Mark Stevenson is the Head of Applied Data Science at the global sports streaming company DAZN. He joins Wendy this week on Would You Data to discuss his work at DAZN, how he thinks you can pivot into data, what he looks for when hiring, and why you should take a lower paying role for your first position.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• As a hiring manager Mark looks for problem solvers, people with persistence, and someone with a suitable level of coding and data knowledge. He also looks for people who can collaborate in a team, a skill which is highly transferable.
• The work Mark does at DAZN includes using data to work out which users are likely to cancel their subscriptions and how to keep them, and which sports events people are going to want to watch.
• If you’re looking to pivot into data then you should have a portfolio of work you’ve done off your own back around data. Mark, as a keen football fan, did his own analysis of sports data.
• You can’t expect your first role in data to be as well paid as your previous role, however taking the lower paid position now, will pay off in 2 or 3 years time.
• When hiring Mark tries to be as blind on background and where you were educated as possible. And when looking through the answers of tech tests, he doesn't care about the answer being right, it’s about if you can talk through how you came to those conclusions.
• When posting jobs, Mark runs his adverts through a filter to see if he has used any gendered words. Male gendered words tend to put female candidates off applying. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘The barriers to entry for the industry have reduced’

‘Some people are good to go down the applied route and some that education route’

‘Getting your foot in the door now is going to pay off’

‘People grow to appreciate what you can do rather than your experience’

VALUABLE RESOURCES

linkedin.com/in/ethicalrecruiter

qwerkrecruitment.com

@qwerkrec on socials

https://markrstevenson.com/

https://openai.com/dall-e-2/ 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Mark is an applied machine learning leader, a technologist, a futurist and a techno-optimist. He enjoys using maths and algorithms to make businesses better and can speak to both the data side of things and the business side of things. Mark is currently the Head of Applied Data Science at the global sports streaming company DAZN. Before that, he worked across industries at the globally renowned consultancy firm PwC.

ABOUT THE HOST

Wendy Gannon started Qwerk Recruitment in the middle of the Covid Pandemic to disrupt the recruitment sector with ETHICAL data recruitment and treat everyone with love, dignity and respect. Avid Music photographer of 15 years.

PODCAST DESCRIPTION

Interviewing successful Data Scientists to find out about their journey into Data Science and any struggles they’ve faced to help next generation Data Scientists from all walks of life to access their dream career.

This show was brought to you by Progressive Media