I'm asked to describe my experience in data mining

[jingramm]

I am trying to obtain a new job and I am asked to describe my experience with data mining. What are some specific examples of data mining? What are the software used? I've done a lot of data analysis throughout my work experience that will probably qualify and I'm trying to make them fit.

For example, I was given a large set of unstructured data which I had to cleanse and filter. Then I would build reports off of this new set of cleansed data, all in Excel. Does something like this qualify?

Or is this considered more data mining: gathering a lot of historical data using API for a certain stock and using statistics to discover some insight including volatility and hedge ratios

 

[Savatar]

While data transformation is a step in data mining in general, that doesn't really count and I don't think people who do data mining would be very impressed with Excel work. You could probably still mention the project, though. The other one sounds like it is kind of like data mining.

I would advise checking out a book on the subject... for example: http://www.amazon.com/Data-Mining-Pr...ds=data+mining

It goes over one of the most popular open source data mining tools called Weka: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weka_(machine_learning, while giving a good overall view of data mining. Other tools that some companies use for this include Informatica for data transformation and loading, and something like Oracle/OBIEE or MS SQL/Microsoft Analysis Services for analytics. For more advanced data mining practices, introduce yourself to heuristic search techniques / bayesian networks.

I recommend familiarizing yourself with star schemas (for example, how dimension and fact tables are used) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_schema ... and at the bare minimum check out and make sure you understand the wikipedia page on data mining ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_mining )

It's quite different from working in excel or even traditional databases... it gets into statistics and stuff, so a strong background in mathematics is very helpful. It can be kind of intimidating if you're new to it, so if it's a job asking for data mining experience, it might not be something you're ready for -- but don't let that intimidate you, there are parts of it that anyone can do - and I believe most people can learn it!

Whatever you do - don't lie! Just let them know you haven't had many opportunities to do much data mining yet, except for the examples that you mentioned... and that you have done some research on data mining topics in your free time and would be excited at the opportunity to do more in that area. I hope this helps!