Phase 07: Getting hired
Data Analyst Interview Prep and Portfolio: 12 Free Lessons
Roadmaps, interview rounds, an honest resume and a portfolio employers can run.
This phase gets you ready to be hired. You read job postings as data to decide what to learn next, build and publish a portfolio project, write resume bullets that are true, and practise every interview round: SQL questions, the metrics case, the statistics round, the take-home and behavioural answers. Every lesson runs on Python 3.9 or later with the standard library only, and every dataset is synthetic.
The 12 lessons, in learning order
- 1. Read job postings like data
Across 300 analyst job postings, which tools are required most, how much experience do they want, and what do they say about visa sponsorship?
Level 1: Beginner · about 2 hours
- 2. SQL interview questions
Can you answer the six SQL questions that come up again and again in analyst interviews, and explain why the obvious answer is wrong?
Level 2: Intermediate · about 2 hours
- 3. Portfolio project end to end
Do customers who start on a free trial cancel within 90 days more often than customers who pay from day one?
Level 2: Intermediate · about 2 hours
- 4. Match your resume to a posting
Of five open roles, which ones fit this resume best, and which missing skills stand between the candidate and the rest?
Level 1: Beginner · about 2 hours
- 5. Role roadmaps from postings
Data, business, product or BI analyst: which skills differ?
Level 1: Beginner · about 2 hours
- 6. Explain findings to leadership
Can the VP act on your summary after reading only the first two lines?
Level 1: Beginner · about 2 hours
- 7. Resume bullets that are true
Does every number on your resume come from work you can show?
Level 1: Beginner · about 2 hours
- 8. The metrics case interview
Signups fell 20%. Walk me through it.
Level 2: Intermediate · about 2 hours
- 9. The statistics interview round
Can you explain power, p-values and Simpson's paradox on real numbers?
Level 2: Intermediate · about 2 hours
- 10. The take-home assignment
Four hours, one dataset: what does a strong submission contain?
Level 2: Intermediate · about 2 hours
- 11. Behavioural answers that show analysis
Tell me about a time your analysis changed a decision.
Level 1: Beginner · about 1 hour
- 12. Publish your portfolio
Can a hiring manager run your project in one command?
Level 1: Beginner · about 2 hours
What you will be able to do
By the end of the phase you will have built and tested each of these yourself, one per lesson:
- Read job postings like data:
TOOL_PATTERNS: one regex per tool, safe against the classic false matches. - SQL interview questions:
second_highest_salary: the second highest distinct value. - Portfolio project end to end:
CONVERSION_SQL: trial starters who had the whole trial, and how many cancelled inside it. - Match your resume to a posting:
tokenize: lower case word tokens that keepa/bandr&dwhole. - Role roadmaps from postings:
title_family: put each title in the data, business, product, BI or other family, with the rules checked in the right order. - Explain findings to leadership:
SUMMARY: your summary for Sanjana, for the committed results. - Resume bullets that are true:
extract_claims: every number in a bullet, and whether it is a number, a percent or points. - The metrics case interview:
decompose: sign-up change split into visits, start rate and finish rate, adding up exactly. - The statistics interview round:
two_proportion_z: the gap in points, z and the two-sided p-value. - The take-home assignment:
clean: remove duplicate rows, test orders and refunds, and count each. - Behavioural answers that show analysis: A version of STAR for analysts, with a question and a check in it.
- Publish your portfolio:
readme_problems: the four sections, a question with a question mark, an answer with a number, provenance, and exactly one run command that names a file in the project.
How to start
Clone the course and run the first lesson's test. It fails until your exercise is right. You need only Python 3.9 or later.
git clone https://github.com/Ani19arya/analytics-from-scratch
cd analytics-from-scratch/phases/07-getting-hired/01-read-job-postings-like-data
python3 test_lesson.pyJobs that ask for these skills
Open roles on Real Analyst Jobs where this phase's skills come up, read daily from company career pages:
