What's your job about?
I am working with Inland Revenue (Te Tari Taake), the public service department of New Zealand to advise the government on tax policy, collect and disburse payments for social support programmes, and collect taxes. I am an L1 analyst in the Talent and Analytics team, mainly responsible for managing people's data. As people's data includes many individual privacies such as date of birth, gender, salary etc., not every employee has access to the data. A critical part of my work is to manage data queries from other people, pull data from systems per their needs and share the data with them. Besides, I am responsible for regular reporting. I retrieve data from IR’s people systems, combine data from various sources to show multiple information in one report, format the data to make it look beautiful and store them in designated folders where others could access it. I do some analysis work to get insights from data. For example, IR has launched some surveys aimed to have a better understanding of employees’ perception of working in IR. Recently, I did an analysis of people’s comments regarding their work experience in IR and found that people valued the flexibility which helps them balance work and life. They offered good suggestions regarding employment opportunities and career progression. The findings were very insightful for the management team to make better decisions.
What's your background?
I grew up in China and came to New Zealand in Nov 2019. I come from a city located in central China, which is even not known to many Chinese. I worked hard at school to pass the college entrance examination and get into my dream university which is in Shanghai, 1000 kilometres away from my hometown. During my high school, an English teacher came from New Zealand to teach us spoken English for a semester. She was a very kind lady. She introduced the country of New Zealand, the blue sky, the white cloud, and the incredible natural scenery to us. She inspired me to have the thought of coming to New Zealand. After graduation, I worked at multinational companies in Shanghai and kept the dream of coming to New Zealand in my mind. In 2018, I decided to pursue my masters in New Zealand. I started my IELTS preparation along with my student visa while working simultaneously. Everything went smoothly, and I eventually came to New Zealand in November 2019. After graduating from Massey University in May 2021, I started my job hunt. It was a bit painful, but soon I was successful & in October 2021 started my role at IR.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
I think the answer is yes. If the person loves data, is eager to learn new things, is self-motivated, and has a good eye for detail, then it’s possible for the person to do my job. I truly believe that IR is a good workplace where you will get many learning opportunities. You can learn the skills by doing your job, learn from your colleagues & from both internal and external resources. You get the chance to grow and broaden your skillset.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I love my team. They are in three different cities, Wellington, Hamilton, and Auckland. We have virtual team meetings every week. It’s a medium for us to catch up & share our experiences. We all have different skills; it enables us to share information & learn from each other.
What are the limitations of your job?
The biggest limitation is when the data analysis does not provide any findings. We expect to get insights from datasets but at times transformation, manipulation, regression etc., does not result in any outcome. “Sometimes we must accept that no finding is also a finding”.
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