How to Showcase Your Skills and Boost Career in Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence or more commonly called ‘AI’ has seen tremendous growth in the past few years. The concept of AI was actually coined in 1965 but from the late 90’s it was actually touted as the future and people were quite sure that they will witness something exciting from AI in the coming years. With the growth of the internet in the 21st century and the availability of more and more data, the field of AI which includes Data Science, Data Analysis, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning, started picking up pace, with more and more Software Developers actually inclined towards this field. Cut to 2020, everyone now actually wants to work in this field and this has led to cut-throat competition among the developers. In fact, in one of the articles, published in Forbes, it was predicted that Artificial Intelligence will create around 58 million new jobs by the year 2022. This means the opportunities in this field are actually infinite, but only for those who are able to showcase their AI skills in Data Science or Machine Learning or Deep Learning. And this is the reason why it is very important to have your own AI portfolio which you can showcase to your potential employer or maybe your freelancing client to get a chance for an awesome career in artificial intelligence.
We all know that being a beginner in this field can be quite tough and intimidating at the same time. The reason being, it is actually very difficult to stand out from the crowd. Every project that you have done, seems to be done earlier by someone else and so it doesn’t add a lot of value to your content. In this article, we will actually discuss how to build a stunning and eye-catching AI portfolio that will surely help you to land in your dream job. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Artificial Intelligence Skills You Should Showcase
- Showcase your idea that solves some real-life problem
Artificial Intelligence is a vast field. It’s very easy to get lost in here. Most of the projects which people do in Artificial Intelligence don’t add a lot of value. It is because they directly pick up a dataset, apply some random algorithms, and get some certain accuracy based on it. We need to understand that already 1000s of such projects exist on Github and doing the same repetitive task won’t do anything well. Instead, try solving a real-life problem using ML or AI. Heard of Self Driving Cars? Maybe do something which can help improve its accuracy. Scared of the CoViD situation? Can you develop something which will alert the authorities when social distancing is violated? We hope you get an idea of what we are trying to convey. If you look closely, AI is everywhere. The recommendation you get on Amazon or maybe the movie recommendation that you get on Netflix all use some Deep Learning Algorithm, which is a subset of AI. As we can see AI is changing lives. How about using AI for the benefit of mankind?
- Work on cutting-edge technologies
As already discussed, AI is an ever-changing field. With more and more developers, interested in the field of AI, something new here is happening every day. So, we all need to update ourselves with the latest development in this field. For example, talking specifically of NLP, a lot of people don’t know about BERT Algorithm, since it is relatively new in the market (published in Oct 2018). So, there is not a lot of resources about it. If you work on this algorithm, it will surely raise a lot of eyebrows. So, here you get a +1 against your opponent. Similarly, if we talk about Computer Vision, working on YOLO V4 will attract a lot of attention. So, if you work on these kinds of technologies, no one can stop from having an eye-catching portfolio.
- Tell story with your numbers
Data Science is an integral part of AI. It is termed as a branch of geeks and nerds. Some people are not very good with numbers in their raw form. Rather, if you can attract their attention by pointing out some interesting statistics, they will be impressed by your work. We all like those interesting statistics and comparisons being shown in the football match, don’t we? This is how you make a job of Data Scientist/ Data Analyst interesting. Having these types of projects will surely give you a thumbs up in your portfolio.
- Document every project that you make
Documentation is an integral part of code writing. In fact, it is the most important part while making a project. The reason being, your potential employer or your freelancing client might not be well versed in this topic. Understanding what you intend to do in your code will be a daunting task for them. Compare it with someone who has properly documented everything so it is easy for others to actually understand his technique and intention behind his project. It not only makes your work easy but also makes others job easy as well. Having documentation of the code is useful for both developers and non-developers alike. Don’t make this common mistake of only committing your project but writing nothing about it. It surely gives a bad impression. Document your code/project and make everyone happy.
- Have a complete end to end project
Most of the projects that we have seen from developers working in AI is not a complete end to end project. Having a working algorithm that gives you good accuracy or does the job is not enough. There are other components of projects viz Front End Development, Backend Development, UI/UX, Server-Side Development, etc. These all count towards your final impression. A man with multiple talents is liked by all and similarly, this is the case here as well. So, try to have at least one complete end to end project in your portfolio.
- Participating in Data Science competitions
There are websites like Kaggle and HackerEarth which give you an opportunity to participate in Data Science and Machine Learning Competition. This actually shows that you are a motivated and self-driven person in this field who is willing to learn more. Also, it helps you to develop AI skills. That is really important. And by any chance, if you win any competition, nothing comes closer to that. This shows you have achieved mastery over the concepts. So, having certificates of participating in these kinds of competitions/ having any proof of participating, can surely do wonder to your portfolio.
Where to Host This Portfolio to Get the AI Career of Your Dreams?
This is a very common question asked by a lot of developers. In our opinion, Github is the perfect place to show your portfolio. It is because of the reason Github is home to more than a million developers and Open-Source Enthusiasts. Your portfolio can be viewed by experts in this field and they might give you some tips and suggestions to improve your work. Similarly, a lot of developers will also be ready to contribute to your project by which you can make it better. ‘Exposure’ is actually the key. The exposure you get from Github is actually infinite. To give you a better suggestion, try hosting it on Github Pages. In this way, all your projects will be in one place and it will be convenient for everyone to actually access all your projects from one place rather than browsing the repositories one by one.
If you don’t want to go the Github way and open-source your projects, you can also make a website showcasing your work and portfolio. This is also a good option as it enables you to have your own identity. The only drawback to this method is you will have to spam your website and make it SEO friendly so that it can attract traffic. It will be very hard and quite tiresome at the beginning, but eventually, if you succeed, it will help you stand from the rest of the crowd.
How to Present the Portfolio?
Having a portfolio is not enough if you don’t know how to present it. Showing off and presenting is as important as having a portfolio. You have to present your portfolio at the right time to the right people. If you get contacted by any recruiter or you have an interview coming up, you can very strategically mention your portfolio and if the recruiter agrees, you can show it to him/her. This will always give you an advantage over the people who don’t have any such thing and will help you to get the artificial intelligence career you always wanted to have.
We hope all these tips can prove beneficial to you. Happy Coding and we always want to see your AI portfolio at the top!
