FutureMakers Mega Meetup on Wednesday, September 26, 2018

I will attend the FutureMakers Mega Meetup on Wednesday, September 26, 2018.  It will be hosted by RBC’s Tech Community Team.  The registration is free but required.  Here are the details.

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

4:30 PM – 8:00 PM

Metro Toronto Convention Centre, South Building

222 Bremner Boulevard

Toronto, ON

M5V 3L9

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

My new job as the Digital Marketing Analyst at Environics Analytics

As I approach my second anniversary of working at Environics Analytics, I am excited to accept a job offer to become our Digital Marketing Analyst.  In this new role, I am developing strategies to establish my company’s brand and promote our products and services on social media.  I am also using statistics to assess the effectiveness of our marketing efforts, both online and offline.

As The Chemical Statistician, I have written extensively on this blog, produced video tutorials on my YouTube channel, hosted a talk show (The Central Equilibrium), and shared my interests on Twitter (@chemstateric).  Mirroring these efforts in my new job, I will write articles on our company’s blog, produce YouTube videos, interview our staff, and engage with clients on Twitter (@EricCaiEA) and LinkedIn.

I am grateful to work with some wonderful colleagues who are friendly, helpful, and dedicated in their work.  It has been a pleasure to contribute to such a collaborative and joyful atmosphere, and I look forward to making a big impact with my new responsibilities!

Write a personal message when inviting people to connect on LinkedIn

Strangers send requests to join my network on LinkedIn every week, sometimes every day.  When I get such a request, the enclosing message is usually

“Hi Eric, I’d like to join your LinkedIn network.”

This is the default message, which means that the sender did not take the time to write a personalized invitation.  This is very disappointing, especially because LinkedIn suggests you to write a personal note before sending every request.

When you don’t write a personal message, it shows a lack of effort to engage with that person and develop a rapport in this new connection.  In this age of social media, it is easy and common to add new contacts just for the sake of increasing the size of one’s network, whether it’s “Friends” on Facebook, “Followers” on Twitter, or “Connections” on LinkedIn.  Although social networking is virtual, connecting with people is still a human endeavour, and your effort level in that endeavour will reap proportional returns in the long term.

In your personal note, here are possible things to mention:

• how you met that person
• what you valued in your past professional encounter(s) with that person
• what you hope to learn from that person

 

If you accept a thoughtful invitation from someone on LinkedIn, then write a personal message in return to thank them.  Either way, read their profiles carefully, and ask insightful questions based on what you learn from their profiles.  Your new connections will recognize your efforts in noticing their work/education and trying to learn from them, and they will likely appreciate your initiative.

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

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”!

Leaving My Dream Career – Reflecting on My Decision 10 Years Later

I just couldn’t pretend any longer.

It was near the end of my second year at Simon Fraser University.  My GPA was pretty high, and I had just won a competitive NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award to work with an accomplished cardiac physiologist.  I attended all of the relevant seminars to get the “inside scoop” on how to successfully apply to medical school, and I volunteered in numerous organizations to demonstrate my non-academic credentials.  I had already developed good relationships with several professors who would have gladly written strong recommendations for my application.  All of the stars were aligning for my path to medical school.

I was also miserable, angry and devoid of any further motivation to stay on that path.

Image courtesy of Carsten Tolkmit from Flickr.  Obtained via the Creative Commons License.

Career Seminar at Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University: 1:30 – 2:20 pm, Friday, February 20, 2015

I am very pleased to be invited to speak to the faculty and students in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Simon Fraser University on this upcoming Friday.  I look forward to sharing my career advice and answering questions from the students about how to succeed in a career in statistics.  If you will attend this seminar, please feel free to come and say “Hello”!

A Story About Perseverance – Inspiration From My Old Professor

Names and details in this blog post have been altered to protect the privacy of its subjects.

I met my old professor, Dr. Perez, for lunch recently.  We have kept in touch for many years since she taught me during my undergraduate studies, and she has been a good friend and mentor.  We had not seen each other for a few years, but we have been in regular contact over phone and email, exchanging stories, updates, photos of her grandchildren, frustrations, thrills, and perspectives.  It was nice to see her again.

I told her about the accomplishments and the struggles in my early career as a statistician so far.  I am generally satisfied with how I have performed since my entry into the statistics profession, but there are many skills that I don’t have or need to improve upon.  I want to learn distributed computing and become better at programming in Python, SQL, and Hadoop – skills that are highly in demand in my industry but not taught during my statistics education.  I want to be better at communicating about statistics to non-statisticians – not only helping them to understand difficult concepts, but persuading them to follow my guidance when I know that I am right.  I sometimes even struggle with seemingly basic questions that require much thinking and research on my part to answer.  While all of these are likely common weaknesses that many young statisticians understandably have, they contribute to my feeling of incompetence on occasion  – and it’s not pleasant to perform below my, my colleagues’, or my industry’s expectations for myself.

Dr. Perez listened and provided helpful observations and advice.  While I am working hard and focusing on my specific problems at the moment, she gave me a broader, more long-term perspective about how best to overcome these struggles, and I really appreciated it.  Beyond this, however, she told me a story about a professor of our mutual acquaintance that stunned and saddened me, yet motivated me to continue to work harder.

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.

Christmas: A Great Time To Accelerate Your Job Search – Guest-Blogging on SFU’s Career Services Informer

I am excited to publish my new post as a guest blogger on the Career Services Informer, a blog on career advice from Simon Fraser University’s Career Services Centre.  (I volunteered as a Career Peer Educator there for 6 years.)  I recount how I successfully used the winter break during my 8-month Master’s program to network and conduct information interviews, which eventually led to a job that I started 6 days after the last exam in my degree.  While your classmates and colleagues may be resting over the Christmas holidays, you should take advantage of this lull to make a strong impression on potential employers and conduct information interviews with them.  Employers tend to be less busy during this time of the year, so this is also a good time for them to meet with you and share their advice.  Pursuing this contrarian strategy will give you an advantage, and this is why Christmas is a Great Time to Accelerate Your Job Search.

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.