A lot of data analyst portfolios focus only on dashboards which is good, but hiring managers want more. They want to see how you think through data, not just how you visualise it.
Here are three project ideas that show real analytical thinking. These resources were originally shared on Twitter (X).
1. Business Impact Dashboard
Go beyond tracking numbers. Show how performance changes and why it matters.
Example:
Analyse Shopify sales data and build a dashboard that explains how product category, time of day, and ad spend affect profit margins.
Include insights like:
“Shifting 20% of ad spend to weekends could increase total revenue by 8%.”
Tools: Power BI or Tableau + SQL
2. Data Cleaning & Automation Script
Everyone can create charts but not everyone can turn messy data into something useful.
Example:
Take a messy CSV from Kaggle, write a Python or R script to clean and transform the data, and automatically update it into a Google Sheet or a database.
Show before-and-after snapshots and explain how much time the automation could save for a real-world team.
Tools: Python (pandas), Google Sheets API, Airflow
3. Predictive or Trend Analysis
Show that you can move beyond reporting to forecasting future outcomes.
Example:
Use public datasets (NYC traffic, Netflix viewing data, unemployment rates, etc.) to predict future trends.
Even a simple linear regression or time-series model is effective when explained clearly.
Tools: Python (scikit-learn), Jupyter Notebook, Excel Forecast Sheet
