Choose to study a Data Analyst Apprenticeship (L4) and it will equip you with the vital skills needed to apply data analytics in the workplace. Data analysts can have a profound impact on their organisation. For example, after completing the Cambridge Spark Data Analyst Apprenticeship (L4), one learner:

• Identified £1.4m revenue through data-driven insights
• Saved £120k by creating efficiencies
• Achieved 90% shorter project times through automations
• And 5x faster ML model training through automations

As demand for data analysts continues to rise, the big question is, what can you do to demonstrate the value you add to an organisation?

Answer: build a showcase of your skills.

As the saying goes, ‘show don’t tell’ - and showcasing your skills will do precisely this. Rather than list the positions you’ve held and certifications you’ve achieved, you need to demonstrate how you apply your skills to solve real-life problems. It validates your critical thinking skills. And it allows you to carve the career path you desire by attracting opportunities to work in specific sectors, collaborate on certain projects, or contribute to thought leadership articles/events.

So how do you showcase your skills to ensure you stand out for all the right reasons?

Introduce Yourself in a Meaningful Way

Your showcase can help to ‘sell’ your skills to potential employers, customers or partners. Therefore, be sure to tick the important boxes straight away, to show you have essential skills, like Python and SQL.

However, behavioural science teaches us that people buy based on emotion, and use facts to rationalise their decision. Therefore, rather than simply state your credentials, use this initial ‘about me’ section to make an emotional connection with your audience. 

For example:

• What drew you to a career in data analytics?
• Where would you like to be in 10 years? Why?
• What change do you hope to enact in the world?

You want to let the audience in, so they can get to know the person behind the skills. If that feels hard, include links to your social media accounts where you actively contribute to discussions in your industry. Alternatively, you could write a blog with your opinions, learnings, and tutorials - again, showing the audience your passion, rather than telling them you’re a great analyst.

It can feel awkward to write about who you are and what you’ve achieved, so let someone else do it. If you haven’t already got a handful of testimonials, ask your manager, colleagues, and customers. Again, if that feels hard, LinkedIn makes the process really quick and simple.

Top tip! Don’t forget your header image.

It’s the first thing anyone will see, so use it to share a key message that makes you memorable. This could be a headshot that captures your personality, logos to emphasize your credentials, or a tagline that captures your approach to data analytics.

Use Your Skills to ‘Sell’ Yourself

The bulk of your showcase should comprise a series of projects or case studies, which demonstrate your skills in action. Rather than a chronological list of what you’ve worked on, inject interest by focusing each section on a specific skill. 

Also, you’re not looking to recount everything you did, step-by-step. Think of it like a highlights reel to showcase the problem/opportunity you were addressing, your approach, the impact you delivered, and a reflection on lessons learned that you’ve taken forward to subsequent projects.

Don’t forget! Where appropriate, include links to your code and allow your audience to delve into the detail, if they desire.

So, what key skills should you showcase?

Cleansing and Preparing Data

Your ability to transform raw data into quality, usable data. This includes cleaning data to address missing, incomplete, or duplicate information. As well as reformatting fields or restructuring data, so datasets can be combined from different sources.

Exploring and Analysing Data

Your ability to run different types of analysis, such as diagnostic, descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive. As well as your ability to apply different techniques to interrogate the data, including time series analysis, A/B testing, regression analysis, and hypothesis testing. The outcome is either guided by a specific business question, or to simply identify emerging trends or patterns.

Visualising Data

Your ability to transform numerical data into graphs, charts, and maps to make the information easier to understand. Also, to identify patterns and anomalies in the data, which are harder to ‘see’ when the data is in a spreadsheet. 

Communicating Data

Your ability to share insights with others, who then act upon the data. This could be in the form of written communication, such as distributing reports that contain your visual representations of data with recommendations. It could be verbal communication, where you need to demonstrate active listening and adapt the insights to the context of each department/role. And it could be using a central dashboard to make data insights accessible to more people across the business. The common skill throughout is knowing how to select the information that really matters to an individual, rather than sharing everything you can about the dataset(s) analysed.

Problem Solving With Data

Your ability to adapt in the moment and overcome issues that could become a barrier to your success. For example, errors in your code, limited resources, incomplete datasets, or tight deadlines. You need to demonstrate how you delivered value to the organisation despite the odds being stacked against you.

“But what if I don’t have any experience?”

When you study with Cambridge Spark, our apprenticeships include ‘off-the-job’ training, which allows you to apply your new found skills to your current business. Furthermore, you are also given access to our online learning platform, EDUKATE.AI, which allows you to practice on real data sets within a sandbox environment. Our approach ensures that you complete your programme with skills AND experience at your fingertips.

5 Top Tips to Ensure Your Showcase Stands Out

1. Use Engaging Headings

Rather than simply label your project something bland, like ‘Exertis Case Study’, think about how you can use your title to encourage the click. It’s a technique marketers often use to build intrigue and sell the value - for example, ‘Exertis Unlocks £100s of Millions in Working Capital, While Saving 1,000s of Hours’. Treat every project in your showcase as a sales opportunity and push the VALUE you delivered.

2. Pitch it Right

As a data analyst you’re likely to be technically minded, but not all stakeholders you need to communicate with will be as tech-savvy. Therefore, be sure to make your showcase accessible to executive and technical audiences. A good way to do this is with a high-level overview with links to more detailed information and code, and to use visualisations to help explain what you did and why.

3. Be Selective

You don’t need to showcase every project you’ve ever worked on. Again, it’s a highlights reel, so pick a handful of your best and/or most recent engagements to show your skills in action.

4. Update it Regularly

Like a CV, your showcase is something that you should tweak and amend - even if you’re not actively job seeking. It may be your employer is looking to land a big client, so you refine your projects to align to their sector or the outcomes they seek to achieve. Or perhaps you have ambition to secure speaking engagements or collaborate on a specific project. A small tweak will help show why you’re the best candidate.

5. Choose the Right Place to Host it

There is no right or wrong answer. For full control, you might want your own website, but this incurs fees for hosting and domain registration. Alternatively, you could create it on a third party site, like LinkedIn or GitHub. Or if it’s core to the business, your employer may be happy to host it on their own website to showcase what they can offer to clients.

Study with Cambridge Spark

At Cambridge Spark, we set the gold standard. We’re always first to market with recognised certifications and qualifications that develop new skills. We have a 99.5% pass rate with 70%+ distinction/merit grades compared to an industry average of just 33%. 

Choose to study our Data Analyst Apprenticeship (L4), and your programme is delivered via live lectures, workshops, and self-paced e-learning, and you’ll receive support from our expert lecturers, technical mentors and professionally trained coaches. 

Find out more and enrol: Data Analyst Apprenticeship (L4)