r/analytics • u/Nearby-Cockroach8655 • 19d ago

Discussion WHY ARE DATA ANALYST INTERVIEWS LIKE THIS

I’m currently interviewing for data analyst roles (mostly entry level) and every take home task i get is the same. It’s a bunch of tables with masked data, and they all want actionable insights, except i feel there’s never enough information to actually find an actionable insight. you can rarely use domain knowledge as identifiable data is anonymised and they never provide enough historical data to see if differences really matter.

Do other people feel this way or have i gotten the wrong end of the stick, if so any advice would be appreciated.

EDIT: Thanks you for the advice in the comments, I think being curious, documenting my process for the analysis I can do and explaining what data I needed to delve deeper is the way to go.

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u/Droughtly 19d ago

I wasn't. I was answering your question.

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u/avxjs 19d ago

No, you weren't. I was asking the person I was replying to if they were calling my comment dumb, or the interview process dumb, because that would inform my response. 

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u/Droughtly 19d ago

Hmm, yes, I was?

You were talking about the specificity of data not mattering, but the arguments. They said it was dumb because the specificity matteres. You asked what was so dumb. I explained why the specificity of data matters.

I used very apolitical and bland examples of ways anonymizing data can do this, rather than specific ones. I don't care who you are, you said something incorrect before, were corrected, and you asked as an argument after their reasoning. Your point seems to boil down to, I'm not the person you addressed specifically. But you didn't make a DM, you posted a comment on reddit, so that's irrelevant.

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u/avxjs 19d ago edited 19d ago

Okay, sure. My initial comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but the point I was trying to make was that in the context of an entry level interview, where you are intentionally given incomplete and anonymized data, it is acceptable to make reasonable assumptions. I wasn't making any comment on general best practices. Like I said, I don't disagree that it's a flawed process.

ETA -- I did not ask for "an argument after their reasoning" I was literally asking if they were calling me dumb, lol.