During my process of applying for jobs, I came across this post by Robert Chang that nicely explains what could be expected from an employee doing data science.
This is very handy, especially because many companies still have no idea what they are looking for when they want to hire someone in this field. Add to this a popular term like “Big Data” and as an applicant you indeed get the feeling that companies are looking for unicorns. The best description of “Big Data” I read so far is covered in the quote by Dan Ariely below (also in the post by Robert Chang) and was even raised in DWDD, a popular tv show in the Netherlands.

“Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…” — Dan Ariely