Via Instagram, I got questions about how to be more noticeable to employers if I don’t have experience in data analysis. Thus, I wanted to share my thoughts on this topic.
Usually, people think that you’ll be more “attractive” to employers if you get more courses. It’s not true. Without experience, you’ll have only basic knowledge of various tools but not deep knowledge. It’s better to have experience with one tool than basics on several. So, how to get this experience?
You would agree that getting a job is the fastest way to get experience in data analysis or other work. Maybe you think that the first job should be perfect, but do you know what is perfect for you? You can only know when you work for some time and see what you like and dislike in a company or your job. What I suggest is to not look for the perfect first job. Just find a job where you will get data and will be able to practise. When you feel comfortable, you can always change jobs if you don’t like it.
What should you do if you don't have a job yet?
Maybe you just finished university or want to change your speciality. What when? I would suggest 2 things:
- Practice yourself! You can build your portfolio by creating visualizations, analyses, etc. This work can be shown to possible employers! If you want to do that with Power BI, you can read this Where to Start with Power BI? – Dragon’s Data (dragonsdata.com).
- Join a Group or a Platform. Nowadays, there are a lot of pages with free data and even with challenges or simple tasks where you can practise and get feedback on your work. That is a very useful way of learning. Examples:
- Kaggle
- Makeover Monday
- Storytelling with Data
Where to Find Data For Your Project?
When you decide to do a data project (e.g., report, analysis), of course, you need data. These are the most common places where you can find it:
- Explore, analyze, and share quality data: Kaggle.com/datasets.
- Social Science Data Sources & Statistical Methods: Guides.emich.edu/data/free-data.
- The home of government’s open data: Data from Your country’s statistics department.
- Want more sources? Google “free data for analysis” or “free datasets”.
“If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist”.