Alex Hay

tell me you're a data professional without telling me you're a data professional... when I build brio train tacks, I build them only using track pieces. Once it's up and running then I will swap out pieces of track for the fancy bits i.e a windmill. Foundations over fancy features for release 1.0. #dataleaders #dataprofessionals #dataleadership #cdo #dataanalytics

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The Manchester Databricks meet up will be Thursday 15th August. We have an awesome line up which I'll announce soon 👁️👁️ Check out a quick video from June's meet up below. If you'd like to sign up to the Manchester Databricks user group, please see link in comments #databricks #meetup #networking

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The UK Data Talent market feels really saturated and like the Wild West. I can’t complain, MBN was one of a few for a long time but now there must be 1000’s of data recruiters in the UK. Can imagine it’s the same for Tech and other markets. I genuinely believe this is not benefiting companies hiring even although many will think it will be and the companies who are partnering with recruitment companies and valuing their service will be winning the race for talent to build their companies. I could tell you 100 stories that I’ve heard just over the past couple of months…. Companies being send candidates and then more or less forced to interview through them, managers being seduced by the ‘capability statement’ and agreeing to work with other recruiters, the list goes on! My advice to companies hiring talent would be (this is usually after you’ve tried to hire yourself through your networks. Internal talent teams, adverts) ➡️ Partner with ONE recruitment company on an exclusive or retained basis (show your committed to hire) ➡️ Take some time to do your due diligence on this company, references, testimonials (don’t just rely on a world class sales call from them, that’s week 2 in recruitment training) ➡️ Work together to understand and align on the companies short-term and long-term hiring needs, culture, and business goals. ➡️ Treat the partnership like an advisory role, ask for insights on market trends, talent availability, and compensation benchmarks. If it’s a true partnership the recruiter can help design and refine the companies talent acquisition strategy, including workforce planning and employer branding. The list goes on. This is just my observations and experience. As always, feel free to share your experience. Treat your suppliers with respect, things can quickly change in these markets. ——- And, as always, contact me direct to discuss a partnership and how we can find you find the best Data/AI/ML talent on the market - [email protected]

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Mid-February ON Data Staffing was retained by a Boutique Data & AI Consultancy, to help grow their Data & ML Engineering team with Databricks-experienced hires. In just under 10 weeks, we managed to help find 5 key permanent hires, which works out one hire a fortnight. How so quickly? We focused on 3 things that the client & potential candidates should align on. Culture Cultural fit in any Data-driven SMB is key, therefore knowing a client's & a potential candidate's approach to teamwork, communication style, and work ethic is vital. Beliefs Understanding both client and candidate beliefs can provide insights into whether motivations and approaches to work align. Values It's so important that when hiring or joining a new organization people's values align from the offset, it fosters a sense of shared purpose and commitment. It goes without saying that technical ability on a profile is what gets noticed initially by a Data Headhunter, but if any of the above is not aligned then it proves no service to a client looking to hire or a candidate looking for their next move. Hours are put into speaking with stakeholders of an organization, observing and learning what their beliefs, values, and culture are REALLY like. Hours are put into shortlisting and this is where we at ON Data Staffing dive deeper into the culture, beliefs, and values of the candidate too. After that, the match-making process begins. #DataRecruitment #DataHeadhunter #BigData #DataAnalytics #DataEngineering #Databricks #Snowflake #DataConsulting

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When communicating data, context is 👑 check out my pixel helping me put tomorrows weather into context by telling me how much colder it will be compared with today. 👏 #datacommunication #datastorytelling #dataviz #dataanalysis

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How do you obtain buy-in and sponsorship for data management? And, does buy-in and sponsorship automatically mean you'll have success? In Episode 35, of Season 4, of Driven By Data: The Podcast I was joined by Rupal S., Head of Data Management at ASOS.com Where we discuss how to obtain buy-in and sponsorship for data management, which includes; 🎤Ending up in Data Governance by accident 🎤Rebranding from Data Governance to Data Management 🎤The recognition that Data Management can support business goals 🎤Why repetition, persistence and resilience are the key to driving buy-in and sponsorship 🎤Using different content and analogies to communicate with different teams 🎤The importance of getting into as many meetings as possible 🎤Using a variety of different mediums to communicate with your business teams 🎤Why data management success requires a fundamental mindset shift for the entire organisation  🎤Communication differences between business teams and executives 🎤Why the perception of legacy organisations versus digital natives isn’t always accurate 🎤Prioritising which data management use cases to tackle first  🎤Why willing partners are critical and how you identify them 🎤Why people skills are so critical when working in data management 🎤How personality can take you a long way 🎤Why the perception of job titles can make a difference 🎤Balancing quick wins with long-term strategic initiatives 🎤The role of technology and tooling in data governance 🎤Why data discoverability is a critical component to success 🎤The importance of retaining and sharing company knowledge 🎤The differences between data governance and AI governance 🎤How GenAI will impact data governance  Full episode ⬇️ #datamanagement #datagovernance #sponsorship

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#MMM – A niche, but key area of Advanced Analytics The Marketing Effectiveness market has always been a notoriously difficult area for clients to hire into. However, this is an area where we are widely recognised as the go to partner across the UK (and slowly but surely #NYC) for Permanent and Contract resource. In August, we made 5 strategic hires for our UK clients in this area of analytics alone. (3 of the roles had been live internally for months!) All successfully hired candidates were submitted in our shortlists no later than 5 days after the brief - reducing time, money, and effort for the relevant stakeholders! If this sounds like problems you are having, reach out and we can discuss our approach that delivers these consistent results. #MMM #partnerships #process

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*** Data Scientist - £65k - London (3x days a week in office) *** - An awesome data-driven start-up with one of the most comprehensive data sets in the UK - real estate sector (we're talking some serious data points!!). - Very strong leadership team in place and an established team working on a number of varied and complex machine learning projects - Forecasting experience necessary - Making good use of Large Language Models too! #machinelearning #GenAI #hiring #datascience #AI

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I asked ChatGPT 4o to visualise what a data culture looks like 😬 Considering the output I got, I thought it would be better to take it to the people for this week's Debate Friday 😄 🎤 What are some key aspects or examples of a strong data culture? Would love to see some perspectives in the comments, not just from leaders leading/creating a data culture, but also from people in the data teams! Because you all are in the trenches and can literally see what works and what doesn't! Hopefully, we can all learn a thing or two. Negative points for anything rainbow-adjacent 😆 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Debate Friday is a post by me (nearly) every week around noon on Friday to promote discussion about AI, Data, Tech and anything else topical or relevant. Because who actually does any work after 12 on a Friday? And let's try to get LinkedIn back to its best - interesting and respectful conversation. #debatefriday #dataculture

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📊 Power BI seems to be continuing to take market share from the likes of Tableau, Qlik and Looker, and I'm keen to hear everyone's thoughts as to why. Many potential reasons go through my head, and it's probably a combination of a few of these. And of course, this is just my view with the customers I speak with, and organisations I hear about, so may not be the case across the board. Is it: 💥 because it's genuinely the best tool out there, for the purpose? 💥 due to business pressures to have more Microsoft products in an MS focussed organisation? 💥 because no one gets told off for buying Microsoft?! 💥 because it's cheaper for the 'out of the box' product? 💥 because it's deemed easier, and possibly cheaper, to hire resource? 💥 because it has the edge when it comes to NLP? 💥 because it's deemed as being easier to learn? 🤯 something else? Let me know your thoughts and what your honest opinion of Power BI when comparing with other tech. #powerbi #tableau #qlik #looker #datavisualisation #analytics

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If you’re wanting to move into data leadership positions, it’s often less about your technical skills.👀 I speak to loads of data professionals who have incredible technical skillsets. 📊❄️🧱 They’re the best in class, no question about it. But when they’re given the opportunity to move into leadership roles, they crumble. 🙈 They struggle to: 💥Lead a team 💥Develop a data strategy 💥Work with other non-technical leaders 💥Navigate a more complex & ‘political’ environment 💥Inspire a vision and get the best out of their technical team And it’s almost always because they walk into those roles unprepared for the steep learning curve of managing people instead of data. My best bit of advice – find a mentor who’s made the transition successfully and learn as much as possible from them. 🔥👏 Some food for thought – some of the best CDOs don’t know SQL. So what makes them so successful? #DataRecruitment #DataStrategy #DataLeadership #CDO

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I just registered for Big Data LDN 2024! Very excited to attend my first Analytics and AI event in the UK. If anyone in my network is planning to go, reach out—I’d love to connect with as many of you as possible! 🚀 #BigDataLDN #Data #BI #Analytics #BusinessIntelligence #DataRecruitment #AI #ArtificialIntelligence

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I'll tell you what Excel is... It is the bane of a lot of business people's life. The advanced functionality isn't needed by most business users. A lot of people just want to view, manage and analyse lists and use Excel for this. Often they'd be better off using Lists. Microsoft Lists is a Microsoft 365 application that helps you track information and organise your work. Are you using Lists? It's are really good place to start building visibility of things you would like to track if you're using the Microsoft suite. #trackit #traceit

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#IronViz Update #1 Story ✅ Initial Layout ✅ Wireframing ✅ Data Sources 75% created, sourcing the rest Data cleaned ❌ Data Validated ❌ Viz Extension Tutorials ✅ Viz Extensions Working ❌ Colour Scheme ✅ Mind already blown with what I’ve taken on for myself ✅ Excited ✅ Scared ✅ I love #IronViz #Tableau #DataFam

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You’d be surprised by the brand… 🤔 👀 Last week, I had a really interesting conversation with a longstanding and trusted friend from the modern data community. They shared some intriguing insights about the environment they work in—a traditional business that has adopted a modern data stack and boasts a sizable data population 📊. Despite the impressive scale of their operations, the company doesn’t strive for excellence in data. Instead, their primary focus is to keep everything running without taking any risks ⚙️. Interestingly, my friend mentioned a prevalent culture of redundancy—cuts each year, so leaders build this into their team plans. The company regularly overhires engineers, often settling for mediocre talent, to cushion themselves against potential downsizing 📉. This conversation sheds light on a different perspective within the data community—one where stability and redundancy are valued over exceptionalism and innovation 🔄. Does this resonate with anyone else.. Feel free to message me privately if it does!

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Snowflake Cortex is now available to Snowflake customers, and you may have thought - yawn - another big software company has launched Generative AI capabilities. But this is actually a game-changer for marketers. With Snowflake's Cortex now in place, brands can use Google AI, Mistral AI, Meta AI, Snowflake's own Artic, and other leading generative AI products in a secure, efficient, and user-friendly way... #CDP #customerdataplatform #snowflake

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Are you thinking about how you can improve your Data Quality? Last night, The Data Leader Guy ran our latest Data Leader Roundtable, hosted by Lénaic Guiader, Director—Global BI at HelloFresh! The discussion focused on the specific actions taken to improve data quality, increase accountability, secure leadership buy-in, and ensure that we're moving in the right direction. Thank you to Artur Yatsenko, James Arch, Elisabeth Kant, Clemence W. Chee, and Manil Manohar for taking part! #DataQuality #TheDataLeaderGuy #Data

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We just don’t understand why we’re not attracting more female Data talent ❔ This is a statement I’ve heard from a number conversations I’ve had with Heads of Data recently To put it into perspective in the UK there are roughly 38,000+ Data engineers, Analysts and Scientists Only 30% of those are female Not only in 9 out of 10 instances do businesses have a talent shortage problem They have a branding, content and marketing problem It’s never enough to post job adverts and hope "the right" person will apply ❌ If you only rely on that and not other platforms or methods to tell your story and take potential new hires on a journey then you are missing a trick At G.Digital we change perspectives on this everyday by providing insights that alter businesses understanding of what it takes to hire ⭐️ From understanding the perception of their employer-brand 📈 To understanding the challenges associated with identifying talent in a specific niche e.g engineering / cyber 🩷To sharing our approach and the successes we’ve had with our existing partners 👩🏻‍💻To identifying the best person for the job but showing you how our relationship with all of our G&T community members first began The thing that underpins how we do everything I just mentioned… Our brand 💕💕💕💕 And our ability to raise Brand awareness ✅ We aren’t just another agency, we’re a team of dedicated and experienced consultants who have the ability to wear marketing hats as well as build relationships at scale with amazingly diverse people across the tech ecosystem That combination helps us to deliver the best results for the organisations we partner with and opens teams up to growth strategies and talent to opportunities they could have never imagined ✨ If you're interested in understanding just how we can elevate your brand and make top Data specialists come to you, we should have a chat! G.Digital | G&T (girls and tech!)

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💥 This will divide opinion across the D&A community... In Q2 we conducted a series of surveys and interviews with Chief Data Officers To understand what they're doing to build and drive a 'Data Culture' It's been well documented that theres been certain businesses have built specifc 'Data Culture' teams and capabilities internally We'll be publishing this as a report next month However, one of the CDAOs we spoke to stated that... A 'Data Culture' team is uneccessary and if required then that is a Data Leadership failing 😲 Thoughts? #dataculture

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