to this societal shift. To start, I would recommend you evaluate whether your company culture includes the following attributes:

• Benefits with even more benefits. It is not enough to offer traditional 401K retirement matching and great health insurance. Today, the companies who are scooping up the best talent also offer additional perks that promote a more balanced lifestyle: free lunch; break rooms stocked with snacks and that invite social interaction and play during the work day (e.g. foosball); casual dress; remote work options; onsite fitness facilities; shared bicycle program to encourage more eco-friendly transit across the company’s campus; paid work days to volunteer with non-profit organizations… and the list goes on!
• A place where titles don’t matter. Younger generations want to know that they’ll be valued and have room to advance. Google demonstrate this during the interview process, which involves meeting with your future direct reports. This approach sends a strong signal about the non-hierarchical nature of the organization and helps to measure the candidate’s ability to inspire others. By incorporating equality into the hiring process, it emphasizes that this organization values managing down just as much as managing up. Another method is multi-candidate interviewing: observing how your potential employees interact with each other can reveal a lot about how they’ll fit into your organization and knowledge share with their new peers.
• Physical and mental space to promote innovation. Google is renowned for quirky office designs incorporating slides and non-traditional furniture and toys. The point is not to differentiate from regular office cubicles, but to inspire creativity amongst employees. Convinced this won’t fly in your traditional work environment? Not to worry! Provide a virtual space to share ideas, promote cross-functional collaboration and demonstrate executive commitment to innovation. At Dell, we host Data Visualization Summits to connect like-minded analytical individuals and run an annual Innovation Showcase to enable employees from any role and background to take a crack at solving specific organizational challenges. Your new hires will be reassured that this provides them with an opportunity to flex their creative muscles and develop essential networks to further their careers.

Google Amsterdam – the ceiling panels are designed to look like stroopwafels – the quintessentially Dutch gooey waffle-cookie

Google office in Dublin offers a chance to take a break and unwind.. (and foster creativity!)

Pivotal Labs, part of the Dell Technologies family, creates a culture of collaboration for software engineers to innovate and design great products

A collaborative and dynamic culture will help to attract the talent you’re aiming for – see my previous article on building a culture of innovation, which starts with people.

2. Identify: Critical Thinking is Key

It may seem contradictory, but in order to identify the best technical experts, you actually should look for those people who strongly demonstrate a non-technical skill—critical thinking. The ability to think critically means questioning everything: Who provided the information? What’s their bias? What’s been omitted? How can this be improved? This approach is something companies should actively seek in analysts and data scientists because it is this ability to intelligently challenge the status quo that leads to innovation, and ultimately better outcomes for the business and customers.

And there are plenty of examples of why this skill is so high in-demand these days…

• In a 2015 PwC survey of more than 1000 CEOs, Michael Dell was asked to name the one attribute leaders will need most to succeed in the turbulent times ahead. He responded: “I would place my bet on curiosity.”
• Tableau Software–a leading data visualization company—states that they value critical thinking over technical knowledge, arguing that technical knowledge is far easier to teach than a natural analytical curiosity.
• Forbes published an article last year, inspired by the innovative startup Slack Technologies, explaining that organizations hiring Liberal Arts majors and adding them to highly technical teams of computer programmers actually have more success by helping them “connect with end users and figure out what they want.”

So how do you uncover whether a potential candidate possesses strong critical thinking abilities? One suggestion is to use this interview technique to test and observe the candidate’s thought process. By asking business-oriented questions, such as “how could big data have prevented you from sitting here in this interview today?”, you can learn how the person approaches a problem and what type of data she thinks is important to consider in her analysis. Maybe they’ll dispute the accuracy of a traffic app in predicting the duration of their journey? Maybe they’ll claim a local coffee chain used consumer profiling to provide them with an offer they couldn’t refuse, and the subsequent detour delayed them? A creative question can provide a gauge for the candidate’s ability to think outside the box, awareness of cross-organizational data blending, and their ability to bridge the gap between data science and business requirements.

3. Retain: Career Opportunities

In order to retain your top data science talent, you need to keep them engaged and stretch their analytical muscles. A few examples of how I have seen this work effectively include:

• Provide internal forums for employees to showcase their work and network with peers. The EMC Data Visualization Summit mentioned earlier is a great example of how analytics experts from across the company can share their projects with a broad audience.
• Make sure you are utilizing your employee’s time in the most appropriate way. An experienced data scientist’s time should be spent diving into the data, not cleaning up data quality issues. To achieve this freedom, companies should invest in data governance programs that reduce data quality issues and minimize redundancies. It is also wise to enlist lower-skilled resources (interns, contractors, etc.) to manage time-consuming, but relatively simple data manipulation instead of your top experts.
• Give your experts the chance to share their talents with external audiences across your industry. Personally, I have had the opportunity to present on rapid prototype development at the Tableau Conference and provide tips on how to start a career in data science and how to implement a big data strategy to drive a better customer experience with customers at our EMC World event in Las Vegas. All of these opportunities have allowed me to share my passion for data with others and learn how to be a better data story-teller and not just the person running the reports and crunching numbers in the background.

Jenny Beazley, Dr. Rex Martin Jr, & Kevin Roche, presenting on “Big Data, Big Deal!” at EMCWorld, Las Vegas, May 2016

Jenny Beazley & Steve Scales, presenting “Pizza, TV and Tableau: Thinking Outside the Box at Dell Technologies” at Tableau Conference, Austin, TX, November 2016

Jenny Beazley & David Dionisio presenting on “Respect the Data”, EMCWorld, Las Vegas, May 2016

Summary

How can your company ensure its hiring practices are optimized for the digital world? An innovative culture, emphasis on critical thinking and engaging career opportunities are essential to attracting, identifying and retaining top talent.

Have your own tips? What’s your favorite “critical thinking” interview question? Add them below!

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