i applied for the job of data scientist and the recruiter sent me link to the online data analysis test as part of the recruitment process. i never been to any of these test, anyone can give me some insight or guide to do practise etc? thanks!!
I've done a number of these data analysis 'tests' as part of interviews for data scientist / analyst roles. They typically vary -- usually (hopefully!) the data set & questions are highly specialized for the company + the role you are applying for. So as for ways to practice.... I'm not sure. If you're skilled in R / Python / Matlab / SQL or whatever the role requires... you should be fine.
General advice:
1. Be explicit: if you are making an assumption in your code, write why. Write out your logic & reasoning at every step.
2. Watch out for missing / 'bad' data. Write out how you would deal with messy data in real life.
3. Pay attention to the time limit. If you don't know, contact the recruiter to ask what's expected.
4. Interpret your results! If they ask you to, say, find the R^2 correlation between x and y, give them the number and then tell them what that might mean.
Don't stress. Hopefully the 'test' is fun and well thought out. I've always found them extremely helpful in understanding the problems that I would be solving if I were to end up at the company. On the other hand, I've heard that some companies don't put a lot of time into making these assignments relevant, so for me, that would be a warning sign.
I'd be very interested in your feedback, once you have completed the test.
For preparation, I'd go play with Kaggle if I were you; and read their forum.
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What were the questions like?
Is is like Kaggle: they give you a csv, and you build a predictor? I guess they would expect some feature engineering from you as well.
Do they want a dissertation around how it could function inside their firm? How you would talk about it to the client? What are the maintenance hurdles?
