why i stopped applying for data science jobs

January 29, 2025 - There was no way I was going to rush back into a new job. It was almost as if I just got out of a toxic relationship – I wasn’t ready to make that commitment again. Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing were high on my ‘to learn’ list for 2020. Maybe this was a sign from the heavens to buckle down and stop putting it off – this was possibly confirmed by the fact that my LinkedIn Inbox was becoming plagued with freelance opportunities.

Medium

medium.com › @ODSC › heres-why-you-aren-t-getting-a-job-in-data-science-45dbf9064934

Here’s Why You Aren’t Getting a Job in Data Science | by ODSC - Open Data Science | Medium

April 29, 2019 - This article, “What no one will tell you about data science job applications,” provides a great summary. First, due to the use of applicant tracking system software, you may be stopped at the door based on the channel you’re coming in from.

Discussions

Cant land a job in Data Science

Right now everyone and their mother is trying to get into data science. The field is flooded which makes it hard for highly qualified candidates to get a job. I don't know your qualifications but I'm guessing they aren't stellar (I'm not trying to insult you here). I have a master in Statistics and a decade of Data Science work including running teams and it took me 6 months and over 100 applications to land a position last time I looked, which was a few years ago. I've heard the market is even tougher now. If you just have some online classes you won't land a position as a Data Scientist. You will have to lower your expectations and target a Data or Business analyst position to get your foot in the door. More on reddit.com

r/datascience

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March 28, 2024

Been unemployed for 3 years with a master's degree in Data Science, I don't know what to do anymore. I've lost all hope.

If the D.S jobs aren’t there, you have to adapt and learn the skills Jobs that ARE out there DO require. It’s a rough world. Sorry you’re going through this. More on reddit.com

r/careeradvice

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October 27, 2025

I need to accept that I’ll never get a Data Science role.

Did you get a bachelors or a masters degree? Most companies, and pretty much every role I’ve been hired for, has required a masters degree. If you’re set on working in the field, I would look at a grad program of some kind. Other than that, you should definitely be looking at smaller companies in all the major tech hubs - NYC, SF, Seattle will all have orders of magnitude more quality job postings than other cities, and smaller companies will have more lax educational requirements More on reddit.com

r/DataScienceJobs

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November 29, 2025

2 YOE Data Scientist [Unemployed in data field] Burnt out and feeling helpless.

I helped the bakery understand their customers better and made their data systems smarter so decisions could be faster and safer I had stopped reading after this bullet. Paused, went back, read rest. All the other ones were better than this one, which is being the very first. I'd suggest you rephrase the opening bullets in both of your experience entries. They sound dullish and vague, whereas they should pique one's interest to read all the following ones. By the way, link to full resume you've provided is not open to anyone with link (was prompted to ask for permission), don't know if its intentional? couldn't comment on the whole picture due to this unfortunately Wishing you all the best! More on reddit.com

r/datascience

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November 27, 2025

Medium

medium.com › data-science › why-i-stopped-applying-for-data-science-jobs-7b93b3b8153b

Why I Stopped Applying For Data Science Jobs | by Kurtis Pykes | TDS Archive | Medium

January 7, 2022 - I’d spent the last 18 months there and had nothing to show for it. I could point the finger since there were never any talks of plans to introduce data-driven decisions into the company’s workflow, but I’m big on taking responsibility for my bloopers. Besides, Covid-19 had hit the company badly.

Quora

quora.com › Why-did-you-stop-being-a-data-scientist

Why did you stop being a data scientist? - Quora

Answer (1 of 2): The answer is I didn’t. But I know people who have changed fields and here are a few reasons why: 1. Inconsistency in job requirements: For some companies, data scientists are people who only work in SQL and Tableau.

Medium

medium.com › pipeline-a-data-engineering-resource › i-landed-2-data-science-jobs-but-only-after-i-stopped-applying-b2abefa0b58c

I Landed 2 Data Science Jobs — But Only After I Stopped Applying

December 21, 2023 - Facing data science job rejection? You might be applying too much. Learn how to focus your ambitions and your search for data science roles.

Open Data Science

opendatascience.com › home › blog › here’s why you aren’t getting a job in data science

Here’s Why You Aren’t Getting a Job in Data Science -

March 2, 2022 - This article, “What no one will tell you about data science job applications,” provides a great summary. First, due to the use of applicant tracking system software, you may be stopped at the door based on the channel you’re coming in from.

Dataquest

dataquest.io › blog › reasons-why-youre-getting-rejected-for-data-science-jobs

17 Reasons Why You’re Getting Rejected for Data Science Jobs– Dataquest

November 7, 2024 - Not all data science jobs are created equal. While data science roles may have a lot of overlap, some have radically different requirements. If your applications are getting constant rejections, there might be a mismatch between your qualifications and the roles you’re applying to.

reddit.com › r/datascience › cant land a job in data science

r/datascience on Reddit: Cant land a job in Data Science

March 28, 2024 -

I quit my job in an unrelated field to pursue my dream and failed. I thought I would make it but I didnt.

This is not a rant. Im looking for advice because I feel pretty lost. I honestly dont feel like going back to my field because I dont have it in me. But I cant stay jobless forever. Im having a mental breakdown accepting I may not get into DS so soon because Ive made so many projections about future me as a data guy. Its not easy to let go of them.

Top answer

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Right now everyone and their mother is trying to get into data science. The field is flooded which makes it hard for highly qualified candidates to get a job. I don't know your qualifications but I'm guessing they aren't stellar (I'm not trying to insult you here). I have a master in Statistics and a decade of Data Science work including running teams and it took me 6 months and over 100 applications to land a position last time I looked, which was a few years ago. I've heard the market is even tougher now. If you just have some online classes you won't land a position as a Data Scientist. You will have to lower your expectations and target a Data or Business analyst position to get your foot in the door.

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Shoot for an analyst role and keep trying for a ds job.

reddit.com › r/careeradvice › been unemployed for 3 years with a master's degree in data science, i don't know what to do anymore. i've lost all hope.

r/careeradvice on Reddit: Been unemployed for 3 years with a master's degree in Data Science, I don't know what to do anymore. I've lost all hope.

October 27, 2025 -

Hey guys, just to summarize a little, I graduated in 2023 with a master's degree in Data Science from a university in the US. I'll be honest, I didn't take applying to jobs seriously in my last year and I'm pretty sure I missed the window for applications. Since then, I've been applying on and off, with no luck, all rejections. I would get some interviews, but then I'd get ghosted before the interview. I'm really tired now. It's been 3 years and I've run out of money. I worked an odd job for a long time that took a toll on my mental health, so I had to leave. I live with an extended relative who has been kind enough to support me for this long. I was always an A grade student, I graduated with a 3.8. I never saw this for myself. I don't know what to do anymore. Job apps exhaust me now, especially knowing they aren't amounting to anything. I want to pivot but I'm scared that won't work either. I don't know what to do.

EDIT: Honestly thank you SO much to everyone who gave me advice I’ve been literally miserable applying and now I’ve gotten some really good insight !! Thanks so much all of you 😭

Top answer

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If the D.S jobs aren’t there, you have to adapt and learn the skills Jobs that ARE out there DO require. It’s a rough world. Sorry you’re going through this.

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You need to gamify your job search. Give yourself targets that are attainable and celebrate hitting your targets. Set a date by which you will stop applying for the jobs you're hoping for, and lower your expectation of what job title you will start with. Sounds like experience in the field may be hanging you up. Maybe shadow some folks and ask for advice. Maybe do an internship if need be. Best of luck.

Find elsewhere

Google Bing Mojeek

Medium

medium.com › data-science-collective › the-unfair-way-i-got-my-first-data-science-job-289345efd4f6

Don’t Bother Applying to Data Science Jobs in 2025 | by Marina Wyss | Data Science Collective | Medium

April 2, 2026 - Don’t Bother Applying to Data Science Jobs in 2025 Do this instead. Imagine getting your first data science job without even applying for it — especially when you come from a non-technical …

reddit.com › r/datasciencejobs › i need to accept that i’ll never get a data science role.

r/DataScienceJobs on Reddit: I need to accept that I’ll never get a Data Science role.

November 29, 2025 -

I studied Data Science at a massive SEC school and got my degree in May of 2024, and despite getting glowing reviews at my internship, I couldn’t secure a full time role due to budget cuts at the company I interned at.

Fast forward 9 months, 800+ applications, and a part-time job at my local grocery store later, I finally land a role in B2B sales at a Fortune 500.

It didn’t take me very long to figure out that I am not good at sales and that I wouldn’t make it very long. I started this job in May and the fact that I made it this far is a shock to me, because they love to fire due to underperformance. I can only coast for so long. I need to get out before I get put on a PIP, because if I get put on a PIP and I have nothing lined up, I’m cooked.

I’m mainly looking in Houston, but am open to remote/hybrid roles, and am willing to relocate.

I feel defeated because even though I have work experience now, it’s not in anyway related to data science.

I’m kind of ranting on Reddit because networking has been hit or miss for me.

Ask me anything, and I can elaborate.

My top technical skills are in Python & R, but I have experience in Tableau, SQL, ArcGIS, and Java.

EDIT: Fixed for typos

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Did you get a bachelors or a masters degree? Most companies, and pretty much every role I’ve been hired for, has required a masters degree. If you’re set on working in the field, I would look at a grad program of some kind. Other than that, you should definitely be looking at smaller companies in all the major tech hubs - NYC, SF, Seattle will all have orders of magnitude more quality job postings than other cities, and smaller companies will have more lax educational requirements

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You probably have 40 years until you retire. Data science didn’t really exist when I finished my undergrad with a liberal arts degree, and yet I still managed to get a masters degree and become a data scientist. You can too, your path just won’t look like you expected.

Medium

medium.com › data-science › unable-to-land-a-data-science-job-heres-why-399f6d063abe

Unable to Land a Data Science Job? Here’s Why. | by Natassha Selvaraj | TDS Archive | Medium

August 16, 2021 - Unable to Land a Data Science Job? Here’s Why. You’ve been taking the wrong advice. I have a degree in psychology. I wanted to pursue data science so I enrolled into a bootcamp. I’ve been …

KDnuggets

kdnuggets.com › 7-reasons-why-youre-struggling-to-land-a-data-science-job

7 Reasons Why You’re Struggling to Land a Data Science Job - KDnuggets

December 20, 2023 - Because of how competitive the job market is right now, you have to go beyond just applying to jobs—and start being more proactive. ... Shortlist companies you're interested in. Check for relevant openings. Reach out to the recruiter with your resume and portfolio explaining why you would be a good fit for the role. Connect with other professionals. Get into the habit of networking even when you have a stable full-time job. Joining data science communities online can also be super helpful!

Quora

quora.com › Why-did-you-quit-Data-Science

Why did you quit Data Science? - Quora

Answer (1 of 12): I might not be perfectly eligible to answer this question as I am still in my Postgrad year. But in my learning phase, I have realized Data Science is not just about writing code. 1.) Data Science uses machine learning and statistics which are purely based on mathematics. 2.) ...

Medium

medium.com › data-science › why-it-feels-impossible-to-get-a-data-science-job-398d57de464c

Why It Feels Impossible to Get a Data Science Job | by Egor Howell | TDS Archive | Medium

March 15, 2025 - Why It Feels Impossible to Get a Data Science Job Reasons why the market is tough and what you can do about it Apparently, “data is the new oil,” with huge demand growing yearly, so why does it …

Medium

nathanrosidi.medium.com › how-we-oversaturated-the-data-science-job-market-52dc88ffe50c

How We Oversaturated the Data Science Job Market | by Nathan Rosidi | Medium

July 7, 2025 - The rest are grinding on Fiverr or Upwork, selling “data visualization services” for $10 a pop. This isn’t the glamorous, six-figure career we were promised. Now, if you’re still clinging to the data science dream, here’s the brutal truth: you need to level up. No more cutting corners. No more thinking a bootcamp will save you. What you need is this. ... 1. A specialized skill. Stop being a generalist.

reddit.com › r/datascience › 2 yoe data scientist [unemployed in data field] burnt out and feeling helpless.

r/datascience on Reddit: 2 YOE Data Scientist [Unemployed in data field] Burnt out and feeling helpless.

November 27, 2025 -

Full resume Link.

Hello everyone. I am a 25 year old international student in the UK, who is heavily struggling to even land interviews and drowning in debt. I have tried retail/marketing industry and even Finance industry as I have the experience related to both of them. I also apply do not spray and pray. I send emails to hiring teams and people of the company after applying just to get in their radar.

The freelancing job (The remote one) that I had, came from my Fiverr Gigs and It was going pretty well. I had to stop it because I moved to the UK for further studies in the hopes of getting better career progression. I think that I kinda messed up too by not applying for internships or even graduate programs (As I had experience on my CV).

The last job I had was also a contractual job for 4 months and It came from the same company where I was working as a store manager (Retail). I have landed like 3 or 4 interviews in 3 years and am really really really struggling to understand what is going wrong. Is it my freelancing experience? Because I have learned a lot about CV's, applying to specific industry, working on stuff that the specific industry needs/wants. But I just simply do not understand. I am just lost literally lost.

I would really really appreciate any help and honest feedback/advice, I know I will be grilled but sure bring it in it might help me. Thank you so much.

Top answer

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I helped the bakery understand their customers better and made their data systems smarter so decisions could be faster and safer I had stopped reading after this bullet. Paused, went back, read rest. All the other ones were better than this one, which is being the very first. I'd suggest you rephrase the opening bullets in both of your experience entries. They sound dullish and vague, whereas they should pique one's interest to read all the following ones. By the way, link to full resume you've provided is not open to anyone with link (was prompted to ask for permission), don't know if its intentional? couldn't comment on the whole picture due to this unfortunately Wishing you all the best!

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I will be real with you, I have 4 years of experience and I operate as a senior and im not landing interviews as i did in the past. Its a tough market. As for your experience its pretty general and not specific or technical enough. For A/B testing credit risk I dont really get it. How do you A/B test a credit risk rule? Are you loosening up volume so you do A/B test or is it cutting out volume for default. Also its not really compliant to randomly reject/accept people. Are you running a switchback test instead? What i am saying is, credit risk is one of the things where experimentation isnt as easy simply due to the risk to business. I can speak on this because I work on credit risk and finance for a living and I am more confused than intrigued by that one bullet point for example. So how would a hiring manager feel? As for the kmean it sounds like flawed logic. this is implying correlation to causation. How do you know your segmentation actually drove spending. That is a causal inference problem. You can deadass be segmenting the will always buy customers not the persuadables. The communication part is a pointless bullet point. Id much rather say what is the innovation you pushed and how you made a business impact. Also quantify your impact on the aws stuff dude. That is so general. Did you build a script that takes 20 hours and costs a lot of money or is it a well optimized script? It makes sense for you to intuitively know but an outsider wouldn’t. Also the CV just has a lot of holes, the fact you are using accuracy as metric for an imbalanced classification problem tells me bad things about this CV and your exposure to the field. Id really brush up on credit risk and precision/recall + auc. Im giving you tough feedback but these are legitimate problems I see in a CV, I did handle people CVs and I would put these in my notes. I wouldnt disqualify them but i also wouldn’t put them top of the pile either. Like the first thing ill get is that you dont actually question your own assumptions about the work and just go through the motions that means I would have to basically put in wayy to much time just to make sure the work you produce is even adequate. These are mistakes that shouldn’t be considered given the years of experience you have. Also a big thing i am noticing is that it seems that none of your models get past a notebook. It seems mostly just POC. So to your question no, this has everything to do with the quality of work you do. Not with the gigs. You can remove junior title on your CV and I would still not give the interview. Most people saying its the junior are giving you superficial advice. The problem runs deep and the work is not aligned to industry standards at all. I am not sure exactly how you can fix this because if you lie about projects people will also see through that. The work is not really good.

KDnuggets

kdnuggets.com › 7-mistakes-data-scientists-make-when-applying-for-jobs

7 Mistakes Data Scientists Make When Applying for Jobs - KDnuggets

July 2, 2025 - The data science job market is crowded. Employers and recruiters are sometimes real a-holes who ghost you just when you thought you’d start negotiating your salary. As if fighting your competition, recruiters, and employers is not enough, ...

Towards Data Science

towardsdatascience.com › home › latest › why you can’t get a data science job

Why You Can't Get a Data Science Job | Towards Data Science

January 28, 2025 - You can have the relevant skills for the role but the hiring manager can’t be sure you actually know how to apply them. To stand out from the crowd, you’ll need to show your ability to apply data science to business problems. ... Create projects to show you know how to apply data science in the real world.

Interview Query

interviewquery.com › p › data-science-job-market-disappearing

The Data Science Job Market is Disappearing (Updated in 2025)

March 17, 2026 - But data scientists are losing ground faster. But it’s likely because the data science role is getting split into multiple different titles. And conveniently cheaper ones. A “data scientist” is a luxury, while a “data analyst” on the ...