October 14, 2025 • 12 mins
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
285 people applied forthis data analyst position.
(00:04):
Only one got hired.
I'm going to walk you through thebrutal six step hiring funnel that
eliminated 99% of candidates andshow you exactly how to survive it.
Now, here is what the hiringprocess looked like for a
real data analyst job posting.
They got about 285 applicantsin about a week, 12.
Made it to a phonescreen with a recruiter.
(00:26):
Seven passed the sequel assessment.
Six got an interviewwith the hiring manager.
Four, made it to the final roundwith the entire technical team,
and only one person got the offer.
So what happened at each one of thesestages, and more importantly, how do
you make sure that you're not one ofthose 284 people who got rejected?
Well, let's break it down step by step
(00:47):
let's dive into stage one, whichis application reviews stage.
And in this stage there was 285applicants, and that's quite a bit,
but not uncommon in today's job market.
And you remember that only12 made it to stage two.
So what the heck happened in this stage?
Well, usually I tell you that themajority of applications are never
even seen by the hiring manager at all.
(01:09):
Instead, they're filtered by the applicanttracking system or a TS for short.
But this hiring manager ensured methat she looked at every single resume.
Now, I think this is the exception versusthe rule, and it really goes to show how
cool this hiring manager is in particular.
But that's also why they took the job downafter a week when they got 285 applicants.
(01:31):
Many companies would honestly just leavethis job up for a long time, collecting
maybe double or triple the candidates.
And honestly, you'd probably havea low chance of being considered
if you applied pretty late.
And that's actually my first set ofadvice and that is to apply early.
The earlier you apply, the more chanceyou have of actually getting noticed.
(01:52):
Next, I'll tell you that if you'renot getting into stage two, which
is a recruiter screen, we'lltalk about that here in a second.
It's likely because ofyour resume at this point.
That's all the companyreally knows about you.
That's all they have on you.
So you probably need to changesomething about your resume.
Now, I don't know exactly what that is.
There's lots of places youcould be going wrong here.
But here is a quick checklist to consider.
(02:14):
Is your resume a TS compliant?
The biggest mistake here I see withlike most job applicants is they
put tables or multiple columns intheir resume, and that's a no-no.
A lot of ATSs can't readthose properly at all.
So you could be getting yourresume rejected right away.
Next, are you missing keywords?
If the job description wants someone withTableau skills and you don't have Tableau
(02:36):
listed anywhere on your resume at all.
The a TS will probably auto reject you,but even if you do get past the a TS,
the hiring manager isn't going to spendmuch time on your resume if you don't
have those Tableau skills on your resume.
In fact, this is exactly whatthe hiring manager told me.
She said, quote,
"If only half of applicants haveexperience with Tableau (which is what
(02:58):
we listed in the job description),I'm going to talk to the half with
Tableau skills before I talk to theother half with Power BI or Looker.
You have to prioritize on thethings just because there's a
lot of people coming through."
So there you have itfrom the horse's mouth.
Lastly, you could just beoverqualified or underqualified.
If you're too experienced withthis role, they'd probably get
(03:19):
worried that you're going to getbored and leave in like six months.
And if you have absolutely no experience,well, they're worried that you're going
to need to require too much training andit's gonna be too much of an investment.
And that's really how 96%of the applicants may be
including you get rejected.
But before you feel very sad and utterlydepressed, let me just tell you a
(03:39):
secret tidbit that never gets talkedabout hiring manager said this quote,
"Honestly, when I looked at them,probably 70% of the applicant pool
could have been successful in this role.
So that makes it reallyhard to narrow down."
Guys.
Let this soak in for just a minute.
You may not be getting rejectedbecause you're unqualified.
(04:00):
You might just not be the best candidate.
So please, guys, I imploreyou pretty please do not take
these rejections so harshly.
I know it's tough.
I know it doesn't feel good, butrealize often it's saying less about
who you are, what your skills are,your capabilities are, and more to
do with your resume and maybe someonejust had a better resume than you.
That's it.
Don't take it so personally.
Avery Smith-3 (04:21):
So in stage two, which is the recruiter stage, this
is where you're going to be talkingto someone from human resources.
This person usually isn't super technical.
They're not going to grill you on SQLor statistics or anything like that.
They're usually checking forthings like, is this applicant
actually a real human being?
(04:42):
Which I know sounds crazy, butit's 2025, you guys, it's very
important in today's day and age.
There's lots of scams out there.
Number two, can thisperson communicate clearly?
Are they able to expressthemselves thoroughly?
Three, do they actually have any ofthose key skills listed on their resume?
Once again, this is nothingsuper technical here.
Just making sure you don't list everyskill possible on your resume, even
(05:05):
though you know nothing about thoseskills, that would be a huge red flag.
So that's what they're checking for here.
Number four, does this personactually seem like they're
going to be a good cultural fit?
Are there any red flags?
Obviously the recruiter doesn'twanna waste the hiring manager's
precious time with an applicantthat's just kind of a jerk, right?
And wouldn't fit in the teamanyways, so check in for that.
Number five, they wanna make surethat the location and work style that
(05:28):
you want to have is a fit for you.
If the job description is in personin Houston, but you live in Dallas.
That might not work.
Or maybe you want to commutethree hours a day, I don't know.
Uh, or if you're looking for remotework and this job is actually
hybrid, it just might not be a fit.
So they're checking for that as well.
And lastly, what are your salaryexpectations and do they match
(05:48):
what the company had in mind?
And this is a big one.
If the budget for the role is 70,000 to85,000 and you're looking for a world
that pays like $130,000, it's likelythat they're not going to really.
Interview you any further.
So due to candidates not responding or nothaving a salary, a location, or work type
fit, the applicant pool went from 12 toseven applicants that made stage three.
Avery Smith-4 (06:12):
Stage three is the technical assessment part, and
this is where the team is actuallylooking at your technical capability.
They're trying to get a feelfor your technical skills.
Now, most of the times thesetechnical assessments are in Excel,
sql, or some other coding language.,
Because these tools are used themost in industry, but also because
(06:33):
they're the easiest to evaluate skillquickly and in a standardized way.
For our hiring manager in particular,she chose SQL because it's one
of the core skills to the teamand it's really easy to test for.
Now, I will say I've seen a lotof entry-level roles, have more
of a take home assessment that youcan do in like a 72 hour window
than doing like a pressured test.
And I'm a big fan of thetake home assessments because
(06:55):
they're a lot less pressure.
These technical assessments can bereally scary and high pressure because
it's like taking a live test thatmay or may not determine your salary
for the next decade of your life.
That isn't fun, right?
So with all that pressure aside,what can you do to perform well
in this stage and get past it?
The number one thingyou can do is practice.
(07:16):
Like you guys, there are so many differentdata interview practice platforms out
there that you can try and it's a cliche,I know, but practice makes perfect.
Now you might be wondering, well, whatdo I practice, what might be included
in this particular SQL assessment?
And for this one in particular,they asked two questions.
Number one was a group by question,and the other one was a little bit
more advanced and it was a window.
(07:37):
Function question, sql.
So make sure you know both of those.
Uh, but luckily or maybe lesslucky and more skill for our
candidates, all seven of themactually passed the SQL assessment.
Uh, but one candidate did end up takingon a different offer and bowed out.
So we're moving into stepnumber four with six candidates.
Avery Smith-5 (07:58):
So in stage four, we are now down to six applicants, which
is crazy from 2 85 to six, and thisis the hiring manager round here.
The hiring manager is meeting youface-to-face for the first time.
So you're going to be doing somepleasantries, some small talk, and
then some background questions.
Uh, and then eventually you're going to begetting into more of the problem solving
(08:22):
questions like, for example, what's acool project you've worked on before,
either at work or in your portfolio?
What would you dodifferently in that project?
Maybe like what type of data would'vebeen helpful for making decisions?
Hey, how do you use datain your personal life?
These are just some examplesof questions they may ask.
In this stage, our hiringmanager dropped two of our six
(08:43):
remaining candidates from six.
To four.
And the reason, well, the hiring managerfelt that two of them had a bit lower
data visualization and data explorationskills than the remaining four.
That's just from those questionsthat we talked about earlier.
The best way to not get left behindhere in the dust is to make sure
that you have an awesome portfolio,projects, and multiple if you can.
(09:07):
The hiring manager told me thatthey don't have to be big projects
or use millions of rows, but if youcan make them novel and personal
to you, that would be really good.
And so I made an episode recently on thefive Best Project Ideas that you can start
today if you're just getting started.
So you can watch that on a YouTube cardup here or in the show notes down below
if you don't know how to get started.
(09:28):
But once again in this interview,you're just gonna try to be yourself.
Just try to explain notonly the what, but the why.
Think out loud and try toshow that you are a go-getter.
So those four candidates are nowentering what we call team interview,
and that is stage number five.
Avery Smith-6 (09:45):
The fifth stage is the technical team interview, and
this is where the hiring manager andherd team of two senior analysts went
through some more technical questions.
It's almost like a combinationof the hiring manager interview
and the technical assessment.
Put together.
So they'd probably ask you thingslike, Hey, explain a project
you've worked on step by step.
So that's very similar to thehiring manager, but it'll also
(10:07):
focus more on your thought process.
Well, why did you choosethis instead of that?
So if you chose to do a calculationin sql, well, why didn't
you just do that in Tableau?
Why did you choose that way?
And hey, how did you end up decidingthat this honestly shouldn't
be that scary at this point.
They already like you a lot.
They've already invested alot of time in you, and that's
(10:28):
because you're a great candidate.
They're just trying to figure outwhich of the four candidates left
is the best fit for the team.
And after this, well, it's the laststage, and that is the hiring decision.
At this point, the hiring manager and herteam get together and collect scorecards
of the team, interview each interviewer.
Gives a score based on how technical youare with SQL and with Tableau, but also
(10:53):
how good of a problem solver are you?
How clear of a communicator are you?
How weird are you?
Just kidding.
Hopefully you're really normal and atthis point our hiring manager was able to
narrow it down to two front runners thatscored slightly higher than the other two.
So after cutting 283 other candidates,how did the hiring manager go
(11:13):
from first to second place?
Well, honestly, she flipped aCoin Hez Candidate One tails.
Candidate two.
Nah, just kidding.
She went to candidate who had a closerdomain related to the company's industry.
You know, both candidates,they were both great at sql.
They could write good SQL code.
Both candidates could createawesome dashboards in Tableau.
(11:36):
Both candidates were pretty clearcommunicators, and both candidates
were pretty fun to talk to.
They could get along with the team.
So what was the differentiating factor?
It was, well, what haveyou done previously?
What do you know about this domain?
What do you know about this industry?
What do you know about ourcompany, what we actually do?
So to all my career pivoters outthere, I hope this gives you hope,
and I hope it gives you confidencebecause it should what you studied
(11:57):
in school, it can be really helpful.
The job that you are leaving, that you'vehad for the last 10 years, it could
honestly give you the edge in the end.
So that is my advice to you guys.
Your domain matters if youland an offer, celebrate it.
You've earned it.
If you don't get the offer, justknow that you are close and move on.
Don't get depressed.
Don't dwell on it.
It's not the end of the world.
(12:17):
I promise.
Your next offer is right down the road.
So there you have it, the fulldata hiring process with tips
on how to pass each stage.
If you want a copy of this diagram oryou just want me to explain it via text,
I'll have a link in the show notes downbelow where I'll send you all of this
and hey, if you enjoyedthis video, hit subscribe.
Keep going, you guys, you'vegot this, I believe in you.
285 people applied forthis data analyst position.
(00:04):
Only one got hired.
I'm going to walk you through thebrutal six step hiring funnel that
eliminated 99% of candidates andshow you exactly how to survive it.
Now, here is what the hiringprocess looked like for a
real data analyst job posting.
They got about 285 applicantsin about a week, 12.
Made it to a phonescreen with a recruiter.
(00:26):
Seven passed the sequel assessment.
Six got an interviewwith the hiring manager.
Four, made it to the final roundwith the entire technical team,
and only one person got the offer.
So what happened at each one of thesestages, and more importantly, how do
you make sure that you're not one ofthose 284 people who got rejected?
Well, let's break it down step by step
(00:47):
let's dive into stage one, whichis application reviews stage.
And in this stage there was 285applicants, and that's quite a bit,
but not uncommon in today's job market.
And you remember that only12 made it to stage two.
So what the heck happened in this stage?
Well, usually I tell you that themajority of applications are never
even seen by the hiring manager at all.
(01:09):
Instead, they're filtered by the applicanttracking system or a TS for short.
But this hiring manager ensured methat she looked at every single resume.
Now, I think this is the exception versusthe rule, and it really goes to show how
cool this hiring manager is in particular.
But that's also why they took the job downafter a week when they got 285 applicants.
(01:31):
Many companies would honestly just leavethis job up for a long time, collecting
maybe double or triple the candidates.
And honestly, you'd probably havea low chance of being considered
if you applied pretty late.
And that's actually my first set ofadvice and that is to apply early.
The earlier you apply, the more chanceyou have of actually getting noticed.
(01:52):
Next, I'll tell you that if you'renot getting into stage two, which
is a recruiter screen, we'lltalk about that here in a second.
It's likely because ofyour resume at this point.
That's all the companyreally knows about you.
That's all they have on you.
So you probably need to changesomething about your resume.
Now, I don't know exactly what that is.
There's lots of places youcould be going wrong here.
But here is a quick checklist to consider.
(02:14):
Is your resume a TS compliant?
The biggest mistake here I see withlike most job applicants is they
put tables or multiple columns intheir resume, and that's a no-no.
A lot of ATSs can't readthose properly at all.
So you could be getting yourresume rejected right away.
Next, are you missing keywords?
If the job description wants someone withTableau skills and you don't have Tableau
(02:36):
listed anywhere on your resume at all.
The a TS will probably auto reject you,but even if you do get past the a TS,
the hiring manager isn't going to spendmuch time on your resume if you don't
have those Tableau skills on your resume.
In fact, this is exactly whatthe hiring manager told me.
She said, quote,
"If only half of applicants haveexperience with Tableau (which is what
(02:58):
we listed in the job description),I'm going to talk to the half with
Tableau skills before I talk to theother half with Power BI or Looker.
You have to prioritize on thethings just because there's a
lot of people coming through."
So there you have itfrom the horse's mouth.
Lastly, you could just beoverqualified or underqualified.
If you're too experienced withthis role, they'd probably get
(03:19):
worried that you're going to getbored and leave in like six months.
And if you have absolutely no experience,well, they're worried that you're going
to need to require too much training andit's gonna be too much of an investment.
And that's really how 96%of the applicants may be
including you get rejected.
But before you feel very sad and utterlydepressed, let me just tell you a
(03:39):
secret tidbit that never gets talkedabout hiring manager said this quote,
"Honestly, when I looked at them,probably 70% of the applicant pool
could have been successful in this role.
So that makes it reallyhard to narrow down."
Guys.
Let this soak in for just a minute.
You may not be getting rejectedbecause you're unqualified.
(04:00):
You might just not be the best candidate.
So please, guys, I imploreyou pretty please do not take
these rejections so harshly.
I know it's tough.
I know it doesn't feel good, butrealize often it's saying less about
who you are, what your skills are,your capabilities are, and more to
do with your resume and maybe someonejust had a better resume than you.
That's it.
Don't take it so personally.
Avery Smith-3 (04:21):
So in stage two, which is the recruiter stage, this
is where you're going to be talkingto someone from human resources.
This person usually isn't super technical.
They're not going to grill you on SQLor statistics or anything like that.
They're usually checking forthings like, is this applicant
actually a real human being?
(04:42):
Which I know sounds crazy, butit's 2025, you guys, it's very
important in today's day and age.
There's lots of scams out there.
Number two, can thisperson communicate clearly?
Are they able to expressthemselves thoroughly?
Three, do they actually have any ofthose key skills listed on their resume?
Once again, this is nothingsuper technical here.
Just making sure you don't list everyskill possible on your resume, even
(05:05):
though you know nothing about thoseskills, that would be a huge red flag.
So that's what they're checking for here.
Number four, does this personactually seem like they're
going to be a good cultural fit?
Are there any red flags?
Obviously the recruiter doesn'twanna waste the hiring manager's
precious time with an applicantthat's just kind of a jerk, right?
And wouldn't fit in the teamanyways, so check in for that.
Number five, they wanna make surethat the location and work style that
(05:28):
you want to have is a fit for you.
If the job description is in personin Houston, but you live in Dallas.
That might not work.
Or maybe you want to commutethree hours a day, I don't know.
Uh, or if you're looking for remotework and this job is actually
hybrid, it just might not be a fit.
So they're checking for that as well.
And lastly, what are your salaryexpectations and do they match
(05:48):
what the company had in mind?
And this is a big one.
If the budget for the role is 70,000 to85,000 and you're looking for a world
that pays like $130,000, it's likelythat they're not going to really.
Interview you any further.
So due to candidates not responding or nothaving a salary, a location, or work type
fit, the applicant pool went from 12 toseven applicants that made stage three.
Avery Smith-4 (06:12):
Stage three is the technical assessment part, and
this is where the team is actuallylooking at your technical capability.
They're trying to get a feelfor your technical skills.
Now, most of the times thesetechnical assessments are in Excel,
sql, or some other coding language.,
Because these tools are used themost in industry, but also because
(06:33):
they're the easiest to evaluate skillquickly and in a standardized way.
For our hiring manager in particular,she chose SQL because it's one
of the core skills to the teamand it's really easy to test for.
Now, I will say I've seen a lotof entry-level roles, have more
of a take home assessment that youcan do in like a 72 hour window
than doing like a pressured test.
And I'm a big fan of thetake home assessments because
(06:55):
they're a lot less pressure.
These technical assessments can bereally scary and high pressure because
it's like taking a live test thatmay or may not determine your salary
for the next decade of your life.
That isn't fun, right?
So with all that pressure aside,what can you do to perform well
in this stage and get past it?
The number one thingyou can do is practice.
(07:16):
Like you guys, there are so many differentdata interview practice platforms out
there that you can try and it's a cliche,I know, but practice makes perfect.
Now you might be wondering, well, whatdo I practice, what might be included
in this particular SQL assessment?
And for this one in particular,they asked two questions.
Number one was a group by question,and the other one was a little bit
more advanced and it was a window.
(07:37):
Function question, sql.
So make sure you know both of those.
Uh, but luckily or maybe lesslucky and more skill for our
candidates, all seven of themactually passed the SQL assessment.
Uh, but one candidate did end up takingon a different offer and bowed out.
So we're moving into stepnumber four with six candidates.
Avery Smith-5 (07:58):
So in stage four, we are now down to six applicants, which
is crazy from 2 85 to six, and thisis the hiring manager round here.
The hiring manager is meeting youface-to-face for the first time.
So you're going to be doing somepleasantries, some small talk, and
then some background questions.
Uh, and then eventually you're going to begetting into more of the problem solving
(08:22):
questions like, for example, what's acool project you've worked on before,
either at work or in your portfolio?
What would you dodifferently in that project?
Maybe like what type of data would'vebeen helpful for making decisions?
Hey, how do you use datain your personal life?
These are just some examplesof questions they may ask.
In this stage, our hiringmanager dropped two of our six
(08:43):
remaining candidates from six.
To four.
And the reason, well, the hiring managerfelt that two of them had a bit lower
data visualization and data explorationskills than the remaining four.
That's just from those questionsthat we talked about earlier.
The best way to not get left behindhere in the dust is to make sure
that you have an awesome portfolio,projects, and multiple if you can.
(09:07):
The hiring manager told me thatthey don't have to be big projects
or use millions of rows, but if youcan make them novel and personal
to you, that would be really good.
And so I made an episode recently on thefive Best Project Ideas that you can start
today if you're just getting started.
So you can watch that on a YouTube cardup here or in the show notes down below
if you don't know how to get started.
(09:28):
But once again in this interview,you're just gonna try to be yourself.
Just try to explain notonly the what, but the why.
Think out loud and try toshow that you are a go-getter.
So those four candidates are nowentering what we call team interview,
and that is stage number five.
Avery Smith-6 (09:45):
The fifth stage is the technical team interview, and
this is where the hiring manager andherd team of two senior analysts went
through some more technical questions.
It's almost like a combinationof the hiring manager interview
and the technical assessment.
Put together.
So they'd probably ask you thingslike, Hey, explain a project
you've worked on step by step.
So that's very similar to thehiring manager, but it'll also
(10:07):
focus more on your thought process.
Well, why did you choosethis instead of that?
So if you chose to do a calculationin sql, well, why didn't
you just do that in Tableau?
Why did you choose that way?
And hey, how did you end up decidingthat this honestly shouldn't
be that scary at this point.
They already like you a lot.
They've already invested alot of time in you, and that's
(10:28):
because you're a great candidate.
They're just trying to figure outwhich of the four candidates left
is the best fit for the team.
And after this, well, it's the laststage, and that is the hiring decision.
At this point, the hiring manager and herteam get together and collect scorecards
of the team, interview each interviewer.
Gives a score based on how technical youare with SQL and with Tableau, but also
(10:53):
how good of a problem solver are you?
How clear of a communicator are you?
How weird are you?
Just kidding.
Hopefully you're really normal and atthis point our hiring manager was able to
narrow it down to two front runners thatscored slightly higher than the other two.
So after cutting 283 other candidates,how did the hiring manager go
(11:13):
from first to second place?
Well, honestly, she flipped aCoin Hez Candidate One tails.
Candidate two.
Nah, just kidding.
She went to candidate who had a closerdomain related to the company's industry.
You know, both candidates,they were both great at sql.
They could write good SQL code.
Both candidates could createawesome dashboards in Tableau.
(11:36):
Both candidates were pretty clearcommunicators, and both candidates
were pretty fun to talk to.
They could get along with the team.
So what was the differentiating factor?
It was, well, what haveyou done previously?
What do you know about this domain?
What do you know about this industry?
What do you know about ourcompany, what we actually do?
So to all my career pivoters outthere, I hope this gives you hope,
and I hope it gives you confidencebecause it should what you studied
(11:57):
in school, it can be really helpful.
The job that you are leaving, that you'vehad for the last 10 years, it could
honestly give you the edge in the end.
So that is my advice to you guys.
Your domain matters if youland an offer, celebrate it.
You've earned it.
If you don't get the offer, justknow that you are close and move on.
Don't get depressed.
Don't dwell on it.
It's not the end of the world.
(12:17):
I promise.
Your next offer is right down the road.
So there you have it, the fulldata hiring process with tips
on how to pass each stage.
If you want a copy of this diagram oryou just want me to explain it via text,
I'll have a link in the show notes downbelow where I'll send you all of this
and hey, if you enjoyedthis video, hit subscribe.
Keep going, you guys, you'vegot this, I believe in you.
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CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
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