REASONS WHY I’D MAKE AN AMAZING EMPLOYEE

Caught your attention, didn’t it? Well, let me tell you this is just a fancy title for my cover letter but hey, I tried! And if you are reading this, then I think I did succeed. Oh, the things I do for landing a job!

So, I have heard lots of companies telling me why I should work for them, but whenever I apply to them, they don’t seem to be interested in me and send me a very prompt sorry email saying, they are very impressed with me, but they somehow think I am not a good fit. I guess, this is my chance to tell them why I am the perfect fit. So here goes –

Reason 1: Not very experienced

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think real-time experience is very much important to excel in your job, but there is one bad thing a lot of experience does to you. Ever heard of overfitting? Ok, for my non-data science readers out there, overfitting happens when your statistical model has been overly trained and gives great accuracy on your training data but when new data is presented, it doesn’t perform so well, because it has learnt the training dataset very thoroughly, that it lost its ability to get more creative and can’t think outside the training data. For instance, imagine you are solving math problems from a math textbook with solutions. If you don’t understand the process of arriving at the solution, but you just memorized the steps by rote learning, you’d fail in a math test that has questions that weren’t in your math textbook. That is because you are “overfitted” to the problems from your textbook. I believe something very similar happens to most of the very experienced people who have worked in only one or two business domains. They would do very well in the same domain but once the domain changes, they would catch up, but they’d take a little more time to get to pace with things.

Now, me, on the other hand have about a year and a half of experience (roughly) working in various domains like healthcare, software development and search engine marketing. Fresh out of graduate school, I am flexible and can be molded according to your company’s needs.

Reason 2: Quick Learner

I will let you in on a secret. This is something I have been fighting with and trying to overcome. I have low self-esteem. Now, this is not something you’d like to tell a potential employer. No! Big mistake! But I think it is necessary you know this, so you’ll know I am not simply boasting when I say I am a quick learner. Unless and until I have got solid proof, I wouldn’t make a statement like this, thanks to my low self-esteem.

So, I notice that whenever I start something, I pick things up a tad bit faster than the others who started along with me. That does count for quick learning, doesn’t it? I’ll elaborate. After my undergraduate studies, I was fortunate enough to be offered a job in a company called Mu Sigma in Bangalore, India. It was a big data analytics company and I finished my studies in Biomedical Engineering (I even secured a gold medal from my university, just saying). The training process, like I was warned by a few other trainees who already underwent it, was very tough. We were just given a week each to learn SQL, R, MS Excel, and Python. I did have a little bit of coding in my undergrad, but that was in C and C++ and I didn’t knew nothing about anything else. However, I passed all of the tests after the training sessions in my very first attempt and was placed amongst the top 5% of candidates in my training batch and that is saying something. The Mu Sigma training is notorious for its toughness, but it is also known to teach you a lot, and I am thankful to that training as it helped me a lot during my Masters’ education too. But that is a story for another time.

There are many other instances too, where I had to use my quick learning super powers to accomplish things. But, after that experience, I think I can confidently say, that I am a quick learner.

Reason 3: My love for data science

Let me tell you why I find Data Science and Analytics fascinating. I grew up reading detective stories and I always wanted to be like that. While growing up, whenever someone asked me what I wanted to be, I always said that I wanted to be a detective. But then life happened, things changed, and I ended up doing Biomedical Engineering and landing in the role of a Decision Scientist in Mu Sigma, where I was taught to use the right blend of math, business, and technology to solve business problems. When I started working, I realized I was doing something very similar to what my favorite sleuths did. Whenever I take up a data science project, I feel like a sleuth, solving crimes, and I absolutely love that feeling.

Working for your company isn’t going to be me doing regular “work” but it is going to be me, assuming the role of Nancy Drew to catch the culprit, and that kind of attitude makes all the difference.

That’s all I have to say. I would also like to say I am determined, dedicated and, extremely focused (to an extent that I find it difficult to multi-task, another weakness of mine). I am also perseverant, an example of which can be seen in my attitude towards my job hunt even after receiving rejects from a gazillion companies. I truly believe, you, who have read so far, so patiently, will see my potential and give me a chance to discuss more about my projects and work experience. Also, I have a Masters’ degree in Data Analytics from Penn State University. I have been maintaining a full 4.0 GPA and trust me, it didn’t come easy. It has to count for something, right?

Thank you for your patience and I hope you will give me a chance to show you what I am capable of. Thanks again!