Initiative for Analytics and Data Science Standards (IADSS) workshop presentation at the ACM KDD conference (Association of Computing Machinery Knowledge Discovery in Databases).

1. STANDARDIZING DATA SCIENCE TO HELP HIRING,
BY GREG MAKOWSKI
ACM KDD Conference 2019
Initiative for Analytics and Data Science Standards (IADSS) Workshop
https://www.iadss.org/sigkdd-2019
August 5, 2019

2. Problem:
• This talk discusses the desires of a hiring manager for standards in the Data
Science profession – to help with growing teams
Outline:
• Challenges and motivation
• Way to Standardize a Profession – Testing
• Way to Share Experience – a Portfolio
• How can we have a “Searchable Portfolio”?
• Is a privacy preserving component helpful? (i.e. references to confirm)
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3. Pain Points in DS Hiring
• To hire people to work on DS consulting projects, it is good to find people
with X (i.e. 3+) past DS projects DEPLOYED
• It is very hard to get good support to find qualified candidates.
(to search for complex past experiences)
• HR
• Recruiters
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4. Way to Standardize a Profession – Testing
• How do other professions “standardize” to a consistent experience level?
• Accounting – Certified Professional Accountant (CPA)
• Medical Dr. - United States Medical Licensure Exam (USMLE)
• For DS, testing may be a better option for those just out of school
• Do we form a group to decide testing standards?
• ACM KDD Data Science Exam (KDD DSE)?
• All DS pass 5 core skills?
• Optionally pass 0+ of 15 optional skills (like medical specialties?)
• For DS, is this most helpful before the person has deployed a few projects?
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5. Way to Share Experience – a Portfolio
• Other professions have other “standards for experience” besides testing
• Medical doctors go through a residency – a mentored practical training program
• Medical doctors have to make life and death decisions
• It may not be a quick adjustment to REQUIRE Data Scientists to go through.
a residency
• Other professions that have portfolios…
• Research, teaching, architecture, photography, …
• Informally, DS’s have this in their LinkedIn profile
• Challenge – you can’t search for
• Candidates who have deployed at least 3 data mining models
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6. How can we have a “Searchable Portfolio”?
• Can we go from unstructured text to structured JSON key-values?
• Github examples? https://paperswithcode.com/ ? What is original work?
• Problem
• Title
• Context
• Vertical market
• Problem type
• Solution
• Algorithm family
• Algorithm(s)
• Key innovations
• Result
• Intended to be deployed?
• Was deployed
• Estimated annual value?
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7. Is a privacy preserving component helpful?
• Currently, some confidential sharing can happen
• Past managers provide references
• Clients that don’t agree yet to press releases can be sales references by phone
• GENERALIZATION: Some information is not openly shared with the public,
but under the right circumstances, privately shared.
• Is there a way to use crypto-sharing (i.e. bitcoin style), such as between
hiring managers?
• Between a past client and a hiring manager or future prospective client?
• Who manages the structured portfolio database? (for more than DS?)
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8. Can we create structured portfolios?
• Discussion
• Does it sound useful to be able to query portfolios and skills?
• What are ways to standardize DS as a profession?
www.LinkedIn.com/in/GregMakowski
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