 Hi everybody, welcome to a career finder event this evening, and I'm very happy to once again Welcome Alex freeberg back to China. You might remember we had Alex a couple of weeks ago We were looking at study hacks, but tonight we're going to be looking at live portfolio building now If anyone joining on big marker, just drop your name in the right-hand side chat You know why you're interested in data analytics Where you're joining from because we get a super international crowd and people are joining at the moment. Oh, there they go Hi William and If you watch on YouTube also and drop your comments and names in there I'm William events and communications lead here at career foundry career foundry is the online school for your career change It's tech We guide you from complete beginner to job ready professional in data analytics and help you land your first job in the field We're not any old school our programs are so flexible You don't even need to quit your day job to change your career and you get regular one-to-one Mentorship from not one but two industry experts That's a mentor and a tutor and if you don't land a job within a hundred eighty days of graduation We refund your tuition. That's our job guarantee Um, if you'd like to find out more and if you're watching on YouTube Do look in the links in the description below and you'll find everything about a new year offer But also how to book a call with a program advisor if you're interested in taking a career foundry course Now once again, I'm super super excited about this evening We know that Alex has a very engaged crowd on YouTube and it was great to see them all out last week Um, so we're super excited to have a look through some portfolios about what should be done and what should be done So Alex, I'm going to fade into the background Just one more thing for the crowd and we will be doing a live Q&A at the end So if you've got any questions, we want to make this as interactive as possible Do just drop them in the questions in the chat in big marker or in the questions In the chat on YouTube and we'll get around to that afterwards and that's all from me I've got nothing more to say Alex. I'm going to disappear into the background and it's all over to you Thank you so much. I I'm reading all the people in the chat. I actually recognize like a ton of people Um, just from like their name and where they're from I I talked to so many people on uh, like LinkedIn and YouTube and different places Like I recognize like a lot of people in here. So super awesome to have everybody here Thank you so much to career foundry for putting this on Just so you guys know I have my like webcam right here. I have my computer over here So if you see me looking over here, I'm just making sure I'm not forgetting anything or messing anything up But the whole purpose of what we're going to be doing today is looking at Portfolio building and then at the end I'm going to take a look at two portfolios to two people's actual portfolios Just to see how they look and I'll give my uh feedback There are I've already looked at them So I already know what they are But there are things that I like about it and there are things that I don't like and so hopefully you'll learn Or you know, you'll be able to see like what I when I'm looking at a portfolio the things that I do like the things that I don't like But what we're about to go through is actually kind of more of a high level Here's what I think you need to add to a portfolio. Here's where to get data and a lot of different things And so I think it's going to be pretty good. I hope that you guys think it's good as well But before we get started Some of you guys may not know who I am. I'm just some random person on a screen to you and that's totally fine But if you don't know who I am My name is alex freeberg. I mostly am known for my youtube channel alex the analyst It's grown pretty good. I have like 350,000 subscribers. So if you are interested in checking out my channel, please do that I talk mostly about analytics I used to be employed at a fortune 10 company as an analytics manager But I just recently broke off started my own company for analytics consulting And so that's what I currently do and I mostly specialize in sequel python and cloud applications But I use a little bit of everything top low You know power bi excel all the all the staples As well as a bunch of other stuff But that is me so Why do we even need to build a portfolio? Can't I just apply with a resume? The short answer is 100 you can do that You don't need a portfolio. I just recommend it now There are two reasons why somebody should build a portfolio. The first reason is This is going to help you actually land an interview. So it says your portfolio holds Holds technical projects that you can showcase to potential employers and hiring managers That's the first step The first step is you can at least show and prove to them that you have some knowledge in these skills To help you land the interview Now when somebody is applying they usually are just able to submit their resume On their resume typically if they have something like a portfolio, they'll have a link to it And if it's digital, they can just click on it and go to it So imagine you and your best friend are both applying for the exact same job You went to the same school. You have the same experience. You have everything the same Well, the first person which is you you're going to apply and you have a portfolio And your best friend is like, I don't need a portfolio. I don't want to do that Well, when they're reviewing your resume versus their resume They can at least go in and go and see your portfolio and say, okay This person has a project in sql. This person has a project in excel or tableau And let's say they use sql and they can see your skill level in sql That is a big difference being able to actually see the code that you're writing versus somebody who just has sql on their resume It gives a lot of credibility If that person actually does go and look at it gives a lot more credibility to the fact that You've written sql. You know it and it's not just on your resume So that's one reason why you would build a portfolio The second reason is is that you can point to them during interviews to demonstrate how you've used these skills Now this is something that I think is the most powerful reason To kind of display experience most of you out there and this is where I was Several years ago. I didn't have any experience How do you convince somebody an employer that you're going to be able to do a good job? If you've never ever had any experience and that's where a lot of people are at What I usually recommend is projects because in an interview you're typically going to get asked questions like this Hey, alex, uh, how have you used sql in the past? How have you used tableau? Tell us about that and it's kind of this open-ended question And if you don't have any projects, you've never really done anything most likely you'll be like Well, I learned a little bit. I took a course in school. So I learned, you know In my junior year, I took a sql fundamentals or developer Like class Or you could say well, I took this Coursera certification or I went to career foundry I did something but you don't have you don't have any like fundamental experience That's where the projects are really really helpful So the difference between saying well, I took this, you know course or you could say I just recently did this project and then you can talk about that project It's completely completely different one. You're pointing to I've kind of learned it. I've learned the basics The other when you're talking about a project is I've built something And so how I've answered this in the past and this is what I You know did before I actually got experience in the real world Is I would say something like I built this project in sql I cleaned up the data and then I trained and that was like the transformation piece And then I explored the data using exploratory data analysis using a lot of group buy and joins and window functions And you know, that's kind of my experience with sql. It just sounds a lot better So that's some of the reasons why you will build a portfolio Now when I talk about a portfolio I usually mean some type of online presence of projects the portfolio. That's all it is It's a bunch of projects put together And you're going to display those so that hiring managers can go and look at them and be like, okay Alex, you have these projects. They look good. We want to bring you in for an interview So where can you build those? Well, you can go to github or github pages If you've been on my channel I have a whole video on how to use github and github pages And that's a free place to to put your projects and to put your Create your portfolio You can also use things like wix or other pre-built platforms when I say pre-built platforms There's a million out there. I didn't want to name them all but I built one on wix There is a little bit of a difference between these two though. One is github and github pages which is more um Code heavy So you see a lot more of the code whereas something like wix is going to be more narrative heavy And you may not be able to actually put a lot of your code on there where they can like mess around with it It'll be like pictures So it's a little bit of a difference in narrative versus if you want to be really code heavy And I'll show you the difference in when I actually like review these at the end Because I have two portfolios. I'm going to show you You can also use linkedin. Um linkedin has a way that you can actually put projects on your profile And I highly recommend doing that, especially when you're first starting out Just adding several projects when you build them or when you're going through courses Just to have those on your profile linkedin is a fantastic place to put projects build up an online presence Then the last one we have is tablo public Now tablo public is really good because one it's completely free, which I think everybody loves And the second thing is that you can put as many projects as you want So some people especially in the analytics world want to be a lot more on the Presentation side. They want to build the visualizations There are even jobs like data visualizations specialists where they want to specialize in building these visualizations That's where something like tablo public is absolutely perfect I have several projects in a tablo public That's like my personal one And then I have a whole series on how you can build out tablo projects So just a really great free place to to build these things. But again Each of these kind of have their pros and cons you have to think about, you know How you want to display your projects what you're trying to Put out there and then kind of cater that to where you want to build it All right, the next thing we have and just so you guys know I have a lot of information to get through And I'm reviewing some at the end and we have q&a. So I'm going to try to go quick But at the end if I missed anything if you have any questions, we'll get to those. I promise So what are we going to put in our portfolio? Well, super important that you actually put your You know information there a little bit about you and some contact information almost like a virtual resume It's kind of like a secondary resume almost so you have your resume with your experience and your skills This is kind of like an additional online resume where you're having your skills You have your projects and if somebody's on there you want them to be able to contact you So definitely your email a little bit about who you are and what you're looking for, you know I'm alex. I want to become a data analyst or I'm a spiring data analyst and I specialize in these skills As simple as that. It's really all you need Of course, you're going to need your projects Please don't just put the contact information and have nothing else you have to put your projects and After that, you'll have an explanation of your analysis now Most people I would say I stop at that third point which is they put their projects there and that's okay But I think to go above and beyond you'll do an explanation of your analysis What that means is you're going to basically tell them. Here's what I did in this project Here's how I did it and here were the outcomes of the results from what I actually did the code that you're looking at Now you can stop at the code and I've looked at many projects and portfolios that have this And I can go in there and I can get a taste and kind of a flavor for your skill level and what and you if You know how to use it But that explanation just goes above and beyond that really tells me okay This person sat down wrote this code and took the time to write all these things out and they really understand the data And you know again, it's just the next step of just putting your projects in there So that's what you should be putting in your portfolio The next thing we have is what projects or what projects should you actually be putting in your portfolio? So I have a whole list of things over here and this is not All-encompassing but this is a lot of the projects that I personally have built except for that last one because that's in r and I put that on there to appease the masses. That's not you guys know me Well, if you do know me, you know, I'm a python guy, but I put that one in there If anybody wants to do r or use r. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell you not to But to list out a few we have sequel exploratory data analysis and data cleaning So even though you may not be able to just take your code and display it like tablet public You can't put in something like github or take screenshots of your code and explain it like on a wix website We have web scraper and python creating dashboards with any bi tool And using those and then other ones as well So these are just some kind of template examples, but you can use data from just about anywhere And let's take a look. Oh, I think it's in the next one actually How many projects do you need and then we'll get to where the where the data is How many projects do you actually need now? This is a lot for a lot of debate I usually recommend three to five Three on the low end because if you just have like one or two projects in there, it's It's just a bit sparse, you know three projects at a minimum I recommend having around five, but I wouldn't go above about 10 once you get too many I start thinking, you know, what are the really good projects? How do I know? That's what you should be doing for somebody So I shouldn't have to go in there and kind of search around and find your best projects You should just only have your best projects on there When you're first starting out you'll just start with three and then you'll kind of build up over time But as you go along those older projects should be worse So you should be building better projects as you get more advanced As you learn more things And so once you reach like 10 projects those older projects should be worse than your new ones And you should start to kind of filter those out and keep your best projects so that when they actually look at your portfolio It looks really really good Let's go into the next one Here's what here's what I was trying to say earlier. Where do you find the data data? This is probably one of the questions around projects and portfolio projects in general that I get asked the most I can't find any good data. I don't know what to look for. I don't know how to find it There's a lot of places and I've used every single one on this list The first one is you can create your own and this is something that I did um For one of my first projects I did like my personal finances. This is like when I was really just starting to learn Um, I was like, okay I want to visualize my finances where it's going and I use like Pie charts and some graphs and things like that So I I created my own data, but you can use just about anything if you have kids You can like when are they taking naps when or how long are they sleeping? They're like sleep schedule or sleep times you can do whatever you want You can just think of something that you want to track and track it over time That could be a little data set that you use One that I use a ton is Kaggle. Kaggle is um, well, it's kaggle.com. So you just search that On there's a whole section of data sets completely free and it's all crowdsourced So somebody like you could find a data set and upload it I have my own Kaggle profile that I have tons of data sets that I've put on there And anybody can go in and download these data sets and you can use them So they sometimes are csv. Sometimes they're json or different file types And just a plethora of different options Then there's google data data set search Now this isn't just googling Data set in google. There's an actual place within google called google data set search This is one that I think is uh, I would say more Professional and it kind of coincides with the last one which are which is government websites Google data search searches out. Uh, you'll go in there and you'll say, okay, I want data on lifespan Um, so you'll type in type in lifespan and it'll populate a ton of different websites that can give you data On lifespan so different things that affect it different Websites that may have that information and then you can go through and find it This one takes a little bit more effort Kaggle kind of has it all prepackaged for you But the google data set search is very wide. You can get data sets from all over the world And they're they have a lot more options. I would say then you have government websites Now one that I personally have used a lot and I did put it on here was nasa's Free data that they provide so nasa collects a ton of data and I personally like I don't know if this makes me sound nerdy or whatever. I love space like I love Um stars and constellations and the research that they're doing on on space So this nasa government data set that they have and they have thousands. It's not just a few They are fantastic and they're very I would say this one is more advanced Like this is the the nasa data sets can get really complex. So The government websites tend to have um a lot more population data data on families and Countries or cities. They have a lot of data like that. So if you're interested in that kind of data, the government websites are really really good And that was it um what we're gonna do in just a second is i'm going to share my screen and I have two separate portfolios Again, these are not perfect portfolios. I'm not showing them to you to say this is a perfect portfolio This is what you should do. I'm going to give my feedback and kind of walk through them with you to say Here's what I do like here's what I don't like and it could kind of hopefully will give you kind of a Visual on what a portfolio can look like and some improvements that can be made from them. So let me go ahead and try to figure this out There's this share button See the share button. Oh boy My computer's giving me a hard time All right start sharing screen here we go I'm gonna share my entire screen All right I am just going to assume That you guys can see my screen and if I can't uh Somebody shoot me a message. This is the view that I have somebody shoot me a message All right, I'm gonna say you guys can see my screen. Let's keep going as if you can see my screen Uh, so what we have here? Is we have diego miscitas. Hello Just for peace of mind we can see your screen and I've minimized your camera so that you're the right hand side So people can have a great people have a great view. Oh fantastic. Thank you so much. I needed that uh that vote of confidence Let that I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing All right So we are on this website and this is an actual Website like this is a completely separate website than something like linkedin or where you know, you're Using somebody else's site. This is a complete website. So it's diego miscita.com so you can go and search this you go and look at this and um, you know This is all public information. So this is his uh data analytics portfolio Now we have some things at the top about me portfolio and contact information If we click on something like the about me, that's a handsome guy right there and he has some great information in here like data analysis how to contact or um What you should be contacting him about and some links to things like his resume linkedin in a way to send him an email Absolutely fantastic. I love that because this every time you're Doing something different like if you have a resume you should be putting your linkedin on there You should be putting your portfolio on there on your portfolio. You should have your resume It should all be like intertwined where anything that they go to they have access to everything. I I really do like that Now let's take a look. Let's go back. Let's take a look at his homepage and then we're going to look at an actual project So give me give my internet just a second here we go So He has multiple projects on his homepage, which I think is really good I'm not sure about the goats stylistically Totally up to you. Diego that that's up to you But uh for me, you know, maybe keep it a little bit more professional, but I'm not against the goats I really am not against the goats Now we have multiple projects here the bloomberg project the flu project real estate project and cookie cats Um, it looks to me like some of these are more professional and some of these are more personal So like I'm guessing that this cookie cats is a more personal project. That's totally fine I still to this day have a fantasy football project that I did from two years ago on my actual portfolio that I hand to um People because it's just something fun. It's something that I actually really like and I'm interested in And if you have something that you're interested in you're like passionate about why not share that? But there are other ones that I think are more Probably more professional now. Let's click in we're going to click into this bloomberg project and see what it looks like so i'm going to click on read more and here's what we here's what I was kind of talking about earlier, which is kind of You need to explain or it's very helpful to explain your project. I'll give you um Let me scroll down to the bottom really quickly So he has a ton of other things in here. So these are actual like visualizations with Kind of these little comments on the side and i'm scrolling down because at the very end He also gives visualizations, but he also at the very top and we'll go back in just a second He gives the code and an explanation of the code as well So if we go back up He says who is it for why is it being built? What will it consist of? And then when will it be used and where will it be hosted? So he has just right off the bat some good information. I personally really liked this project Because then what he does is it's a narrative style Which he then talks about the data set he talks about the steps that he took to clean the data So and he shows it too. So then he has pictures these I believe are just pictures So I can't interact with it but it's a picture. That's very common So he has the data cleaning then he has exploratory visual analysis with python So I'm going to stop there with this project, but You should be getting a pretty good picture. I have liked a lot of things so far in this portfolio now stylistically Um, I I'm on a different side a little bit with some of the pictures he's chosen and maybe the colors as well But this project itself is very strong Um, I personally have hired for python. I was a hiring manager at my last job I needed someone python and we ended up hiring somebody who had experience like this and had a project like this I could go and I could see and what was really neat is I needed somebody who could Use pandas. I needed somebody who was really strong in pandas and he had an entire project Dedicated to using pandas really well And so right then and there was a great talking point when we got into the interview and we ended up hiring him Because I said hey, I checked out that project you did could you explain that project a little more? It was just a great talking point and he explained it perfectly and I was like this guy knows what he's talking about He he you know He has what we need and I kind of already knew that going into the interview Instead of figuring that out in the interview So just something to something else to think about. So that's his portfolio. Let's go back to the home So again, we have his portfolio We have his projects He has a little about me and his contact information at the bottom all really fantastic again Small stylistic choices that would make that would be different But besides that this is a very strong portfolio. This is kind of what i'm talking about with Website like wix like he could have made this using wix If you pay for it, you can get your own domain name or you can use the free version Where it has like wix dot wix dot com or something in it so That's that one the next one that I want to look at let me let me check time Oh, i'm doing great The next one that I want to look at and this one this one originally was Sent to me on career foundry, but then i'll get into his github in just a little bit. Let me hide this So he has this um portfolio on career foundry and i'm just going to kind of highlight this just a little bit And then i'll go into um his github So he talks a little bit about his analytics why he wants to get into analytics and a few of his projects Now his projects are pretty interesting. He has one on instacart grocery basket analysis And this is again more narrative. We have lots of pictures lots of explanations And then kind of like why he's doing these things And again, these are the types of things that you should be thinking about before you start a project What is my end goal? What am I actually building? These things are really important now He has I know I think it's at the bottom he has at the bottom his github and this is what i'm going to look at because A lot of people will just have this and this is fine. This is something I do recommend This is github. So if you've never used github github is a place where you can create different repositories So he has four repositories and in each each repository. He has a project I'm going to click into a project in just a second We're able to see what that looks like and how that works, but This is kind of like again just a little profile This is his homepage for his profile has this great picture And you can add information down here like an about me section which he didn't do and that's okay But he created these repositories and these are his projects. This is It doesn't go as deep into the narrative style. You'll see a little bit of narrative But it's going to be quite different than what we were looking at in the last portfolio. So let's click into one I like soccer. So let's click into this one So this is growth of mls in the past decade now within this Repository you can have lots of different files And he has a read me and a read me is basically just a synopsis of this repository So right down here is his read me And he says Here's what i'm going to do and here's kind of what we're looking at Here's our objective and a link to his full tableau presentation. So we're getting two for one here We're looking at his github And then we're also going to look at his tableau public, which is another one. I wanted to show you so this is kind of what the github looks like And some people will stop right here and that's totally fine But I really like that he did include his tableau project And you can also look at his data sets and some more information in there But we're going to click into this tableau public And see what his tableau public looks like all right, so Right off the bat. I will tell you I've used tableau public for many many years The way that it formats it from tableau public desktop to when you actually put it in the web based version Excuse some of your visualizations a little bit if you've ever done my projects, uh, you'll know that happens Um, and it just it this isn't exactly how it would look in the actual tablet desktop Which is unfortunate, but you know that it is what it is, but we have all these different tabs up here And so if we click into them, he has a lot of information in his tableau public Now really quickly i'm going to click on this and i'm going to come back to it Here is his tableau public now. He doesn't have his picture or a banner But he has a ton of different projects And you can see that he's been using tableau for a while and he's created a lot of different projects this is a great tab Tableau profile because if I was hiring somebody who needed to know tableau that was like a really important skill Seeing this would give me a lot of confidence And I am sure that farhad or far who would however you say his name farhad I'm sure he can talk about tableau quite a bit how he builds them and he can point to a lot of these projects So let's go back because I want to take a look at this really quickly So Right here. He has multiple multiple tabs or dashboards that talk about Exactly what his project does. So this is kind of the introduction a little bit about what it is Some key analysis that you're going to look at And then in each of these tabs or dashboards we go into one of those areas increase in popularity and attracting top talent Successful clubs in the last decade and they all have different visualizations and data within them This is a very good and again, it doesn't display at the best and it cuts things off. That's just tableau public web-based version Don't blame farhad for that. Um, but besides that this is a very very strong tableau public profile So so far we've well not so far in total. We looked at three different types For two people. We looked at this style, which is more narrative. This is more of a website Typically, this is mostly what I'm going to recommend Um, I like the actual website where I can just type in Diego mosquito.com. That's great. And it's usually pretty easy link now With and I'm going to go back even further with his github There is a free thing called github pages that transforms your github Into a website that looks very much like this and he may and that's maybe what this is as well It's hard to say But looking to github pages that could be really something interesting and then the tableau public I think that tableau public is just there's so many great free options out there to create You know profiles and projects and put them into one place And if you really are invested in tableau, you really like the visualization side of things You know just make a tableau public profile and you know, create a bunch of projects and put those in there And have it all in one place so Let me try to let me figure out how to Let me figure out how to stop sharing. Here we go Oh geez Look at the slides. There we go. So that is That is a lot. I I threw just a ton at you But here's what I will say projects you want to start small. Okay, don't try to go and create Diego mosquitoes You know entire website with four projects right away. That is a lot of work and projects take time One thing that I didn't add in here is how long would projects take and you know, as I was talking I I was like, I really should add to that A project once you learn a skill once you learn sequel once you learn python or or you're starting to feel Like you're getting confident in these skills. That's when you should be building these projects So learn the skill and then build a project and then save that project somewhere And then you're going to basically group those projects together and create something like this For the most part you can find fantastic free resources and do almost most of these completely free unless you go like the paid wicks option Which is like maybe 10 bucks a month or something like that So start small Work your way up learn the skills and build projects as you go And then try to create something like this, especially when you're ready to start applying for jobs That is uh, that is the bulk of what I wanted to say. I'm ahead of I'm ahead of schedule I actually could should have gone or could have or should have gone slower But I am more than open to answering a ton of questions. I think will is going to come back and um and I don't moderate the q&a. I don't know how to say that I'm back I'm back I'm just sorting out the cameras so that everybody can see properly. We can see both of us and let me just switch that over here So we're clicking buttons. I should have No, no, no worries. No worries. Thanks for that. Um, uh, great reviews. Um, it's also great to see port for those I always feel that these presentations come to life when you actually see the real product Um, so thank you so much for sharing those We've had lots of questions in on big market, but we've also had questions on LinkedIn and youtube So I'm gonna try my best to take a good sample And I think one question which came through from Patricia Is the best place to start? So what are the most common mistakes or don'ts that you've seen in newbie data analyst portfolios? That's a great. That's a really good question You know, in fact, I should have I should have had a whole slide on that like what not to do but I wanted to focus on the positive but now we're about to get negative so, um This is a very real example. I get sent portfolios every single day in my email. I get sent portfolios every day um I have seen portfolios from beginner data analysts who are actively trying to become a data analyst Well, they have projects that are way way way above Anything that they should be using For example, somebody's creating like a machine learning algorithm using something like or machine learning model using something like xg boost or random forests or something not something that If I was hiring for a data analyst that would be something that I'm looking for There is this perception that data science or data science projects Are better than data analyst projects because they're more advanced and more technical I actually disagree. Um, and I talked to other people who hire and they're like, yeah We I'm not hiring a data a data scientist. I'm hiring a data analyst I want someone who can do data analysis two very different things. Um, there is overlap Granted, but in projects you want to stick with data analysis projects That is something I actually see a lot is just and it's one that I made myself I'm not I'm not just talking about that one person who sent me that I've seen it many I did that myself when I first started out I did a project with natural language processing, which is Totally a data scientist thing. I just thought it was really cool I eventually got rid of it because I was like this doesn't have anything to do with data analysis I would say that's probably one of the biggest mistakes. I typically see is just projects that are not related or aren't Relevant to data analysis And I guess it's kind of like a almost like when you receive like a cv kind of lands on your table I think when you see those things you probably it turns you instantly off you probably put it into the the trash can so it's probably It's possible in in you know as a whole package like on your resume On your portfolio if you have things like machine learning, uh, you know Neural nets or whatever you put on there. That's data scientist specific You know, I am not under the illusion that everybody wants to be a data analyst for their whole life But if you're a beginner analyst and I'm hiring going to my team, I at least want you to stick around for probably like a year or two hopefully But when you are actively telling me on your resume and your portfolio that you want to be a data scientist It's harder for me like really be invested in you and want to pour into you or hire you because I'm like Well, he wants to be a data scientist. They're probably as quickly as you can, you know It's just it's a mindset shift. I guess So like what what do you want to do or why why is this person building? machine learning stuff instead of data analysis stuff 100% I think another question that's coming through i'm seeing from the audience is that when once you've got this portfolio And you go into a position where you actually have to present to somebody So the presentation and chris is asking do you have any pro tips on how to beat the nerves? When you're presenting your portfolio so that you come across as a pro hmm um I When you first start out it's Presenting is hard. I took me probably good six months of actually being in the job Before I was like, okay. I'm pretty good at presenting now um Some of the things I used to do when I was first starting out i'm i'm going to talk about myself specifically is I used to just I used to get to in the mud about all the details Uh, I quickly found out that hiring managers You know, you know c-level execs VPs of whatever They typically don't want to know every single process and that's something that I was doing a lot of and eventually they kind of were like Hey, listen That's great that you're doing all these things. We just don't care about them. We care about mostly the end product So when you're presenting these things, um, my recommendation would be Don't get so in the mud about every Code everything you did go more high level. I cleaned the data used to look like this now it looks like this Um, then I did some exploratory data analysis and here are the results that I found You could I mean I I know that I personally used to talk for 10 15 minutes on the process of how we cleaned it And they don't really care about that as much right? They'll ask questions if they're curious But that is something that um, I think can help you get over the nerves They aren't looking for you to know every single code every single thing that you didn't explain it Just be a little bit more high level talk about the main talking points And you'll be able to talk a little bit less which hopefully will will be a little bit less on the nerves But you won't have to memorize every single thing in your portfolio. You just you know, you're talking more high level I think that's great advice. I think we'll see more generally Um practice does make perfect and I know sometimes you're lacking the experience to present to somebody But you know if you've got a fellow student Maybe a career foundry student if you're doing a program or a colleague or a friend or relative Actually presenting and then going over the material when you when you feel comfortable with the material I think it comes across in the presentation. So I think being prepared is is great advice Um, obviously I'm not a data analyst. So, you know, don't take my word for it I'm just giving more general advice as a follow-up question Alex Um in in the presentation so in the portfolio presentation You know, what would you like to see in that presentation if someone's going to present you something? um, you know the I talked a little bit about the kinds of projects you can make and you can go a lot of different ways with it Um, something that I always liked uh, because I worked in healthcare Is I liked when someone would showcase their healthcare knowledge so their domain knowledge? um, and I don't know if that's 100 answering the question, but For example, um, you know, when I was working at healthcare, we worked a lot with claims data I worked in oncology hematology, which is like um cancer and blood data If somebody could showcase in their portfolio or just talk about in their interview Um that they know those things or that they you know, they've worked with that before I mean that immediately was like That's so hard to teach and so hard to learn So if you have that domain knowledge projects that are catered toward whatever domain you're going into Is really really great to have whether it's financial or like finances and banks You could do a project on you know loans or risk management or something like that Something like that. I always I always really like that and I always like seeing a personal project as well Because usually those persons were like it was a fun topic Like they they tracked like their their cats. I don't know something and and they would like present it It's just fun and it's enjoyable. Um, so again When I'm when I'm listening to people's projects or somebody's pointing at a project I I'm looking for some type of skill some type of knowledge in that area Or if the personal project is more like enjoyable some type some sense of like personality and enjoyment For the project and the work that they're doing I'm glad you brought up the topic of skills because Veronica is also asking a kind of a continuation of that same question Um, you know, which skill should you focus on the most? Um in the presentation or the portfolio should you should you emphasize? One skill the most or should you how would you go about that? Yeah, it's something I somewhat touched a little bit on um at the beginning which is The projects themselves if you're focusing on skills Kind of is determined on what you want to do So there I've worked with data visualization specialists quite a few of them And if you look at their portfolios, they're going to be very present or Like tableau power bi presentation heavy Like we just looked at um for hods. I mean his was he had like 20 projects in tableau So if he wanted to go and get a job as a tableau Uh visualization specialist, which is a real job title and he's really in love with tableau really focus on that invest in it I love sequel. Um, like that's my bread and butter That's probably what I in the most advanced and skilled at so I have I have multiple projects with sequel because I want to be in a job Uh where I'm using a lot of sequel. So I want to showcase that skill so When you're first starting out you can I I think it's not bad to kind of put eggs in different skill baskets But as I've gone farther along in my career sequels like one of my favorite things my best things and that's what I want to work with So then I've started kind of catering more towards this skill that I want to work with the most Fantastic. I'm just um switching over to big marker quickly to go through the questions here. Um, apologies if I pronounce anyone's name wrong That's not intentional. Um, can dasis um asking um as a new data analyst using Kaggle My projects attended towards eda of categorical data However, I've heard that business businesses would rather see analysis using forecasting or simulations What are your thoughts on this? Um You could absolutely be right. It's hard to it's hard to say. Um, because They're very different use cases. Um, there are there are companies or departments within companies that use a lot more categorical data And having that on your resume could be a huge boost for them But then there could be other departments within that same company that you could need forecasting so, um Again, it's not bad to have one of each or to have two of each But I wouldn't say one is better than the other it It's really funny because at my in my last company. Um, I was on a hiring team. I was working with very specialized stuff Um, you know a lot of very specific data in hematology oncology But if you went literally across the aisle when we were in person you went across the aisle There's another department that was working with completely different data completely different processes But they were under the data analysis umbrella But they would never have hired This for the people that we would want to hire and vice versa. I wouldn't hire what they want to hire So even at a company level within their departments within their teams There's a lot of diversity and what they're going to want and what they're going to do. So That's kind of what I was talking about. It's kind of don't put all your eggs in one basket at the beginning I now have a lot of my eggs in the sequel basket. Uh, if you want to put it that way Whereas at the beginning I spread it out. I have some tableau some power bi python excel sequel I had literally one of at least one of everything I did have at least two of everything at one point. So um, I wouldn't I wouldn't put any type of analysis Over one or the other unless you were like for certain That I really need to have this for this specific team or department that you're applying to Um, again, it's just a it gets tricky Every company every department's different 100% always tailored to the company or the department that you're applying for I love this question by general I think it's very broad but um, I Is bold What is your take on a newbie looking for a job who already has knowledge of excel? SQL and power bi only would you hire that newbie? Difficult to say um, so in my I always talk about my last job because that's when I was like hiring That's when I was like actually in this hiring process So I'm not I'm not I don't work for them anymore. But in my last job I was a hiring manager, but then before that I was I was on a hiring team um When and why would we hire newbies and at what skill level? In my in my first time I was on my hiring manager team We would not hire beginner data analysts the the data that we worked with The level that we worked with it was just It was more advanced It the beginner it would take a long time for them to learn the domain knowledge because it was very complex And then the skill level was just like medium skill level, but we were just looking for someone beyond a beginner level in my um In when I was the hiring manager, we did hire at a beginner level although originally we didn't Um, I found that the stuff I was hiring for which was for like a service now developer That was someone who's on my team I was hiring at an entry level because I was like this is What we're needing is not something that can't be taught. That's when I was hiring So then when we were hiring for that developer I was looking for beginners. I I didn't care if they Um had a ton of experiences as long as they had relevant experience It would be the exact same thing for a beginner data analyst As long as that position is hiring for someone who they can train And someone who that is knowledgeable enough to like understand the concepts and get it Yes, what you're saying would be enough excel sequel. Um, I think it was tableau Or power bi the the beginners of those things as long as you understand the concepts of data analysis You know, you have a good drive to learn that would be someone that I would definitely hire Um, but again, it's very very very dependent at the beginner level of what they're looking at Because some companies or some people are hiring managers are going to want people with one years of experience for a beginner job Or some even two, which is just insane to me. Um, whereas other people like myself are like as long as you can learn Um, we'll hire you because we need someone who can kind of grow into this position um, it's it's Definitely like a very dependent on who the person hiring is that it's just a little little tougher. I would say definitely 100 um So let's move on to inspirations. So we've got some questions coming through on youtube. Um, Wanting to know, you know, what how do you find this kind of inspiring portfolios? Um, or where do you find that kind of inspiration? Are there any? websites or blogs that you would recommend and where you can find that inspiration? That's a good question. Um, I There's two main websites that I look at It's medium and uh towards data science That those are all like user-based. They like contribute to the data analytics data science space I'll go on there and I'm like, oh, that was such an interesting topic and they had like a project with it And I'll be like I could do something like that and oftentimes will even have data sets So if you're looking for inspiration, those two websites have a lot of like it's almost like a blog post style of individuals who share information on like analytics and data science Excuse me. Another place you can look is Kaggle. Although it's more machine learning focused You can still find a lot of projects on there because I said you can go to Kaggle for You know data sets, but Kaggle also has projects where people upload their entire projects And so if you search for things like exploratory data analysis or data cleaning, you'll find projects on there Um, but another place of inspiration is just Like what are you interested in that was something that I first started out with when I was tracking my like Finances or doing my fancy football I was just really interested in those things and then you know kind of When found data on those things where I scraped data from It was like draft kings or something I can't remember what website it was But I scraped data from their website and then I put it into an excel And eventually put it in sequel to kind of do some like analysis on it And so those are those are some ways that I've in the past, you know found Inspirations or like ideas for different projects. I I just I think it also is just an inquisitive mind You're just like I wonder what the statistics are on this And then you go and find the data and then you kind of like run the statistics And then you're like I could visualize this and then you you build a project. I mean, that's you know, sometimes It's just how it works I think that's great advice from alex in general I think you know I think you always shine when you focus on things that you love So I don't know if you're if you're just starting out in data analytics And you have a look and your interest is and I don't know football if you're interested in video games You know go on cagger and try and source a data set You know about something that you enjoy Play around with that data and then visualize it because you'll find that you'll get a lot further If you're doing a project which you actually have an interest in start off with so I think that is great advice alex And I would recommend anyone to start doing that for further inspiration to I am just going to talk about career foundry Very briefly if you go to career foundry.com and you go to the data analytics program And scroll about halfway down you'll find some success stories from previous graduates and also portfolio projects too Of graduates that have landed jobs. So if anyone's looking for some inspiration I do recommend checking out the career foundry website and also the career foundry blog because and we've got some great articles too For anyone that wants to get inspired Another couple of questions coming in from youtube, which i'm going to pick up on Hartono is asking What's the best thing to do for someone who wants to switch careers from non tech To data analytics. So someone with a non tech background Yeah, this is very very very common very common question. I mean because You know tech is very popular people want to get into it. It's it's it's a cushy lifestyle is what they say I don't fully agree, but it's a good lifestyle Um So I did that that's what I did and I've mentored a lot of people who have done this exact thing and here's What where I feel like people have been the most successful in making that switch from Completely like just you're a teacher. You're an accountant. You're a lawyer. You're a doctor or pharmacist These are ones that I've worked with myself Um, every single one of those people have utilized their domain experience To then find a company that matches that experience in the analytics space I did that with healthcare. I mostly worked in hospitals and behavioral health hospitals And I use that experience to then leverage that to get into a healthcare analytics company Um people that I've worked with uh, for example, it was a pharmacist He used his pharmacist experience to get a job at a hospital as a mid-level data analyst So, you know, I think leveraging your previous experience is by far the best Even if you're right out of college and you don't have a degree that's relevant, which is Exactly where I was I had a degree in healthcare So I could point to that and be like, here's what I've learned in healthcare Here's how I've used it And I've learned these tools and these skills to utilize that domain knowledge and that's where I'm valuable It's all about You know, when you're making that switch a lot of it is about creating value How can you become more valuable even though you have no experience? Most of the time it's going to be a good domain knowledge in an area Definitely, I think following on from that, you know, I know a lot of people watching this evening from the audience on youtube And also from the career foundry audience. They're all thinking, you know, I'm I'm thinking about making this leap into data analytics But oh no, it's it's such a buzzword at the moment. Um, the market's going to be completely oversaturated Is this the case? This is also a question coming through is the, you know With the recent boom in kind of data analytics, do you think the market is becoming oversaturated for a career change into this field? Uh, the short answer is yes But there's more nuance to it than just that. Um You know, they're And I've I've looked into this very heavily. So I'm I'm talking I'm not going to Say any specific numbers because I can't remember them and I don't want to give you bad information But the numbers show that the oversaturation is at the entry level There is a vast need and abundance of open jobs at the mid and the senior level For data analysts and I can attest to that when I was looking at senior Like in that phase of going to a from a mid level to a senior level There was a ton of opportunity ton of Interviews and and jobs open for that. So the oversaturation is mostly unfortunately at the beginning level Which is, you know, the the smallest barrier of entry. That's typically how it works. So yes There is an oversaturation, but how do you overcome this? One build a portfolio and I'm not just saying that because we're talking about it today This is what I genuinely recommend everyone who I've ever worked with or on my youtube channel. That's what I recommend doing. It just um I'm going to go on a tiny tangent I think about things in terms of percentages when I'm applying to jobs Every time you do something above and beyond what everyone else is doing You're adding a few percentage points to your chances of getting a job and that eventually adds up If you just have a resume Then you know, you say you have a 15 chance of landing an interview Let's say you have a resume and a portfolio now it goes up Let's say to 20 percent or even just two more percent Everything you do on top of that working with recruiters You know messaging people all these different things combined adds percentage points to the chances of you getting a job so You know, those are things that can help you stick out in this oversaturated entry level area The other thing that you can do is hopefully if you have some domain experience If you're one of those people switching domain You can go straight into a mid-level job. I just had that happen with one of my my mentees He was a pharmacist. He had He was out of pharmacy school for like two years and he's like, I hate this. I don't want to do this I love data analysis. That's what I want to do So I said, okay, you're a pharmacist You have very very valuable information in your head domain wise But your tech skills are not like as advanced as they could be But we're going to really sell your domain skills. So he sold his domain skills and got a mid-level job So, you know, you can even sometimes bypass that entry level job with Your projects and experience in other areas Definitely just to pick up on a couple of points that Alex mentioned and to talk about career foundries that every student at career foundry works on the portfolio and the portfolio is the key takeaway from the program And then when you progress through we also have a job preparation course to gear you up for applying for those jobs And a career services team, which will be behind you every step of the way and also the network of students too So it really is the kind of full 360 service that we offer here at career foundry just to plug that I feel that there's some comments coming through here. William is asking, hey Alex Have you got any openings at your new consultancy company? We've got a job pitch from the audience So maybe once maybe a lead to follow up after the event But I'll dip back in As I think analysts and do we use statistics? And if so and how much do do we need to know? That's a very good question Usually when people think of data analysis, they do think of some type of statistics and they're absolutely 100% there is statistics I didn't really know I wasn't any math Genius and I still am not so I didn't really know like How much statistics I was actually using until I started to really look at it and be like, oh I'm doing quite a bit of statistics, but it wasn't anything so advanced that I was like, I have no idea What this statistical concept is Especially when I was first starting out. It's it's it's quite basic statistics And it's a lot of You know, think about it. I mean, this is super basic level The thing about if you're using something like sequel or excel and you use something like a sum function Or an average function me in the median mode These are statistical concepts and you absolutely use them now as you get more advanced, you know, as you get up to mid-level senior level And just advanced as a whole you're going to use more advanced statistical concepts But I just tell people when they're starting out just stick with the basics I just learn, um, you know Basic statistics like I was just talking about on how to use them in data analysis average Median mode count Different things like this just stick with the basics and that's what I would learn at the beginning Because that's most likely what you use, especially when you're first starting out Definitely, um, I'm not sure of the time But I will have that there's just a couple more questions that come through quite often And we have had again this evening, which I'm just going to ask before we sign off Um, the first thing is about remote work and data analytics Is it possible to work as a data analyst and work remotely because this is something that a lot of people are looking for in a new career Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah remote works Well, it was once mandatory, um, due to covet but because it became mandatory and everybody like got a flavor for it Has become much much much more popular now This isn't part of the question but Oh, give me one second. Hey zander Okay, you go find mommy. She's downstairs. Okay, buddy Sorry Zander go talk to mama, buddy I love we're talking about remote work when your son walks in Yeah, this is a perfect example of uh, when you're at home, you're gonna have kids and people Walk in on your meetings and stuff perfect example, um There's a kind of tangent off of yes remote work is absolutely possible um remote work is really interesting in terms of finding a first job because When you're looking for a first job There's a million other people out there competing for remote jobs because they can work anywhere You can apply to a job in san francisco from anywhere in the world So I have found and a lot of people I've talked with have said that it's a lot harder to find remote work when you're first starting out Usually that remote work comes with I think it comes with more experience um The jobs that I think are more easy to get are local jobs at metropolitan areas When you're first starting out That's just my experience. I don't have any numbers to back that up. Um, and so, you know remote work You can absolutely do it. There's a thousand companies hiring remote now. They know it's cheaper Um, you know, they can get people from all over the world or were any anywhere they want So it's open up the the the pool of employees or potential candidates a lot better Thanks, Alex. Um, and uh, second question It comes through a lot is um people who are thinking about changing careers or at this stage are also often thinking about salaries, too Um, what is it kind of like as a data analyst, you know, just starting out? What is the salary like but as a follow-up question? What is the kind of progression like that's that's kind of more interesting, I suppose Yeah, uh, you know the the progression is where is the good stuff the beginning is usually, um Quite it's the beginning. So like you're just starting out I've seen typically from even metropolitan areas excluding like Silicon Valley like just take them out of the picture If you look at like major metropolitan areas where a lot of data analysts get hired You're typically looking at around anywhere from 45 on the very low end Usually averages around like 55 all the way up to about 70 Um, and it just depends on the area the industry What skills you have the department you go to within a company? There's so many factors But if you live in like a major metropolitan area, Dallas, charlotte, Miami These locations are going to pay quite a bit more and a lot of data analysts You know flock to those metropolitan areas because that's where a lot of the big banks and and health care industries and You know pharmaceutical industries. That's where a lot of those big companies reside where you can make more money Once you break so Here's what I tell everybody When you're first starting out, you're not going to make as much when you know in that 50 to 60 range typically. Um, but again, there's outliers Then after about one year You can expect about a 20 increase after about your first year You now have experience and that's what I tell people And I truly believe it because I've seen it a hundred times. It's it's I've gotten one year experience I can now because I have experience and I've used those skills in a production environment I can demand about 20 more So, you know, it ranges again from usually around like 65 to even upwards of like 85 For mid-level Then you're looking at senior level senior level Usually pays quite well on the very low end for senior level. You typically don't see anything below like I don't know 70 000. That's pretty that's what I would consider fairly low for a senior level data analyst On average, you're looking at around probably like 95 And then, you know, even for someone like me, I was making a little over 100 Um at that senior level Definitely, I think someone from the career foundry team will just also pop in big marker We actually did a little article on this where we broke down It's also a little bit based on geographical location too, but kind of the breakdown between Europe and North America, but also some other locations So one of the team will just post that in the chat on big marker And the last question to finish it off tonight, Alex Um It's the buzzword at the moment and it's a slightly polemic question But I think it's a good it's a good place to end. We'll chat gpt steal our jobs Yeah, I've been I this is the question of the of the the month really I've been asked it from everyone I just did a talk, um at my old college, um with their Masters of Information Systems department And all the students especially in college were all asking the exact same thing. We're worried It are things like chat gpt. Are they going to replace our jobs? You know, we're just going to be breaking into the field next year. Um, like what is the likelihood? Here's my hopefully quick synopsis. Although I've done weeks of research on this. Um, I've used it extensively I I talked to people who um know a lot more about it than I do So here's what I've gathered in these past few weeks Chat gpt is if you don't know what it is, it's um all the rage right now It's you know, people calling it a google killer, but it's it's not But basically what it is is you can ask it questions and it has about they've estimated around like 5% of the internet The top google, uh search results. They've gathered those in They've aggregated the data and they created this model that can then respond to you in a very human like way So, um, will it we're will it replace jobs? Uh, the short answer is not anytime soon But the later answer is is maybe possibly it'll decrease the workforce a little bit Um going from needing seven analysts on a team or in a department to maybe five analysts And that's like in like 20 plus years in my opinion. Um, and here's why Right now In the immediate it is a tool Um, it is not it does not understand domain knowledge. It does not understand business needs It does not understand data and how to clean the data. It is absolutely not even close to doing that Um, it's a broad scale generalized intelligence It can answer questions and come up with answers, which is really cool It's very neat But I've used it enough to answer sequel questions python questions domain questions I've been using it to know that it takes it needs a lot of input like a lot of input to get it really correct So if you think it's going to replace somebody you're going to need somebody to be inputting these questions very specifically and add a lot of context a lot of information and a lot of um basically reconfiguring how chat chat gpt or something like it is Is ingesting that information and giving it back so No, it's it's in my opinion many many many iterations off of replacing any jobs Which is many many years down the road Um, but it could it has the potential like it's it's a really great technology I just don't see it happening I don't see it happening in any time in the next 10 years like it's just It's very much more of a tool than it is anything a company could ever use to replace Something like a data analyst unless that data analyst is like In their company is like just a glorified Question and answer kind of person. It's just it's not there. So that's my take on it, but it's You know, it's definitely something to keep an eye on in the future Like in the next five ten years see how it advances and one other thing to note just lie a lot my last thing Is the only companies that would be able to really implement it And really make use of it are companies that have extremely advanced and very good data infrastructure Which is very few even big companies like You know apple and google Some parts of their infrastructure are very poor So even in specific departments within google or or microsoft or these companies are not good And chat gbt is going to need very good data I'm talking excellent pristine data to make good insights and and actually replace anything And I would say 98 percent of companies have bad infrastructure or Not good enough to where chat gbt could actually use it and make a difference So most companies are like 15 to 20 years behind those other companies if you look at like healthcare Hospitals are like 20 years behind technology So it implements something like chat gbt into a system could be cost effective But not realistic given how their data actually sits in their systems Thanks so much alex I do realize that that was a slight digression from the the topic of this evening But I think it's it's interesting nonetheless and it's also a little question as it came through about it And and this month. So it's definitely the buzzword I read a great I think I mentioned it in the last workshop I read a great post on linkedin which said that you should treat chat gbt as the company intern Work with it and and see where it goes Alex, thank you so much for presenting this evening. I think you provided once again a wealth of knowledge And I think the audience interaction and engagement just shows that and everyone's everyone's running in I'm sorry. We couldn't take more questions, but we do have a limited time this evening Do I do recommend checking out if you haven't alex's youtube channel? It is a fantastic channel to check out alex the analyst And there are there's loads of videos there for anybody who is interested in data analytics Also, the career foundry youtube team would be Disgruntled to say the least if I didn't like career foundry's youtube channel If you don't know anything about data analytics, we've got a intro to data analytics video Or what is data analytics? Do check that out. You might see some familiar faces over there And I would also mention if anyone is interested in data analytics and is considering doing a program with career foundry We are currently offering a new year scholarship, which gets you 18.5 percent off the career foundry program And all we have to do is simply click one of the links below if you're watching on alex's youtube channel You can book a call with a program advisor If you want to talk over the curriculum, maybe jobs in your locality, but also about new year scholarship Do book a call super friendly I know them all personally and they're happy to help you out on your career change into data analytics too A couple of other things I'd like to say. I know I mentioned it earlier But if anyone is thinking about data analytics, do check out the career foundry blog There's lots of fantastic articles there written by our editors And also check out the career foundry events channel, which I lead We've got a intro to data analytics workshop there with dr. Humaira Where you can start playing around with your first data center We focus on a food delivery app and we do some interpretation and visualization there So do check that out too And for anybody who's maybe not interested in data analytics, but managed to get here anyway career foundry does also offer different programs which will lead you into a your dream career in tech So we have UX design UI design data analytics web development product management and digital marketing That's everything from me alex. I do hope we see you again on the channel at career foundry We'd love to do some more events with you in the future I wish you all the best of luck with everything you've got going and I think it's probably I think your son wants to probably have lunch or dinner or whatever time it is with you at the moment So I won't take any more of your time this evening, but thank you so much for presenting. It was always great Bye. Thank you guys so much And thank you everyone in the audience I'll be sending around a email tomorrow with the recording And some other links too. So thanks everybody for tuning in and great to see you all