The Portfolio that Got Me a Data Scientist Job
Spoiler alert: It was surprisingly easy (and free) to make
Getting a Data Scientist job is hard.
This isn’t 2015 anymore: it’s not enough to know a few pandas functions and put the words “Big Data” on your résumé. Competition for the top jobs is fierce. On a recent trawl through the LinkedIn jobs board, I struggled to find a London-based Data Scientist role with less than 100 applicants.
The good news is that this competition is not due to a lack of jobs. Even in 2023, Data Science remains a fast-growing field, and the U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics has estimated that the number of Data Scientist jobs will grow by 36% between 2021 and 2031 [1].
The challenge, then, is not that there are no Data Science jobs — there are tons! Rather, it’s that a huge number of people are trying to break into the industry, making it increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd and land that lucrative first role.
The solution: Build a data science portfolio
In the current job market, I am convinced that one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from the competition is through building a personal portfolio of personal Data Science projects to showcase your skills and experience…
