How The Allyance helped a Data Scientist land her dream job amidst a pandemic
💖 The purpose of The Allyance is to help both companies and candidates: companies wanting to reach excellence in hiring and candidates wanting to find the perfect companies.
Once a maths teacher, she trained to become a Data Scientist. Sandrine Pataut used to live in London and reached out to The Allyance to land a job in France. Guess what? She did!
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🔗 COACH ME IF YOU CAN N°7 - Sandrine Pataut
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Who are you? Tell us everything!
✔️ My name is Sandrine, I am 42 years old and I was born in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, not far from Paris.
My background is not typical for someone who works in the tech: I’m neither a trained coder nor data scientist! I studied mathematics and became a maths teacher. After several years, I decided to move to London to teach mathematics in English!
One thing leading to another, I slid into data science by training myself. I was hired as a Data Scientist first in in a start-up and then in a big insurance company called QBE in London. After 3 years at QBE, I decided to relocate in France where I was hired as a Data Scientist at Société Générale Banque d’Investissement in August 2021, thanks to The Allyance !
🏀 In my free time, I do lots of different sports, I read comics, fiction and essays, I meet with my friends and I play board games.
D&I has always been an important topic for me. When I used to live in London, I co-founded a meetup called “AI club for gender minorities” and attended PyDataLondon. We had a lot of practical workshops and built a community. I would like to be involved in that kind of groups in France. Hopefully soon!
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Club for Gender Minorities!, the meetup Sandrine created in London
How do you know Caroline Chavier? The Allyance?
🎯 When I was in the United-Kingdom, looking for a job in France, I pinged some Slack groups and someone from WiMLDS (Women in Machine Learning and Data Science) pointed me towards Caroline.
What was your goal when you reached out to The Allyance?
➡️ For 15 years as a teacher, my CV was useless. I had only searched for jobs in the UK, and still… The positions I found were thanks to my network. I wanted to go back to France and get help on my CV, which I thought I had to translate into French: I was wrong! English is enough in the tech industry.
➡️ I also wanted to get help to get ready for job interviews. I only interviewed for English-speaking opportunities and wanted to adapt to a new job market.
➡️ I also needed advice about the work environment: my main objective was to get a job with a healthy team. That’s when Caroline’s D&I vision and knowledge of French companies became really precious.
How did Caroline help you find your current job?
🔊 We worked a lot on how to introduce my background with clarity to catch interviewers’ attention. During each coasching session, I repeated it until it became flawless. Of course, we also worked on my ability to answer the interview questions, to express what I was looking for… etc. Caroline also helped me identify the job offers I could apply to.
I got my current job thanks to Caroline’s network. After a LinkedIn post, I got contacted by Société Générale and many other companies. When I was interviewing, I made to apply all of Caroline’s pieces of advice. I got hired !
Since then, I have been really happy at Société Générale. The team is nice and the job is interesting. I feel at ease and confident even if it’s different than in my previous jobs.
Thanks to this Linkedin post, Sandrine landed a job at Société Générale!
What made the coaching sessions with Caroline Chavier unique according to you?
🧡 Caroline always managed to precisely point out what I had to improve. She gave me personalised advice.
I could see that she knew what she was doing. She has an excellent knowledge of the tech industry, whether it is from a tech or from an HR perspective.
And last but not least, she’s so positive and solution-oriented! Each of her remarks is always constructive and efficient.
Why do you like being a Data Scientist?
📊 Working on Data Science brings the certitude to work a diverse set of tasks! Building the project with the business teams, coding, modelizing, deploying various useful projects…
Moreover, I do think I have the perfect skills for this job: I love to constantly learn new things. Working in tech is guarantee to be exposed to new problems and methods.
The reason I wanted to switch jobs is because I did not want to become weary of my job as a teacher. Today, I spot a link between my job as a teacher and being a Data Science: the need to communicate. I should be able to explain difficult concepts in a simple way, and see if I got understood (or not)!
How do you keep yourself up to date with Data Science topics and methodologies?
▶️ I mainly read articles, blogs and obviously, whenever possible, I go to meetups and conferences.
Name a well-known person you admire. Tell us why you admire that person!
📍 Generally, I am not into admiring anyone. Everyone has a contribution to make and many people can challenge the way you think.
I would say that I really loved working with Jean-Pierre Mastrangelo, Principal Data Scientist at Qbe in London. He taught me a lot and has a great experience in Data Science. He’s so interesting and most importantly, he loves to share knowledge!
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A few words from Caroline, The Allyance CEO:
“💎 Sandrine’s coaching was a challenging one yet I knew I could help her. Our common passion for Machine Learning and Data Science made it easy for us to work together. Helping her was challenging not because of her background but because we had to navigate the pandemic and the numerous lockdowns! Sandrine is bubble of fresh air, curious, positive and passionate. I am sure we will keep working together for community purposes!
✔️ Want more?
➡️ If you are interested in knowing more about The Allyance Coaching Offer and the prices, feel free to read this complete piece on the matter or read the feedback from our coachees! You can also get in touch with The Allyance team and book a free conversation below.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
✒️ Léa C, The Allyance Contributor: “I joined The Allyance after Caroline and I met at a ionnalee’s concert! I am a freelance translator and content writer (French, English, Spanish and German). I also work as an administrative employee in the health and data science sector. So, I am not far from Caroline’s core topic! I am very active as a volunteer in social and environmental NGOs, where I always try to put intersectionality at the center of actions because I am convinced that every cause is linked to one another. It is readily apparent that Caroline and I share a lot of common interests, which is why we as friends decided to work together!”