I'm switching careers to become a data analyst. But I don't have any professional experience. The most common advice we get to showcase our skills is to have a portfolio. It's recommended by people in the data analytics community like Avery Smith, Luke Barousse and Alex Freberg. Many people can take courses, it's easy to go through the course quickly. With courses it's a way to show you're upskilling but not a way to demonstrate your skills. With projects you can go deep with your learning. You can showcase how you've applied what you learned to real problems.
I've also talked about the power of portfolio projects in one of my earlier blog posts with a learning path for data analysts. I also wrote about what I've learned from creating projects. And gave 10 project ideas for your own portfolio.
But I know there's a hesitancy for people to post their projects publicly. They may be afraid to share their projects publicly. Because they might not feel like it's good enough or that other people have seen better. Like Gregory Green Jr. mentioned in his post. He was worried about his projects because they "aren't as good" as others he's seen.
As I told George, you should post your project anyways. Even if you don't think it's good enough, or aesthetic enough.
Why? 3 Reasons:
Practice
One reason is to get more practice in. As Annie Nelson said in her post. We don't need to be consistently good we just need to be good at being consistent. We can't expect ourselves to be perfect when practicing a skill. It's called practice for a reason.
We can't expect perfection while practicing, it's not possible every time. To fail is to learn. The more projects you complete the more real world (or as close to real world) practice you get. If you're interested in how I learn new skills check out my article here.
Feedback
Another reason: you can get feedback. You can learn from others what you need to improve on whether that be your dashboard layout, SQL queries, or anything else. One of the ways we learn is by getting feedback. We can't improve our skills if we don't know what to work on. I know when I posted my Restaurant Picker project I received great feedback on my code. I would have never realized without publishing my project. If you want to see the feedback check out the Problems section in my readme file.
There's a difference between feedback where the person wants you to improve and insults. Most people on the platform genuinely want to help new data people. I have personally never gotten any negative comments on my projects. This may be a fear for some but it's rare to get personal attacks.
Attention
Your project probably won't be perfect. You may worry that your dashboard isn't aesthetic like others you have seen. For the most part, it doesn't matter (as long as you put in effort and passion). It shows potential employers and hiring managers that you're willing to take the extra step to learn. A tip if you're posting your project on LinkedIn. Put the projects under the Project section of your profile. Or if you have creator mode turned on put it under your featured posts.
You're setting yourself apart by working on a project. Instead of taking a bunch of online courses which you could breeze through anyways. You are displaying how you apply what you learn to a necessary problem.
Where to Post
LinkedIn is the best place to post about your personal projects. Especially since it's meant to be a professional networking sites. Most employers will look you up anyways and your LinkedIn profile will show up. You'll also be able to generate more views from potential employers and others in your network.
As for where to host your project. You can use sites like Github (highly recommended for coding projects), Tableau Public (for dashboards), Kaggle (for other data projects). If you have the time and resources you can always create your own personal website (like I did). This way your portfolio isn't spread out among other platforms. This part is up to you. Choose which platform you use the most and has the types of projects you use.
You can view my portfolio on: Github, Tableau Public, and my Personal Website as examples.