Hello! Thanks for checking out my post :) So I just started a new job as a Data scientist in federal government. This is actually my first full time job -- I recently completed my education and have done internships in data science /analytics, but they only lasted a few months. For federal government, the probation period is 1 year. I was wondering what I should be doing to ensure that I can stay on full-time, as I do love this job and I'm excited to go to work every day, but I also have pretty bad imposter syndrome. I've asked my brother (who also works in tech) and he said I should be working at least 2 extra hours (unpaid) every day for the probation period to catch up and keep my skills fresh. Does anyone have any other advice besides this? For context, I've just been making dashboards and doing some data investigation, not any heavy modeling yet. This is also going on my 4th week. I've been keeping a work diary to keep track of everything I do but even then I feel like 8 hours in a day, combined with 4 hours of meetings, gives me no time to do actual work and I'm worried I won't have much to show for it by the time performance reviews come around (about every 3 months). I feel worse because I'm the only one with a bachelor's and everyone else has a Master's or Ph.D. and I feel like I need to work extra hard to make up for that-- at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if my coworkers with higher degrees are doing the same, because they don't want to be overshadowed by me either. Maybe it's all in my head, who knows. Really any advice is appreciated. Thank you so much! #datascience #dataanalytics #data
What department of the Federal government? I worked in DORRA for a couple of years. You make it 3 months you are good. Literally find your customers and keep up with them. That is all you have to do. You don't have to worry about politics and nonsense till you get to grade 13.
HHS. I am grade 13... What did you mean by politics?
Once you are a 13, that is last GS that is basically given. You are now trying to find your 14. So you need to befriend every 15 you can find. You will find the politics sooner or later. Figure out what the 2 year goals are and execute all of your work before the end of 3rd quarter. I don't know enough about the inner workings for HHS but for the DOD. You will have to brown nose up to higher levels.