Top 5 traits of highly effective data scientists Posted on : Aug 15 - 2017

 Data science is booming and there is an incredible demand for skilled employees across all types of industries. However, the top data scientists have some fundamental traits that set them apart from the crowd

Data scientists are in high demand, and this skills shortage looks to continue for the next few years. According to a study by IBM, by 2020 the number of annual job openings for all data savvy professionals in the United States will increase from 364,000 openings to 2,720,000. Furthermore, according to the study, the annual demand for the fast-growing new roles of data scientist, data developers, and data engineers will reach nearly 700,000 openings by 2020.

Many companies find themselves searching for qualified candidates that can meet the business’s technical demands. However, just because a person technically fits the criteria, it does not necessarily mean they will make a strong team member. Human Resource directors should watch out for other traits in data scientists as well.

Though hiring data scientists can take time—it takes 53 days on average to fill an analytics manager position in professional services—it is worth finding a good fit. Here are five traits HR managers should look for when hiring a data scientist.

1. Analytical skills/quantitative reasoning

Software company, SAS, surveyed data scientists to find out what made a good data scientist. The most dominant trait found was in a group with strong logic and analytical skills. Of those surveyed, 41 percent had these traits, making this the largest group.

Data scientists should have a technical bias, meaning they stick to the data instead of bringing emotion or gut feeling into an argument. This person must be able to speak clearly and explain concepts in an easy-to-digest manner since others on the team might not have a technical background.

2. Storytelling ability

Data scientists need not only to dissect and analyze data, but they also need to explain that data to non-technical team members. Qualified data scientists can look at data and essentially tell its story, explaining how the team collected the data, how they analyzed the findings, and what they predict will happen in the future.

A data scientist that can effectively tell a data story to the rest of the team will be in high demand as big data becomes ever more vital to a company’s decision-making process. View More