Career switchers keep stacking certificates. Hiring managers don't open them.

What they actually look at:

1. One end-to-end project on a messy, real dataset. Not Titanic. Not Iris. Something with missing values, a dumb business question, and a decision at the end.

2. A README that names the decision. "This model would change whether we discount SKU X" beats "achieved 94% accuracy."

3. A notebook a non-DS manager can skim in 8 minutes. If they bounce, you don't have a project. You have homework.

The gap that keeps people unemployed isn't SQL. It's never putting work in front of someone who will tell them it's weak.

That's the bar. If you want that kind of critique, the door's open.