How To Introduce Yourself In A Data Science Behavioral Interview

Data Science interview processes can vary depending on the company and industry domain you are applying to. Typically, they start with a behavioral interview with the Hiring Manager or an HR member followed by a technical interview with the team leader and then a coding test and another technical interview with your future team members. This can vary from one company to another, however, a common first step in the hiring process is the behavioral interview. You can know more about the hiring process of data science in this article:

A behavioral interview is a job interviewing technique where candidates are asked to describe past performance and behavior to determine whether they are suitable for a position. The main goal is to know the type of person you are and to see whether you will be a fit with the company culture, core values, and team members and whether you will satisfy their vision and goals or not.

In the previous article of this series What To Expect In A Data Science Behavioral Interview, I discussed what is a data science behavioral interview and what to expect in it.

ِAs mentioned in the previous article the first questions to expect in a data science behavioral interviews are personal questions and the most common question of this type is to introduce yourself or tell me more about yourself.

This is an excellent opportunity to establish yourself as an impressive candidate for the job. Therefore, it is essential to prepare an answer for this question beforehand and do proper research about the company and the position and have it structured before every interview. In this article, we will discuss how to structure your answer properly to answer these questions in the most effective way.

Table of content:

1. Your Background & Experience
2. Connect With the New Company
3. Link Yourself to the Position

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1. Your Background & Experience

The first aspect of yourself you should deliver when introducing yourself is your previous professional experince and your educational background.

The first thing to start with is your experience in which you mention what you have done in your career so far and what you have gained from these experiences. You should emphasize the skills and experience gained from these positions and your most important impact in each of these positions.

You can also talk about your educational background if it is relevant to the position. It is important to focus only on the relevant experience to the position you are interviewing for, do not waste your time on non-relevant experience.

Unfortunately, many people stop in this step and do not go further to the next step, which will make them lose an important opportunity to connect themselves to the company’s values, vision, and missions. Doing this will demonstrate your passion for the company, let's see how to do this.

2. Connect With the New Company

After introducing yourself and talking about your experience it is now time to show your passion for the company.

Connecting yourself with your future company can be achieved by discussing what you value in work and the working environment and linking it to the company's values and missions. Also, you can discuss why you like to work in the data career and connect this to the company’s approach to the data and what they value.

For example, you might like to work with data because of its impact on business, so if you are applying to a company that is data-driven and uses the data to make a better decisions this will be an important point to emphasize. This will require researching the company and to prepare your answer before the interview.

3. Link Yourself to the Position

By now you have shown your passion and values and connected yourself to the company’s mission and values. In this final step, you need to link yourself to the position you are applying to by showing your capabilities and how they will make you a good fit for this position, and why you are interested in it particularly.

This is important as you need to establish the connections with the role yourself instead of just mentioning your experience and letting the interviewer make it himself. Highlight both what you believe you can bring to this position and what you would like to gain from it.

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