How to build an SQL Project Portfolio?
Importance of SQL:
If you’re looking to get a job in any analytics role, then SQL/SeQueL skill is absolutely necessary. Most of the structured data is stored in any form of a relational database. In order to setup and query these databases, SQL is necessary.
As a data analyst, though you won’t be required to setup a database, you should know how to query the required data from a database using SELECT statements. So, building a project portfolio using SELECT statements coupled with other statements/methods like JOINs, CTEs, Sub-queries and Window functions would add a lot of value to your portfolio.
Benefits of SQL portfolio:
- Necessary to stand-out in a highly competitive job environment
- Makes the decision of hiring manager easier by building trust in your skills
- Demonstrate your business knowledge by writing insightful SQL queries
- Can be added in your resume
- Could alse be used to get freelance projects
Step-by-step guide to create SQL portfolio:
- Take a public dataset from the internet (preferably ones having multiple tables).
- Import the dataset into an RDBMS tool (could be SSMS, MySQL, etc.) and create a database using it.
- First understand the data and then ask questions to your data (5–10 questions minimum). Eg: Top 5 populous countries, Regions where profits is less than 5M dollars, Salesperson with third highest sales value, etc.
- Convert these questions into SQL Queries and execute them to get the output. Add comments wherever necessary for others to understand the code.
- Create a GitHub repo for each project and upload the code. Use your Github profile as your SQL portfolio link. Check mine here.
Bonus tip
Create a ppt file with the questions you asked, query you wrote and output you got with screenshots. This adds a lot of value for the project and makes the portfolio viewer easily understand your project.
Do 3 projects in above format and I’m pretty sure that would make a good SQL portfolio!
Resources
If you’re not sure where to start, check out this guided SQL project by Alex Freberg on YouTube. He will explain how to get a dataset, import it into SSMS and start writing queries using them. Use it to understand the process and then repeat the steps with new datasets.
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