6 Qualities that companies look for in a Data Scientist
- Feb 4, 2018
- 3 min read
1. Analytical Prowess
Arguably the fundamental skill is the ability to analyse the data that your business holds. Your data evangelists must be able to differentiate between useful (valuable) data and the data that is irrelevant to your business’s strategic requirements. If you are looking to hire a data team, engaging with a data science consultancy, or seeking for that data unicon, the ability to transform data into actionable business insight is crucial.
2. Programming Skills
Source: https://blog.udacity.com/2014/11/data-science-job-skills.html
There are a variety of skills that fall into the computer science field that are valuable to a business. The ability to program – particularly using Python or R – enables your business to be capable of creating algorithms that can translate data into business insights. A data scientist who understands machine learning and the technical challenges of cloud computing will be an asset to the team and bring the additional skills that might otherwise cost a business more in their data projects.
3. Business Acumen
The most successful and valuable data scientists are those who fully understand the strategic objectives of the business and use them to define the roadmap of data projects. Understanding the abitions of the business is important to achieve outcomes that match the leadership’s expectations. Where many businesses fail with data science projects is in giving their data teams limited visibility of the holistic business objectives. Those working the data should understand exactly what it is that they are looking out for, what the firm intends to do with the data and the overall goals of the company.
4. What I like to call Discovery Tactics & Creativity
Data science is a new idea to many businesses and the ideal scientist recognises that most businesses acknowledge the need but are unsure of the processes which limit their potential without proper guidance. A business may have an objective or an idea of how they might use their data but the data scientist should be given some creative freedom to construct the roadmap to achieve goals. The most valuable data scientists will be those who share their knowledge and help the business understand the potential of harvesting, analysing and gaining from the data that they hold. These individuals will help a business develop through finding new data and building strategies that meet business needs in an innovative way through creative analysis and application.
5. Communication
Your data scientists may have uncovered some game-changing insight, but if they struggle at communicating it effectively to your leadership team it is likely to be a missed opportunity. Data scientists who recognise the complexities of their output and can translate their findings into a non-technical language, highlighting the actions the business needs to take and the clear benefits are the greatest assets to any business
6. Data Security
Making sure the data is available to the people who need it sounds obvious, however, we have learnt in some organisations this is not always the case. Data experts are your business’ ambassadors to data security. Data security is very important and sensitive, and we do encourage to have the right protocols and measures in place to keep the data secure. Making sure that an in-house or external data science resource is accessible is important. The quicker this can be set up the faster the delivery of the insights will be.
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