🔹 DATA ANALYST – INTERVIEW REVISION SHEET

1️⃣ Role Clarity
> “A data analyst collects, cleans, analyzes data, and converts it into insights that help businesses make decisions.”

2️⃣ SQL (Most Important)
Must-know clauses:
• SELECT, WHERE, ORDER BY, LIMIT
• GROUP BY, HAVING
• JOINS (INNER, LEFT)
• Subqueries, CTEs
• Window functions (ROW_NUMBER, RANK)
Golden rules:
• WHERE → before aggregation
• HAVING → after aggregation
• LEFT JOIN → keeps all left table rows
• NULLs break calculations → use COALESCE
Classic questions:
• Top N per group
• Find duplicates
• Running totals

3️⃣ Excel Essentials
Formulas:
• IF, XLOOKUP
• COUNTIFS, SUMIFS
• TRIM, LEFT, RIGHT
Core features:
• Pivot tables
• Conditional formatting
• Data validation (dropdowns)
Avoid:
• Merged cells
• Hard-coded values

4️⃣ Power BI / Tableau
Concepts:
• Data model (star schema)
• Relationships (one-to-many)
• Measures > calculated columns
Must-know DAX:
• Total Sales = SUM(Sales[Amount])
• YTD Sales = TOTALYTD(SUM(Sales[Amount]), Sales[Date])
Design rules:
• KPIs on top
• One story per dashboard
• Minimal visuals

5️⃣ Statistics (Only What Matters)
• Mean vs Median
• Standard deviation
• Correlation ≠ causation
• Outliers distort averages
• Use median for Salaries, House prices

6️⃣ Data Cleaning (Interview Gold)
Steps you should say:
1. Remove duplicates
2. Handle missing values
3. Fix data types
4. Standardize text

7️⃣ Business Metrics
• Revenue
• Growth rate
• Conversion rate
• Churn
• Retention
• Average order value
Always connect metrics to business impact.

8️⃣ Case Question Framework (Very Important)
Always answer like this:
1. What happened
2. Why it happened
3. What should be done
Example:
> “Sales dropped due to lower traffic in one region, so I’d recommend increasing marketing spend there.”

9️⃣ Project Explanation Template
> “The goal was . I used to clean data, to analyze, and to visualize. The key insight was . The business impact was .”
Memorize this.

🔟 HR Power Answers
Why data analyst?
> “I enjoy finding patterns in data and turning them into actionable insights.”
Strength:
“I combine technical skills with business understanding.”
Weakness:
“I used to over-analyze, but now I focus on impact.”

🧠 Last-Day Interview Tips
• Think out loud
• Ask clarifying questions
• Don’t jump to tools immediately
• Focus on impact, not syntax

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