New member here!

Hi everyone!

I'm a new member to the forum. I was referred to tech exams by my husband (ismaeljrp) who has been an active user for around 4 years now. I'm an Epidemiologist, and as an Epidemiologist, we use technical skills to perform data analysis on Public Health data. I have been learning programming and database languages like R, SAS, and SQL this past year and want to get working experience where I can use these new skills. I'm here because my husband has spoken to me about how wonderful of a community this is, and how he has given and received tons of help from other members. As such, one of the first things I wanted to try out on this forum is resume feedback. I've already browsed through some very helpful forum posts on the same subject and I'm hoping I may get some feedback/critique as well.

I've shared two versions of my resume for anyone that's interested in helping out.

Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=13N_9v4U9MlU3D1ThUc4vS4up0e4lFp63

Thanks again and I hope to become a useful contributor to the forums!

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Comments

TheFORCE

What's the goal here? Are you trying to switch careers and industries or are you looking to learn the new skills so you can use them in your Epidemiologist career?

To tell you the truth, you shouldn't have been given access to run those programs at all, that data analysis that you did should have been done for you by your developers and you shouldn't have taken that responsibility either.

Your job is not to create the analysis tools, the algorithms, the data sets and the data structures. You job would be to analyze the end results and to come up with the decision by interpreting the results the data provide.

Now if you want tp switch careers then thats a different story and you will probably need to put a lot of work anf most likely have to start from the bottom and always learning programming and scripting which means that in the end you will be performing the tasks and asked to create analysis tools for other people that are performing your current job role.

Basically, in your current role you should be asking for a service. Whereas where you are trying to go, you will be the one providing thw service. But you can't be doing both, ask for the service and perform the service as well.

I went through something very similar recently, one of our traders was asking IT to install R and Python on his machine to analyze trade data. Guess what happened to that request?
Once it reached my security team, the request was denied. There are a few reasons, 1 we have a development team that can create whatever you need in a fraction of the time it will take you to even start figuring the algorthithms. 2 it will be a hassle to maintain another end user computing program. And 3 most importantly your job is to analyze the trade data and make decisions on the trades, thats what you are being paid for, you are not being paid to create trade data analysis tools, thats what we pay developers for.

I hope you understand what I'm getting at here.

EANx

Maybe I missed something but I didn't see where she said she was doing the work, rather that she was learning how to. Sure, there might be people who have been doing that task for years that would be better suited but I feel it's always good when someone learns more about the tasks that need to be performed to accommodate their request. Even if they never do the work, it makes them a more knowledgeable customer.

Resume eval: Why two summary areas? If you've seen my previous comments about resumes, you know I dislike a sea of bullet points. Bullets have their place but overuse is lazy. If you're going to use bullets, make sure to indent them. You indented some but not others. Same things with paragraphs, you had one w/o indent, the others with. I typically would not encourage someone in a professional role to like a MS Office certification. Secretary or budget analyst? Sure. Scientist or manager? No. I know epidemiology is numbers driven but professional so it's something for you to consider.

patricia_pcr

Hi,

First off, thanks for taking the time to provide your feedback.

I would say the focus is to use my statistics, programming and data skill as a data analyst. Some of these skills I haven't applied them in a work setting (R and SQL), but I've taken online courses and extensively trained with them, otherwise, I wouldn’t list them on my resume. That can always be clarified during interviews. Of course, I'm aware that I would have to start junior level data analyst jobs using some of these technologies until I get a good amount of work experience with them and continue taking more advanced roles.

When I say I want to use programming languages it’s not to write algorithms or to develop software, it’s purely for analysis. R/SQL/Python etc. are already tools in and of themselves. I need to be able to utilize those tools, as a professional who makes sense of data. For example, Why would I want to use SQL? to retrieve large amounts of data, merge data sets and update data which are tasks data analyst have to do on their day to day job. My intention with SQL is not to design full blown databases. Most companies don't have a perfectly clean data sets waiting for a data analyst to make insights of it.

All of the above tools/skills are also of value to an epidemiologist. So a “career change” isn’t necessary those skills are applicable to Data Analysts, Biostatisticians, and Epidemiologists alike. I believe my previous work history is also useful for all the roles mentioned, some to a higher degree than others.

patricia_pcr

Hi Eanx,

Thanks for the feedback!

DatabaseHead

Be leery of Data Analyst titles, they are sometimes nothing more than basic data mungers.......

I would make sure statistics ais in the title or somewhere in the body early on. I just had a interview Friday in regards to a Data Analyst position, and it was basically an HRIS Peoplesoft support person. Most certainly not what I am looking for. Just a heads up.

scaredoftests

I don't see the link, so I have nothing to say. Welcome, though.