If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again

It’s been a minute. I can’t say if I’m a more skilled coder now than when I wrote the last post. I have learnt that success is not instant and that sometimes, returning to the beginning is okay.

The main difference now is that there’s a clearer goal in mind. I was learning Python for the sake of it, but now I want to use it in data analysis. Research is a favourite topic and handling data sets and using them to come up with solutions and discoveries is fascinating.

With that in mind, I stretched my coding muscles and applied for a data science position – and I made it past the application stage. And then I made it past the first stage and got to the video interview and coding questions. I considered that progress! Until I sat down to do the coding assessment. It was horrible. It made me question everything. The questions weren’t difficult, I was just overcome with stress. It took hours, but I finished them one way or another.

It was demoralising in every sense of the word. I felt like there was something wrong with my mind. I was upset that I’d failed until I gave myself a big pep talk. Many more experienced people than me probably applied for the role, and I’m sure some didn’t make it as far as I did. With extra coding and data analysis experience, who knows how far I can make it next time? Instead of taking this rejection as a negative, I am looking to the future.

All I can do is try my best.

Tips for next time:

• Give myself more time to do the assessments
• Have pen and paper at hand to jot things down.
• Turn any shortcomings into areas to work on