Young Hands Club

Notes:

• Task 4.1 from earlier plan was deemed better as a separate task. Re-added as Task 10.
• Task 2 from earlier plan was shifted to priority 1.

Priority 1: 4, 5, 6, 7, 2, 10
Priority 2: 1, 3, 9
Priority 3: 8

1. [ ] Gather contacts related to sent applications – and reach out.

1. This has been cancelled over the past week in favor of gathering profiles in Vancouver first. The reason is that the profiles in Vancouver appear a lot more conducive to my current skillsets and it was deemed important to identify new companies and thus the contacts there.
2. [X] Continue gathering JD’s + Company profile information.
   1. [X] Expand this to Vancouver/BC.
   2. Several more JD’s and Company profiles are gathered. See Updates (this covers most of the additions as a list.
3. [X] Continue connecting to recruiters.
   1. Efforts have been made to reach out. Yet to receive responses from contacts. Reminders have to been sent out.
4. [X] Complete basic JD composite and identify strengths + deficits
   1. A basic framework has been formulated along with a list of skills. This can be refined to more specific details as further profiles are gathered. See Updated Page
5. [X] Extra ‘interesting’ companies from the list (to begin with)
   1. [X] Shortlist interesting companies
      1. Basis: general alignment with background, example Oil & Gas (eg customers of current company). Iterate on company profile and job descriptions to clearly identify the companies which are more suitable to overall goals.
         1. Attempts have been made to improve the basis above. However, it is still vague. Some descriptions have been seen to ‘make a lot more sense’. These incidentally are more prevalent in Vancouver than in Calgary. Examples:
            1. Data Analyst, EA
            2. Business Analyst, AECOM : not the usual non-technical sales nonsense.
            3. Technical Business Analyst, Indeed : This is a powerful role which also enables a good exposure into web development, which can be helpful in eventually securing remote gigs.
      2. Some companies are shortlisted. These are relatively larger companies with more sensible job descriptions. It would be desirable to get into a relatively stable company. However, conversely, the competition will be significantly higher for these. FWIW: there are several more job descriptions and companies to cover in Vancouver. In particular, the next target will be towards smaller companies.
6. [X] Create Version 2 of Resume.
   1. [X] Explicitly incorporate strengths identified in (4).
   2. Resume Version 2 is created in line with JD composite. I want one more cycle of analysing the JD Composite and hope to streamline this a little further
7. [X] Complete draft of simple, generic cover letter for online job portals
   1. [X] Evaluate need to create multiple versions.
      1. Multiple versions may not be needed at the moment considering the profiles. However, this will be required down the line for targeted applications.
   2. This task was neglected, and will have to be completed next week.
8. [ ] Review github website (https://shrysr.github.io)
   1. [ ] Re-align to emphasise data + analytics, supported by domain knowledge rather than the other way round as it is currently.
9. [ ] Continue exploring alternative approaches.
   1. No further effort was made in this direction this week.
10. [X] Draft a plan to address deficits.
    1. A draft plan is available, but I would like to refine this further and also discuss in chan to evaluate how this can be aligned to tmsr related activities.

General notes

1. Improved my knowledge and comfort in Bash scripting. I enjoyed constructing this project, though it was relatively trivial; it still covered many fundamental aspects of writing a program. The important difference compared to earlier data-hag approaches was to keep the goals and steps small and to slowly but surely build up the process. Of course, the guidance in chan was also instrumental. I totally look forward to doing more and aligning them to tmsr related projects.
   1. I think there have been very few instances in the past that I have approached a data science project in the above approach. Perhaps there was too much I did not know, but I think the driving impediment was always wanting to know ‘everything’ before using a library; or knowing ‘all of statistics’ before using some simple techniques.
   2. FWIW: current proficiency in R was gained only by studiously following a relatively structured approach via Matt Dancho’s course and applying the concepts directly in the ERP project. The pending parts of his course(s) will be a key part of the plan in addressing major skill deficits w.r.t job applications.
   3. My intention is to follow the step wise and planned approach henceforth for all upcoming projects, especially those where I do not know anything.
2. The structured process of narrowing down skills + deficits is actually helping. While the skill deficit list is not entirely new – this new effort is now firmly based on exploring multiple job profiles of different companies, with very little ‘idealism’ thrown in.