Include a professional photo of yourself in business attire in your LinkedIn profile

One of the easiest ways to polish your LinkedIn profile is posting a photo of yourself in business attire.  I strongly encourage every LinkedIn user to spend several hours to take at least 100 such photos of yourself.  Ask a friend or family member to take these photographs, if they would be so kind and willing to do so.  Alternatively, you can hire a professional photographer.  After this session, you will have a large stock of photos that you can use for various purposes.

Position yourself with many backgrounds, and take those photos from many angles.  You should always look straight into the camera, smile, and maintain an upright posture.  Here is what my LinkedIn profile looks like.

When you build a professional network and an online brand, people need to know who you are and what you look like.  When they meet you in person, your photo allows them to visually connect you with the online profile that they saw on LinkedIn.

This is especially crucial for people with common names; showing your photo allows others to easily distinguish you from others who share your name.  It turns out that there is another person named Eric Cai who works as a data scientist!  Not only do we share the same name, but we also have the same profession.  Without photographs, it would be quite difficult to distinguish between us in a professional setting.

 

Common Mistakes

I recently spoke at the Canadian Statistics Student Conference and at the University of Toronto’s Biostatistics Research Day, and I talked about this with students at both events.  Here are the common mistakes that I see in LinkedIn profile photos, and I urge you to avoid all of them.

• Not having a profile photo
• Not wearing professional attire
• Not smiling
• Covering your eyes with sunglasses
• Looking away from the camera

Remember: This photo is for your professional branding, and your future employers or clients will look at it.  It is not for Facebook, Tinder, Grindr, or other social networks that are personal in nature.  Do not try to be cute, funny, sexy, or controversial – be professional.

Career Panel at the 2018 Canadian Statistics Student Conference – McGill University, Montreal, Quebec

I will speak on the career-advice panel at the 2018 Canadian Statistics Student Conference.  It will be held on Saturday, June 2, at McGill University.

If you will attend this conference or the subsequent Annual Meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada, then I strongly recommend students to read my following advice articles in advance.

• How to Find a Job in Statistics – Advice for Students and Recent Graduates
• A Comprehensive Guide for Public Speaking at Scientific Conferences
• Maximizing Your Learning Potential at Professional Conferences – A Detailed Guide

Communication Tip – Write the message of the email BEFORE the subject and the recipients’ email addresses

In every email service that I have used so far,

1) the address fields are on the top

2) the subject field is in the middle

3) and then the text editor for the message is at the end.

However, when I write most emails, I usually write these 3 things in reverse.  This has several important advantages.

Image courtesy of Pixabay on Pexels.

Forgot a new co-worker’s name? This could be an opportunity to establish a positive relationship.

Meeting new people is a constant part of my life, whether it is through new jobs, social events, or networking events.  The first task in establishing rapport with a new acquaintance is to learn their name, yet I sometimes forget it after our first conversation.

Image courtesy of rawpixel.com on Pexels.

Forgetting new names is very common and forgivable, especially if you are meeting many new people at once.  However, I notice that most people are afraid to admit this.  Perhaps they are embarrassed or worried that their new acquaintances will feel offended.  Thus, they often greet them many times without referencing their name, and this could continue for days, weeks, or even months!

Career-advice seminar at the University of Toronto – Wednesday, February 7, 2018

I am excited to visit the University of Toronto on Wednesday, February 7, to share my career advice in a seminar and in a question-and-answer session.  Both events will be in the Debates Room at Hart House.  Hart House is located at 7 Hart House Circle in Toronto, Ontario.  The Debates Room is on the second floor of Hart House.

• My presentation will occur from 11 am to 12 pm.
• I will answer questions in an open forum from 1 pm to 2 pm.

I will talk about

• my diverse jobs in industrial statistics, medicine, banking, and marketing analytics since earning my Master’s degree in statistics
• the skills that my jobs demand but I did not learn in my formal education in statistics
• effective strategies for finding a job in statistics
• building an online brand as a statistician
• developing a meaningful career in a systematic way
• important steps that students can take during their studies to prepare for a career outside of academia

I strongly encourage all attendees to read my career-advice columns in advance, especially “How to Find a Job in Statistics – Advice for Students and Recent Graduates“.

If you will attend this event, then please feel free to come and say “Hello”!

I thank Jeffrey Negrea and Dr. Radu Craiu from the University of Toronto for their help in coordinating this event.  Jeffrey is the president of the Statistics Graduate Student Union, and Dr. Craiu is the Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs in the Department of Statistical Sciences.

 

Maximizing Your Learning Potential at Professional Conferences – A Detailed Guide

Introduction

During last summer, I attended the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC).  I spoke on the career-advice panel at the 2016 Canadian Statistics Student Conference (CSSC), and I met some colleagues and professors to share ideas about our mutual interests in statistics, statistical education, and the use of social media to promote statistics to the general public.

From observing and talking to many students at this conference, I realized that most of them did not use it effectively to maximize their learning potential.  A conference like this is a great opportunity for networking, career development, and – eventually – finding a job, but I suspect that most statistics students do not comprehend the depth of its value, let alone how to extract it.  Thus, I’m writing this advice column to help anyone who attends a professional conference.

Image courtesy of Rufino from Wikimedia Commons.

Objectives

Most statistics students want to succeed academically and find a job after completing their education – that job could be within or outside of academia.  Thus, at any professional conference, they should have the following objectives:

1. To learn new ideas in your fields of interest
2. To meet others who share your professional interests
3. To learn soft skills from veterans in your industry for developing your career
4. To build valuable relationships in your professional network

Unfortunately, based on my anecdotal observations, many students in statistics, math and science don’t seem to grasp Objectives #3-4.  These students tend to be passive in their attendance and shy in their participation.  When they do try to pursue Objectives #3-4, they are often unprepared and do not take advantage of all of the learning opportunities that are available to them.

The first step in maximizing your learning potential at a professional conference is recognizing that it takes preparation and hard work.  To do it well, you need to take all 4 objectives seriously and practice them frequently.  Attending a professional conference is a skill, and developing this skill requires thought and effort.  It involves much more than just showing up, talking at your turn, and listening at all other times.

Hopefully, the rest of this article will help you to develop this skill in an intelligent way, but you must realize that there is no substitution for hard work.

University of Toronto Statistical Sciences Union Career Panel

I am delighted to be invited to speak at the University of Toronto Statistical Sciences Union’s first ever Career Panel.  If you plan to attend this event, I encourage you to read my advice columns on career development in advance.  In particular, I strongly encourage you to read the blog post “How to Find a Job in Statistics – Advice for Students and Recent Graduates“.  I will not cover all of the topics in these columns, but you are welcomed to ask questions about them during the question-and-answer period.

Here are the event’s details.

Time: 1 pm to 6 pm

• My session will be held from 5pm to 6 pm.

Date: Saturday, March 25, 2017

Location: Sidney Smith Hall, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario.

• Sidney Smith Hall is located on the St. George (Downtown) campus of the University of Toronto.
• Update: The seminars will be held in Rooms 2117 and 2118.  I will speak in Room 2117 at 5 pm.

 

If you will attend this event, please feel free to come and say “Hello”!

My Alumni Profile by Simon Fraser University – Where Are They Now?

I am happy and grateful to be featured by my alma mater, Simon Fraser University (SFU), in a recent profile.  I answered questions about how my transition from my academic education to my career in statistics and about how blogging and social media have helped me to advance my career.  Check it out!

During my undergraduate degree at SFU, I volunteered at its Career Services Centre for 5 years as a career advisor in its Peer Education program.  I began writing for its official blog, the Career Services Informer (CSI), during that time.  I have continued to write career advice for the CSI as an alumnus, and it is always a pleasure to give back to this wonderful centre!

You can find all of my advice columns here on my blog.

Career Advice Panel – Statistical Society of Canada’s Annual Student Conference

I am excited to go to Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, and speak at the Statistical Society of Canada‘s (SSC’s) Annual Student Conference on Saturday, May 28, 2016!  This one-day conference will be a chance for statistics students from all over Canada to share their research with each other, network with industry professionals, and get career advice from the career advice panel.  I will be one of 3 speakers on this panel, and I look forward to sharing my advice and answering the students’ questions.  Read the Final Program Booklet to get the schedule and learn about the backgrounds of all speakers at this conference.

If you will attend this, conference, please feel free to come and say “Hello”!

This event will occur before the 2016 Annual Conference of the Statistical Society of Canada.

 

How to Find a Job in Statistics – Advice for Students and Recent Graduates

Introduction

A graduate student in statistics recently asked me for advice on how to find a job in our industry.  I’m happy to share my advice about this, and I hope that my advice can help you to find a satisfying job and develop an enjoyable career.  My perspectives would be most useful to students and recent graduates because of my similar but unique background; I graduated only 1.5 years ago from my Master’s degree in statistics at the University of Toronto, and I volunteered as a career advisor at Simon Fraser University during my Bachelor’s degree.  My advice will reflect my experience in finding a job in Toronto, but you can probably find parallels in your own city.

Most of this post focuses on soft skills that are needed to find any job; I dive specifically into advice for statisticians in the last section.  Although the soft skills are general and not specific to statisticians, many employers, veteran statisticians, and professors have told me that students and recent graduates would benefit from the focus on soft skills.  Thus, I discuss them first and leave the statistics-specific advice till the end.

Opening Doors In Your Job Search With Statistics & Data Analysis – Guest Blogging on Simon Fraser University’s Career Services Informer

The following post was originally published on the Career Services Informer.

Who are the potential customers that a company needs to target in its marketing campaign for a new service? What factors cause defects in a manufacturer’s production process? What impact does a wage-subsidy program have on alleviating poverty in a low-income neighbourhood? Despite the lack of any suggestion about numbers or data in any of these questions, statistics is increasingly playing a bigger – if not the biggest – role in answering them. These are also problems your next employer may need you to adress. How will you tackle them?

The information economy of the 21^st century demands us to adapt to its emphasis on extracting insight from data – and data are exploding in size and complexity in all industries. As you transition from the classroom to the workplace in a tough job market, becoming proficient in basic statistics and data analysis will give you an edge in fields that involve working with information. This applies especially to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and business, but it also applies to health care, governmental affairs, and the social sciences. Even fields like law and the arts are relying on data for making key decisions.