Comment by cupofpython

>The entire industry focuses way too much on 'experience with tool X' as a proxy for 'technical skill Y'

Strongly emphasizing this. This is HIGHY applicable to the analytics environment. As a business analyst who specialized in mostly ad-hoc development because it was the most value-add area at the companies I worked with.. I had a lot of trouble finding new work because I didnt use Tableau, or Power BI, or Looker, etc. I was some sort of fool for doing everything in SQL, Excel, and Python.

IMO the tools are great, and you need a much lower level understanding of analytical concepts to get value from them. But for some reason people kept getting the impression I would somehow be less effective with them because I dont use them. And I had trouble correcting them with the limited bandwidth that exists to communicate with a single applicant in the hiring process. If I tried to get right to the point, I felt myself appearing arrogant.

The carpentry analogy is very similar to how i described it. "I am currently using a ruler and screwdriver, and these tools provide lasers and power drills"