Perfecting Your Portfolio
Lauren Rosenthal
Maven Analytics B2B Customer Success Lead & Analytics Specialist | Data Literacy Obsessed | SQL | Customer Success
By Lauren Rosenthal and Kimberly Richey
Confession time: When we both started taking courses on data analytics the need for building a solid portfolio was not made abundantly clear. It was only after getting a bit further into coursework that we each had the moment of realization that went something like “Oh crap! How am I going to show potential employers that I have analytics skills and can think like an analyst?”. And that is the moment we realized how important building a well-rounded portfolio is, especially when you are making a career pivot. So please let us save you some portfolio building heartache with the 5 W’s of Portfolios.
What is a portfolio?
A portfolio is a digital place you create to showcase your newly emerging data analyst skills- your SQL coding or your latest visualization dashboard. A good portfolio shows how you took raw data, cleaned it, answered questions by manipulating the data and created visuals of those insights.
Why do you need one?
A portfolio is critical to have when applying to any data analyst role, but it is especially important when you’re applying to your first analyst role. You need to be able to demonstrate that you have 1. The technical skills to organize the data and 2. The ability to think like an analyst. A well designed portfolio does exactly this.
What do you put in a portfolio project? What makes a good project?
Ideally, a portfolio project would go from raw data all the way through insights as illustrated by a visualization dashboard. Each step of this process should be clearly described for a non-technical reader. It is important to note that a portfolio project is not just dumping code into a file. You want any project that goes into your portfolio to show how your technical and analytical process work to arrive at insights.
Coming Up Tomorrow:
How do you build a portfolio? And where do I go to find data and projects to show off my skills?