A senior leader asks you to "find data that proves" their new campaign worked. Your analysis suggests it did not. What do you do?

What the interviewer wants to hear

• Reframes the request as an honest evaluation
• Double-checks own method and data before reporting
• Shares findings privately and early with evidence
• Highlights what did work or what can be learned
• Keeps integrity and does not cherry-pick

Model answer

I would gently reframe the request: my job is to measure the campaign fairly, because a result that cannot survive scrutiny will hurt the leader later. Before reporting, I double-check my work: the comparison period, the control group or baseline, seasonality and whether the data is complete, and I might ask a peer to review it. Then I share the finding with the leader privately and early, not first in a big meeting. I show the evidence simply and explain what would have counted as success. I also look for useful lessons, such as one channel or segment that did respond, or ideas for a better test next time. I will not cherry-pick a date range or metric to make it look good, because once analysts do that, nobody can trust any dashboard. In my experience, leaders respect honest work delivered respectfully.

More hard Data Analyst questions

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• Marketing wants to segment customers for targeted campaigns. How would you build the segmentation, and how would you know it is useful?
• Your executive dashboard was wrong twice last quarter and leaders have stopped trusting it. How do you rebuild trust?