215: I'm Begging You to Stop Applying to Data Analyst Jobs Until You Do This

I'm begging you, stop applying to data analyst jobs at least until you do this one thing. Look, if you sent out 50 applications, 100 applications, 200 applications, and you're getting absolutely nothing back, I know what you're telling yourself, that the market is broken, that you're not good enough, that the algorithm hates you, that recruiters are ghosting you on purpose. And actually, the truth is, it's none of that. You're just skipping a step, and it's a very important step, but it only takes about 30 minutes. And once you do it, everything changes. It's called the mirror test, and if you're applying to data analyst jobs in 2026, you need to do this before you send another application out. Let me explain what it is and why you need it. But if you're new here, hello, my name is Avery Smith, and I'm a senior data analyst. And I'm on a quest to help one million people land their first data job. So if that is you, which, let's be honest, it is since you're listening to this already, go ahead and hit subscribe to follow the journey. All right, here's the thing that nobody applying to jobs ever stops to think about, and that is, how does the company see hiring from their point of view? And the truth is, hiring is absolutely terrible for the company and for the hire. I mean, think what they're about to do. They're about to take a complete stranger, someone they randomly found on the internet, they talked to a few times, and then they're going to hand that stranger the car keys. They're gonna give that stranger a salary, sometimes a big salary, six figures. And they're going to give them access to sensitive company data, a seat in internal meetings, a spot on a team that has to actually work with this person every day, like, you have to deal with this coworker, and they have to make that call based off of a simple PDF and a few conversations. That's literally it, you guys. That is all they get. And that's kind of a stressful job because here's the kicker. Hiring managers will get blamed for bad hires. It will hurt their reputation. It will hurt their team. It eats into their head count budget. And honestly, a bad hire can take, like, six, eight, 12 months to undo. And in the meantime, everyone around them is miserable and pissed off at them. Sometimes it can even cost the hiring manager their job. It's that serious. So when a hiring manager or a recruiter look at your resume, they're not really looking for reasons to say, "Oh, this is a good candidate." No, they're looking for reasons to say, "No, this is not the right candidate," because no is safe, and saying yes is sticking their neck out on the line, and that is very dangerous for them to do. Kind of like Hinge or Tinder or whatever dating app you've used, or maybe you're like me and you've been married for 10-plus years now, but regardless, you're playing this game, this dating game, on this app to see who you're gonna spend the rest of your life with, or at least you're gonna spend a lot of time with. And when you're swiping, you're not rejecting people because they're bad people. They're probably decent people, but you're rejecting them because they're not the one for you. Now, you're making that judgment off of six seconds, three photos, and a one-line bio to make that decision, but the point here is any red flag is enough to keep you swiping and scrolling on to the next person, because there is always another profile to take a look at. And that doesn't mean you're being mean. You're not being judgmental. It's just you're on a big mission. Who are you gonna spend your time with on a time crunch? And you're moving on to the next person. There's nothing wrong with that. But realize that's the exact same scenario that your recruiter's in. That's what your hiring manager is doing. They're essentially swiping left and swiping right on potential job candidates with their job on the line. And you see, here's where most job seekers get it wrong. You're sitting there, thinking, "But if they would just get to know me, they'd know how smart I am and how hardworking I am and how good of an analyst I am. They don't know me. They don't know my story." And you're 100% exactly correct. They don't. And that is exactly your job as a job seeker, is to help them get to know you, because think of it. You've been being yourself your entire life. You know yourself the best out of everyone on planet Earth. You know your effort. You know your context. You know your potential. You know your story. And all the hiring manager and recruiter have is this- Piece of paper, PDF resume, and six seconds. It's not fair, but it's your job to actually go out there and make a PDF, a resume, that is so compelling that in those six seconds it's going to portray you in the best light possible to get them to spend more time on you, to actually take the time to get to know you. And the mirror test exists to close that gap. So what is the mirror test? Well, the mirror test is checking yourself digitally with clean, fresh eyes. You basically look at yourself the way that a stressed out hiring manager with only six seconds and their entire job on the line would look at you. And there are three different surfaces you need to check for this test. Number one is your resume, number two is your LinkedIn, and number three is your portfolio. And the rule is dead simple. Pretend you've never met this person, this person being you as the job applicant, and pretend that you are actually going to be hiring you. And I know that's really meta, but think about it here, like, you're trying to decide if you want to let this person come into your life. If you look at this resume, if you look at this LinkedIn, if you look at this portfolio, would you trust them? Would you want to spend time with them? Are there any red flags? And would you be willing to put your job on the line based off of their performance once hired? Let's go ahead and go through each one, starting with number one, the resume. So your resume is the number one digital asset you have as a job seeker, and you need to start treating it that way. It is an asset. It is going to work for you, so it's worth the investment to spend the time to get this right because if you get it right, it's going to work for you your whole job hunt cycle, or the dreaded, dreaded ATS, the applicant tracking system. So here's what you need to do right now, and that is, step one, run it through an ATS checker. Once again, the ATS or the applicant tracking system is basically a software that reads your resume before any human ever reads it. It's the computer. It's the AI that stands between you and the hiring manager. And honestly, most resumes are designed to be read by humans, not to be readable by software, but most resumes are only read by software, unfortunately. I wish it wasn't the case, but it's just how it is. An ATS parser or a resume checker will show you exactly what the ATS sees when you apply for a job. And I promise you, you guys, if your resume has anything weird like sidebars, fancy tables, columns, icons, weird formatting, it's going to fail the ATS and you're literally going to be completely invisible to the system and not get an interview. I just promise you that's how it's going to be. So you need to check your resume right now before you apply to any more jobs and see what it actually is seeing. And if you're not sure where to find one, I actually made one for you that you can use for free. It's at findadat job.com/resume. And this is my data analyst job board, and we created this resume checker for you guys for this very purpose, to make sure that before you apply for any jobs on findadatjob.com or anywhere else, that your resume is up to snuff and you're ready to actually get seen through the ATS. Step number two is the six-second test, and basically, you need to open up your resume on your phone and set a timer. You're literally gonna look at it for six seconds, and now close your phone. Now, what do you remember from your own resume? What jumped out? What did you read? And what was the most important thing that you saw? Now, give it to a friend, your mom, your cousin, your neighbor, and have them do the exact same activity and report back what they noticed. If data analyst isn't one of the things that you remember or that you saw, you have a big problem. And if a specific tool like SQL, Python, or Tableau wasn't abundantly clear, you have two big problems. And if a number or a result or impact didn't catch your eye, then you have three big problems, because that is what the hiring manager wants to see in those six seconds, those three things. So update your resume to make very clear who you are, what your title is, what your skills are, and what impact you've had in the past. Step number three is to match your resume with a real job description. So you can pull up any job that you actually want to apply to, bonus points if it's from findadayjob.com, and copy the job description and paste it into Claude or ChatGPT alongside your resume and ask, "Hey, what is this actually missing in my resume? What's a stretch? What would a manager see as suspicious or as a red flag?" Or heck, you could even do it the old school way for all I care. Print the job description out, highlight every keyword and required skill, and then go to your resume and highlight every match there. What's missing? How many keywords show up? What's in the job description that's not in your resume? Because if there's a mismatch between the two, you're not getting through the ATS, and it's as simple as that. Your resume is essentially your dating app photos. If you have good photos, you're gonna get a lot of swipe rights. If you have blurry, generic, ugly photos or you're hiding the good stuff, you're gonna get swiped past every time and not have a chance at actually going on any dates. It's true in the romance world, and it's true in the corporate job world. You need to have good photos. You need to have a good resume. All right. The second mirror you need to focus on is your LinkedIn, and this one is so easy to do. And for some reason, so many people just don't think it's important. So go to your LinkedIn right now. So first off, do you have a LinkedIn? If so, good. If not, you need to make one today. Like, literally pause the video and go make a LinkedIn. Seriously, go do it right now. Now look at your LinkedIn profile and stare at it as a stranger would. What would you notice? Like, what would you actually think about yourself if you were seeing this from a stranger's perspective? And here's a little bit of a list about what to check. Number one is your headline. Does it say something like, "Aspiring data analyst," or "Open to work/seeking opportunities"? Because honestly, one, those are super generic, but two, it tells a recruiter that you don't have a job right now, which means you might be higher risk because people who tend to be less risk tend to hold onto their jobs a little bit longer. Whether that's true or not, I don't know, but my point here is it's not what reality is, it's what is being reflected in your profiles. It's what you are appearing to do. One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 Thessalonians 5:22, which says, "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Now, notice it didn't say abstain from all evil. It says abstain from all appearance of evil, and that's my point with you guys here, is we wanna abstain from anything, any red flags at all. Even if they're not red flags, just the appearance of red flags, we gotta avoid those at all costs. So what should you put in your headline instead? Well, you can say something like what you actually do, which is you analyze data. So you are a data analyst today. Congratulations, you got the promotion. Data analyst, SQL, Py- Python, Tableau, Excel. Put that on your headline even if you're transitioning, 'cause you're gonna frame yourself for the thing you want to be hired as. You make the recruiter and the hiring manager decide how experienced you are. That is not your call. That is not your judgment. Number two, make sure you have a good banner. Is it just the dumb gray defaults, gray or blue banner? That is literally prime real estate at the top of your profile. That's the first thing that people see. So put something interesting there. Project screenshot, your tagline, anything that signals you're a serious data analyst. You can make these pretty easily in Canva, and we have a whole set of templates inside of the accelerator program for you literally to just copy when you join. Number three is your About section, and the first three lines are the most important because that's all that you see unless you click See More, and most people don't click. So, like, literally make those three lines very interesting. Don't put some generic stuff. Don't put some just AI slop. Be interesting. Tell your story. This is your chance to actually capture people's attention and get them to take a chance on you, take a chance to look a little bit longer. Number four is your experience. Is your experience section up to date? Are there interesting bullet points on each one of your different jobs? Is each job experience tied to a company on LinkedIn and has the actual company logo there? It's these little things that add up in your experience section to actually show that you've done really cool things for really cool companies in the past. Number five is your featured section. This is so underutilized by 99% of LinkedIn profiles. If it's empty, it shouldn't be. You need to pin your best projects, pin a post that went viral, pin a portfolio link. This section is really key for recruiters to actually see how good you are, how many things you've done in the past, and who you actually are Number seven is your activity. Are you posting? Are you commenting on other people's work? Or is it kind of just like a ghost town with nothing from 2017? A live profile signals a live candidate. Your LinkedIn is basically the full dating profile, the headline, the photos, the bio. And here's the thing, 99% of recruiters use LinkedIn, and not only do recruiters just use LinkedIn, they will DM interesting candidates. So be interesting, and then watch your inbox explode. The third mirror you need to think about is your portfolio, and the first question is, heck, do you even have one? And if the answer is no, it's not the end of the world, but you're missing out on a huge opportunity. Remember what I said at the beginning, the hiring managers are literally trying to de-risk their decision in any way they possibly can, and a portfolio is basically a risk reduction tool from your end. It's the thing that takes you from, "Hey, this person says that they can actually do SQL and Tableau and Power BI," to, "Wow, this person has actually done the work previously, and there's tangible proof right here." It's basically extra information about yourself, and in a market that's so competitive today, extra information is literally everything. You need to cling to it like your life depends on it. So I think you should have a portfolio if you don't have one already. And if you don't know how or why or where to make one, you can check out mydatafolio.com, and it's my very own portfolio hosting website. I designed it specifically for people like you, for data analysts who want to land a data job. So link in the description down below. Now, for all my overachievers out there, if you have a portfolio already, the question is, is it really, really, really ridiculously easy to read and to scan? Do a ten-second test. Send your portfolio link to a friend and watch them open it, like literally from behind their shoulders. Where do their eyes go? Where do they get confused? Where do they click? Where do they get bored? What do they actually do on their portfolio, and is it really sending the right message that you want to send to hiring managers and recruiters? For instance, you want to see, does your homepage tell enough about you in those first five seconds? It's not your life story, but it's also just not, like, your name. You need to explain who you are and what you do. Data analysts in this industry using these tools. That's pretty much it. That's all you need. Number two, can I scan one project and understand it almost immediately? Like, what's the problem, what's the approach, what's the insight, what's the impact? Those four things. If I have to scroll through like a bajillion things to get all of those, then that's probably not good enough. But it also shouldn't just be like three lines. It should be somewhere in between. And also, if I have to click through like five different pages before I actually get to any sort of work or visualization, you've completely lost me. And hint, that's one of the reasons I hate GitHub as a portfolio, but that's for another episode. Number three, are your projects business problems or are they more tutorial data sets? So if the only project that you've really got on there is the city bike center and the Titanic data set, that's not really good. You want to do something that's more interesting. Go find a real problem with real data, a local business, a public data set no one's even looking at, something with like more stakes, with more realistic, you know, entities. And lastly, number four, can I contact you in one click? Don't make me hunt for your email, hunt for your phone number, hunt for your LinkedIn. Those things should be so abundantly clear that I can just click, boom, and then talk to you, and then hopefully hire you, right? The rule is simplicity. A confused hiring manager is the hiring manager that closes the tab and goes with another candidate. And at this point, if they're looking at your portfolio, you're already so close to having that swipe right. Their thumb's literally on the green arrow and they're thinking about it. This is just like the last thirst trap picture you need to get that thumb to the right, and if you have it, you'll get those swipes and you'll get those calls, and you'll get those offers. If you don't have it, who knows? You're leaving it up to chance. And really, this is the mindset shift I want you to take away from this episode. You're not a bad data analyst. In fact, you're probably a great one. So we aren't changing who you are. We are changing what they see, because you might be appearing as a bad data analyst based off your digital profiles, even though you're a fantastic data analyst. But you can literally fix that today with the mirror test. Look at your resume, your LinkedIn, and your portfolio with clean eyes, six seconds. In a blink of an eye, would a stranger take a chance on you, yes or no? If the answer is yes, great. Go back to applying. You're doing great. If the answer is no, well, you need to fix it, and if you want help fixing it, that's exactly what we do in my bootcamp, Data Analytics Accelerator. You can learn more about it by clicking the link in the description down below. You guys got this, I promise. Mirror test, fix, apply, and I'll see you in the next one.