How a freelancer could demonstrate experience in a new field without prior experience?

[#1]

In your mid or late career, you want to become a freelancer.

There are many reasons to become a freelancer, but the core reason is you, as a freelancer, can contact your client or potential employer directly without relying on recruiter agencies. There is no middle person involved. The client or freelance employer will review your proposal and the profile and can make a decision to accept or reject a proposal without using recruiters.

Another reason: it will be easier to start working on a freelance project to gain experience in a new field rather than find a full time job that requires like 5-10 yrs of experience. This is not always the case, but I get the impression that sending proposals on some freelancing projects could be easier way to find work in a new field.

Now, some technical freelance postings require knowledge and experience in many software programs such as data analyst, qa engineer, software/mobile developer/engineer, machine learning engineer, and data engineer positions.

Therefore, as the freelance, you want to show you have the knowledge of the required core tools.

There is usually more than one tool you need to know.

The only problem is, in your prior job, you did not have the knowlege and you did not use the tools popular in today's freelance market.

To gain the new knowledge, you as a freelancer can take online courses on Udemy from a very well known and respected instructors who are experts in their fields. There are options as well, but Udemy is the cheapest and some of the courses are excellent in value.

Now, you completed online course(s) and you do not have actual production experience.

You need to demonstrate in Upwork profile that you can do the job.

For example:

Let's look at one of the following upwork categories:
1. Web Development
2. Quantitative Analysis
3. Data Mining and Management
4. Data Visualization
5. QA & Testing(in this category, I spent 19 yrs doing manual testing)

Right now, manual software testing is not in great demand.

I want to become an expert in Data Visualization category, for example.

In this category, I often see Power BI listings on Upwork.

I did not use Power BI in my prior software testing position.

I completed Udemy Power BI Desktop 11 Hours course in October 2021:
"Microsoft Power BI Desktop for Business Intelligence" from Maven Analytics.

On the Microsoft website, Power BI comes in:
1. Desktop
2. Pro
3. Premium
4. Mobile
5. Embedded
6. Server

The Udemy online course only covers the Desktop version.

In your opinion, what should I do to demonstrate to clients that I am Power BI Expert?

Thank You

[#2]

Put examples into your portfolio. 

[#3]

Also:
Your portfolio pieces don't need to be pure binary files in the native format. You can also post a description, with a picture, that may be more easily understandable by a potential client.

Another way to demonstrate your expertise:
You can make a video and post it as your Profile Introduction Video.

Also: You could make additional videos that you post to YouTube.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hi Dmitri,

I think that with an 11 hour course and no practical experience using Power BI, you might be more entry level for Power BI - which is fine! You can then take entry level jobs here on Upwork to build your skills.

When I decided to try my hand at freelancing as a Tableau Developer, I had used Tableau in a previous job, but not extensively. I certainly wasn't an expert. I did a few things before hanging out my shingle.

Certification... I took Tableau's formal training for Desktop certification, and got the certification. This was expensive, and Udemy might be just as good as Power BI's formal training (if they have it), but it's what made me feel comfortable. Tableau also has training/certification to be a Server Administrator, but I'm not particularly interested in doing that (and feel it would be more difficult to become proficient in without a much longer period of practical experience), so I just let it be known that that I don't offer Server Administration services. I found most clients aren't looking for that, so it works out.

Portfolio... Tableau has a free version of the software and a website where you can post work. I had entered a few data viz competitions, and also built some vizzes on my own, and got a (admittedly small) portfolio together on Tableau Public. Some of the portfolio weren't even full dashboards, more of a display of how to make custom functionality to work. Get some sample data and create reports that demonstrate your skill!

Practical Experience... Then I wanted to get a sense of what it would be like and how I would do solving Tableau problems in the real world. I joined Tableau's Online Community, and answered every question I could for some weeks. This gave me exposure to a wide variety of industries, types of business data, and how to figure out how to make Tableau work for specific situations. This built my confidence :), built my skills, and honed my problem-solving and communication skills as I found and explained solutions. I think in an early version of my profile, I may have posted quotes from the Tableau community of how well I had solved some problem or maybe a link to answers I had provided that demonstrated practical skill, but looking back I'm not so sure whether that was a good look :).

I remember that my first few jobs - the clients commented that they liked the look of my dashboards, and I'm sure that was the thing that got me started. Once I had some great reviews, the reviews became the main draw for new clients. I have a pretty great resume for general BI background, and I was really surprised that very few clients had any interest in that at all. I think it made very little difference to attracting new clients (but I'm sure did help me get up to speed with Tableau more quickly).

It took a long time to get to a place of having mostly stable work, but I'm really glad I stuck with it. Can't imagine going back to a regular 9-5 :).

[#5]

Hello Jennifer

Your reply is beyond my expectations!

Thank You Very Much for taking the time and writing the most detailed and comprehensive reply.

Your reply was very helpful, and I learned lot.

Thank You

[#6]

You're very welcome, Dmitri, I'm glad it was useful!

Good luck with your new data viz adventures :).