Career Portfolio

Career Portfolio

A collection of information, either physical or digital, that represents one's personal, scholastic, and professional achievements; it helps communicate your skills, experiences, and goals to potential employers. In addition to information about what you have done, a career portfolio can contain information about what you want to do. It can help you think about your professional goals. Overall, a career portfolio provides both you and your potential employers with highly valuable information.

Resume

A concise summary of academic achievements, work experiences, career objectives, skills, education, and training

Who should review your portfolio

Choose someone who understands the field, if possible. Choose someone who is good with grammar and writing. Choose someone who knows something about your background and experience.

You can arrange your portfolio:

Chronologically By topic (work-related activities, volunteer experience etc.) Type of example (pictures, awards, certificates etc.)

Other uses of portfolios

During a performance review (when your manager evaluates your progress) When revising your professional development plan When competing for a promotion When assigned to a new supervisor, so you can provide him or her with an overview of your skills and experiences When being considered for committee work or special projects

Portfolio Benefit: Communicate your skills and accomplishments. Demonstrate your influence and effectiveness in jobs or other environments. Describe your experience in greater detail. Explore your goals and develop and action plan.

Item to include in portfolio: Resume, school transcript, professional certifications, awards, memberships in professional organizations. Letters of recommendation, "thank you" notes, newspaper/website articles about you. Pictures of you "in action" at previous jobs, job descriptions from your employers. Personal statement, proposed plans of study, career plan.

A sample portfolio contains:

Pictures and award ribbons of when she played team sports Brochures and flyers of volunteer activities High school and college transcripts A resume Progress reports from work

Strategies

Plans of action designed to achieve an obejective

Why do you need a career portfolio?

Remember Jane? Her resume includes a brief description of her time working in a daycare center. Her portfolio, however, contains pictures of her interacting with the children, two thank you letters from parents, and a drawing a child made for her. An employer looking through Jane's portfolio will know she made a positive impact during her daycare job. Portfolios can also be used effectively during interviews. For example, imagine an interviewer asks about a job from several years ago. Instead of you trying to think of the answer, you may have a work sample to show, or a letter of recommendation from your former employer.

Objectives

Specific and measurable target that must be achieved in order to reach a goal.

Content

The collection of items and information placed in the portfolio.

Formatting your career plan

This is an opportunity to be creative. You can choose to format your plan as a set of simple text paragraphs. Or you may want to show the information in a theoretical timeline of your professional life, indicating where you plan to be every few years and how to get there. Or, you may want to use a format that is closer to a flow chart, similar to the one Jane developed.

How can you create your career development plan? You may find it helpful to reach out to mentors, teachers, or professionals who work in the fields you find interesting.

Those who do jobs similar to your desired job can provide information about the work and the strategies you should take. The Internet can also be a useful resource in helping you figure out what's required for the positions you find most appealing.

Digitize Digital career portfolios can exist in a folder on your computer and can be transferred using electronic media, such as a CD, DVD, or flash drive. They can also exist on the Internet, hosted on a website. When digital career portfolios take this form, all you need to do is email someone a link to the website that hosts your portfolio for them to see it.

To convert physical content, (such as text, images, sounds, and videos), into a digital form that can be processed by a computer.

Guidelines to organize portfolio:

Use a professional binder. Start with a table of contents, so you and the reader can easily find important items. Organize by categories, such as academics, work experience, awards, volunteer work, community service, and special skills; separate the categories with dividers. For most items, such as letters, include photocopies, rather than originals. Use appropriate images and other visuals if possible, and include a caption to explain their significance. The portfolio should be no longer than 20 pages.

Career portfolio may include:

Work samples Letters Reports Job descriptions