Well finally the month arrived. I will be unemployed starting this end of month. I actually have been informed since the end of May and only began my job hunting in July. as I thought employers would expect to have 2 months notice. I miscalculated. after almost 3 months, I still have no job offer. I should have applied starting June, but I was a bit too confident that I would get a job in the right time. My worst experience was 7 months, the next one was 3 months, so I thought, yeah maybe I would get a job in three months. But then, it's a pandemic. The market is now hyper competitive, this is an unusual year for everyone, even for data science professionals.
Luckily, the experience is not as bad as the previous years when I still lacked the technical skill. While I picked R and Python and mostly used R at work, apparently R is not a good selling point in my CV. They almost always ask you to do an SQL test. In one of my interview, I suddenly got a live SQL test which made me very nervous and made me unable to answer the questions. Learning from that experience, I immediately relearned whatever I did with dplyr, and recreated it with SQL to ensure I understand the 80% of data wrangling with SQL. The result? I finally started liking SQL, it really feels like dplyr, somewhat, only with a stricter syntax and different verbs.
The good surprise was probably the fact that my applications have been processed by european companies. I thought it's nearly impossible for non-EU nationals to get a work permit sponsorship, but apparently european companies are more open for sponsoring third nationals compared to let's say, UK. Canada is nearly impossible to get a work permit when you are applying outside Canada as the employers don't recognize your work experience (and education). The United States is halting H1B visa, so it's kinda useless to apply to American companies at the moment. Although I am yet to get a job offer, those experience gave me a confidence boost, when I failed in one interview, I learned from that failure and try to find what skills I still need to learn.
In October, I will begin my survival mode. I still have 6 months of saving, and in the super worst scenario, I have 24 months of saving. But that's my whole life saving! I hope it doesn't come to that
Luckily, the experience is not as bad as the previous years when I still lacked the technical skill. While I picked R and Python and mostly used R at work, apparently R is not a good selling point in my CV. They almost always ask you to do an SQL test. In one of my interview, I suddenly got a live SQL test which made me very nervous and made me unable to answer the questions. Learning from that experience, I immediately relearned whatever I did with dplyr, and recreated it with SQL to ensure I understand the 80% of data wrangling with SQL. The result? I finally started liking SQL, it really feels like dplyr, somewhat, only with a stricter syntax and different verbs.
The good surprise was probably the fact that my applications have been processed by european companies. I thought it's nearly impossible for non-EU nationals to get a work permit sponsorship, but apparently european companies are more open for sponsoring third nationals compared to let's say, UK. Canada is nearly impossible to get a work permit when you are applying outside Canada as the employers don't recognize your work experience (and education). The United States is halting H1B visa, so it's kinda useless to apply to American companies at the moment. Although I am yet to get a job offer, those experience gave me a confidence boost, when I failed in one interview, I learned from that failure and try to find what skills I still need to learn.
In October, I will begin my survival mode. I still have 6 months of saving, and in the super worst scenario, I have 24 months of saving. But that's my whole life saving! I hope it doesn't come to that
