Tales of Work

I typically do not blog in the middle of the week, but this week I'll make an exception.  Kimanzi Constable is a career coach who maintains a great blog, called Tales of Work, on discovering your talents and finding work that you enjoy.  He has been gracious enough to run a guest post that I wrote on the portfolio concept.  You can check out the guest post here.

My blog is built on the premise that data warehousing and business intelligence are about helping decision makers to see the true value in their data.  Those decision makers are best helped by those who are passionate about data.  That best describes me, which is why I maintain the Valuable Data blog in hopes of helping other passionate people to hone that skill.  If you find yourself needing some help in finding your passion, consider the Tales of Work blog.

Image: Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Data Warehouse Portfolio

You've spent weeks in data warehousing classes, days in training sessions, hours reading books on the subject, and perhaps years warehousing data for other organizations.  However, right now you want to work for this one.  You know that you have the experience as well as the ambition.  You have a list of ideas to take to this new potential employer that you know will provide immense value. So, what's the next step?  All of that is placed onto a very professionally-looking resume and submitted.  The only problem is that everybody else has done that same thing.  You are not known as "Bob, who will add huge value to the business intelligence team," you are known as applicant 27...just another resume in the stack.

Perhaps you are on the other end of the spectrum.  You are a novice looking for your first data warehousing position with no prior experience outside of class.  You need a way to actually show that despite your lack of work experience you can do this...and do it well.

Do you need a fresh approach to marketing your skillset in hopes of standing out in the crowd?  It is interesting that those in the event industry are expected to provide samples of their work for potential clients.  Cake decorators, wedding photographers, and other similar vendors would probably be passed over if they only provided a resume that explained what they had done before or what their education claims that they are capable of doing.

What if you placed a sample of your data warehousing skillset onto the web specifically for a potential employer to browse?  In other words, you would have a resume to provide the details of your experience and education and a portfolio to provide an example of what you can actually do.  The Data Warehouse Portfolio is a book that suggests a way to accomplish this.  More information is available at www.brianciampa.com.  You may also want to revisit this prior blog post for a bit more information as well.

Your job is to turn data into valuable data.  However, showing the value in yourself is the first step in getting that job.

Display Your Value

When I think about the traditional methods of job seeking in the IT industry I have to stop and reflect.  My experience with job seeking in this arena has usually consisted of looking for an open position, submitting a resume, attending the interview, answering the interview questions, and hoping that something in that entire process impressed them enough to make me a good offer.  However, somebody in an artistic area, such as a photographer, is expected to show concrete examples of what he can do before jobs (freelance or otherwise) are offered.  In my opinion, the difference is this: I am asking for a job...the artist is putting his value on display. 

One of the challenges here is that aside from some visual areas like web design, IT professionals typically build or support infrastructure in the back-end.  So, to make a comparison to home building, the IT professionals would be synonymous with those installing the plumbing as opposed to those laying the carpet.  The nature of that work is not very visual.

However, what if you could market that skill in a visual way, which would allow you to put your value on display?  A potential employer could actually see (not just discuss) what you have to offer.  As someone who has conducted interviews before, I know that it can be a bit difficult to derive solely from an interview, even if a test is involved, whether or not somebody can move through the process of warehousing data well.  Consider this as a method to display your ability to move through that process well...

1.) In Oracle, MSSQL, MySQL or another system with which you are familiar build a fictitious source system.
2.) Envision how users may want to analyze that data.
3.) Design and build some stars that will allow for this type of analysis.  Be sure and show your ability to use type 1, 2, and 3 slowly changing dimensions, conformed dimensions, degenerate dimensions, factless fact tables, and other techniques that you want to market. 
4.) Write some ETL jobs to populate those stars.
5.) Create a website that displays this process for a potential employer to examine.

This does not have to cost any money.  If a database environment is not available to you, consider using free versions of Oracle or MSSQL that run on a local machine.  Also, Google Sites is a free option for webdesign if you don't want to rent space on a server.

The intent here is not to market yourself as an expert in one specific piece of technology (although your knowledge about one of them will be apparent) but to display your approach to warehousing data.  Consider my portfolio as an example.  One of the best parts is that I incurred no monetary expenses when building this.  It only "cost" me some time and creativity...and I learned a lot along the way.

Also, you can now access this blog via the home page at http://www.brianciampa.com/.

Free images from FreeDigitalPhotos.net