In June 2020, I began dedicating an hour of my week to speaking with strangers. I enjoy meeting new people and missed attending events, and I believed that I could use my experience to help others. Throughout my life, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive guidance and support from people who mentored me without expecting anything in return. I wanted to give back to society by offering the same kindness.
Initially, I wasn’t certain if anyone would be interested in speaking with me. However, to my surprise, within a few minutes, I received over 20 requests from people who wished to speak with me.
Hoy he hecho una videollamada con un aspirante a datascientist que quería mi opinión sobre cómo continuar su formación y qué tipo de proyectos se hacen en la industria. Estoy planteándome dedicar una hora a la semana para este tipo de charlas. Os interesaría? pic.twitter.com/5RHnOM8Ywg
— Pelayo Arbués (@pelayoarbues) June 15, 2020
Since then, up until September 2024, I’ve had over 90 conversations with people I’ve never met. Most of these individuals wished to discuss one of the following topics:
-
Career advice: What to study to become a data professional, the data roles market, how to build a strategy to land your first data job , recommendations about companies/sectors, moving to management from a technical role…
-
Dataholic Anonymous meetings with individuals who have a similar level of experience. It’s great to share pain points and challenges with others. It’s quite a relief to realize that you’re not the only one experiencing certain issues and to feel understood by a peer.
-
Team management: The difficulties of expanding a team, explaining the ROI to the board, selecting battles to fight, and more.
-
Data product management: How to uncover opportunities, working with other roles, managing data projects, and more.
-
Data strategy: Advice on establishing or expanding a data team, when to hire the first data scientist, how to locate data scientists, selecting which projects to work on, and more.
Things I do not offer:
-
Free consultancy, including reviewing products, assisting with finding new talent, or writing job descriptions. If you would like access to my network of data roles or would like to consult with me, I can share my rates with you.
-
Proofreading blog posts, scientific papers, Ph.D. theses.
-
Recommending you for a role without knowing you.
If you would like to meet, you can check my calendar to see if there are any dates available. If you cannot find a free slot, you can also try to reach me and ask me anything via the social networks links at the bottom of this page.