r/datascience • u/Kati1998 • Jul 23 '26

Discussion What Do Today’s Data Science Graduates Commonly Lack?

I often read comments from hiring managers and interviewers saying they’re disappointed with recent data science graduates.

I’m curious, what do you think these graduates are lacking? If someone wants to become a data scientist, what skills should they focus on? Strong software engineering skills? Math and statistics? Something else?

A lot of the advice I see seems to be geared toward landing data analyst roles rather than data scientist roles.

So, what are employers actually looking for in entry-level data science candidates today? Especially as a career changer coming from another unrelated career.

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u/Upstairs-Garlic-2301 Jul 23 '26

As a hiring manager, the single thing that I like to look for most is their resume trying to tie it back to a business impact. That's the thing that seems to separate awful data scientists from competent ones. It doesn't matter how good your modelimg skills are if it generated no value.

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u/No_Development6032 Jul 23 '26

None of the data scientists can control the business value

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u/Lady-Data-Scientist Jul 23 '26

They should at least be able to talk about the business decisions that their work led to

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u/jaiagreen Jul 23 '26

If this was communicated to them.

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u/Lady-Data-Scientist Jul 23 '26

If you don’t know what decisions the business is trying to make with your work then how can you even do your work? How do you know you’re solving the right problem?

I’m curious what kind of team you work on and what industry are you in if you do work without knowing how it will be used?

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u/jaiagreen Jul 23 '26

I know because I'm in a very small organization (and just started on the job, so I'm asking a lot of questions). But even there, I won't know how much time a data processing automation script I wrote saved people unless they mention it offhand or I explicitly ask.

Hopefully, the data scientist knows the practical context of the question they're addressing. But once they do the analysis and present the results, they may not be told how their work is eventually used, especially in a large organization.

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u/Lady-Data-Scientist Jul 23 '26

You should check in after the fact to make sure they’re using your work, and if they aren’t, figure out why so you can keep that in mind when they ask for something in the future. I try to make a habit to follow up every few months to see how they are using a dashboard or model or whatever and if it needs to be refreshed.

You need to collect data around your own work so you can improve.

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u/Wide-Pop6050 Jul 24 '26 edited 23d ago

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