Interview: Amy Gaskins, AVP, MetLife on New Era Hiring at MetLife through Synapse
We discuss the motivation behind launch of Synapse, updating the recruitment process to meet today's needs, data science trends, career advice, important soft skills and more.

First part of interview.
Here is the second and last part of my interview with her:
Anmol Rajpurohit: Q4. What was the inspiration behind launching Synapse for hiring at MetLife? How does it improve the recruitment process?

Really good candidates don’t want to create another account, upload their resume and other information into a system, and then wait forever to be called.
On our side, resumes don’t give us a good idea of a candidate’s skills, especially for developers. Even if a candidate’s resume says that they’re an expert Java developer, how do we really know? We wouldn't be able tell from their resume unless it was actually written in code, so why not give them a place to do that? And thus, Synapse was born. The condensed application process allows candidates to show off their coding skills and lets us reduce wait time by quickly validating their entries. Synapse creates a user-friendly experience on both sides, which is what we’re all about.
AR: Q5. Which of the current trends in the field of Data Science are of the most interest to you?
AG: Data science as a field is maturing, so it’s great to see some consensus around the idea that there can be multiple types of data scientists.

AR: Q6. What is the best advice you have gotten in your career?
AG: The best advice that I've gotten is something people hear me say a lot: Stop caring so much about what other people think. It can come across as harsh, but the real message is that people tend to be pretty self-absorbed and they’re too busy being concerned with themselves to think about you.
I've watched employees become
paralyzed trying to anticipatethe reactions of every possible stakeholder because they’re worried about upsetting someone. I try to remind them that no matter what decision they make, not everyone is going to like it
and that’s okay.
Plus, most people are going to forget a “catastrophic” presentation, email, whatever, well before you do, so stop beating yourself up about it and move on. Adopting that mindset builds resilience and courage.
AR: Q7. What soft skills do you think are the most important for practitioners in the field of Data Science?
AG: There are two big ones. The first is empathy. This is where so many data science teams fail to deliver and end up frustrating the business. It’s impossible to help your business customer if you can’t understand a problem from their point of view.

AR: Q8. What book (or article) did you read recently and would strongly recommend?

I’d be remiss if I didn't also mention Simon Sinek's Leaders Eat Last. It should be required reading for people managers (or for those aspiring to be one).
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