I recently applied for a Data scientist-Operations position at Stripe. Some of the key words in the requirements were capacity planning, optimization, data science and ML, analysis etc. Coming from an Operarions Research background and having worked as a data scientist-OR, my resume has all the relevant experience. Both in OR problems and DS problems. I was very confident to at least get a call from the HR but I didn’t. Kinda upset! Directly applying on the career page isn’t working out for me. What would your advice be to get more interview calls? Thank you.
To be honest, I don’t think having a perfect resume with all the right keywords guarantees a response. I think it helps if you have a strong referral, but that again also doesn’t guarantee that you would be shortlisted for a screen.
That is how I got my current job. Getting referrals without knowing anyone in the company is hard. How would you go about getting a referral? I have tried finding someone on LinkedIn with similar skill sets and trying to have a conversation on a common topic and then asking about opportunities at their company.
To be helpful here I will suggest trying having a well-prepared resume, one or two strong referrals and a few interesting ideas and projects to discuss during your interview. I don’t think anybody can provide you with a precise recipe though.