What is a career portfolio?   

How can you use a career portfolio?  

Electronic vs. paper?  

What “voice” should you use?  

How customized should your portfolio be for each viewer?  

What is a career portfolio?   Most generally, a professional portfolio is a collection of work you have done and responsibilities you have had:  we often refer to an artist’s portfolio of works or a manager’s portfolio of responsibilities.  More recently, learning portfolios, career portfolios, and interview portfolios have become popular.  To the idea of a collection of work, these portfolios add assessment of the work and reflection on what’s been gained from the work.  Most specifically, a career portfolio lies somewhere between the other two:  not as focused on “What was I able to do before I studied this material, and what have I learned?” as a learning portfolio, but with more assessment and reflection than in the materials you might share with your interviewer.  Your interview portfolio can certainly be drawn from your career portfolio.

How can you use a career portfolio?  

§         To compare the skills and experiences you have had to the skills and experiences you want to have. 

§         To assess what sorts of positions you’re now ready for.

§         To help prepare for an interview. 

§         To share with the interviewer, in response to questions like “What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your current job, and how have you worked with it?”  “What’s your biggest weakness?”  (You don’t have to answer that directly, but you can point to your own self-assessment about skills or capabilities you want to improve, and how and when you plan to improve them). 

§         To direct and assess your development and use of skills, by articulating goals and assessing progress, all with documentation in the form of artifacts and interpretations.

§         To share with a mentor or peer on occasion, to help direct the process of mentoring.

What’s in a career portfolio?  

§         Overviews:  statements of current interests, goals, capabilities, skills, guiding principles, and strengths;  résumé;  transcripts

§         Artifacts that document or illustrate your capabilities, skills, principles, and strengths:  maps, writing samples, project summaries, certificates, performance evaluations, CDs, photographs, letters or e-mails from others

§         Captions for each artifact that provide very brief context and make it clear what characteristics are being documented

§         Interpretations:  what does this all tell you about what skills or experiences you want to gain, and therefore what positions, assignments, or training opportunities you’re seeking?

§         In narrative order, with a brief overview statement of who you are professionally and what your objectives are, then a table of contents, then the other overviews, artifacts with captions, and interpretations mentioned above,

§         In the order of a résumé, in which each section of your résumé is backed up by captioned artifacts, documenting your education, training, attributes, contributions to your workplaces, accomplishments, and honors.  In a hard-copy portfolio (or an electronically stored portfolio that does not use hyperlinks), each section of your résumé might be reflected in a tabbed section of the notebook or binder.  In an electronic portfolio, many words and phrases of your résumé could be linked to relevant documents, images, brief video files, etc.  

§    §    In chronological order, with a section on your collegiate experiences, your first major position of set of positions, and more recent jobs, activities, and accomplishments.

§         As a Venn diagram, graphically representing the separable but (hopefully) linked components of your professional experience and expertise.  For example, you might have a degree in Geography focusing on GIS, but have worked for a few years in a natural resources agency, and have taken on duties as an internal trainer for new software (not just GIS).  Your professional expertise could be represented as a Venn diagram (below).  Each section and each intersection could be the subject of a section of your portfolio in which you document when and how you have gained and manifested your capability in each area.

Electronic vs. paper?  Note that HTML coding allows you to create a non-linear portfolio in which particular artifacts or interpretations are linked to more than one attribute, skill, or accomplishment.  Or it can be electronic, on a portable storage medium, without HTML links;  as in a PowerPoint or slide show.  Or it can be HTML coded (a set of linked webpages) with or without your uploading it to the WWW. 

Paper portfolios can be made more flexible by installing them in a three-ring binder, using clear plastic sheet protectors.   Many office-supply stores sell attractive leather portfolios with a three-ring binder and compartments for storing materials of different size.

How can you decide which artifacts to use?  What are your most important professional attributes and skills:  what makes you especially valuable as an employee, consultant, or business owner?  What documents or records clearly manifest those attributes and skills? 

What professional goals do you have?  What documents, records, or work helps you determine, year by year, how much closer you have come toward those goals?

Which documents, certificates, or recordings make those attributes and accomplishments clear to someone else, with brief written context and assessment from you?

Your portfolio should be viewable and comprehensible at one sitting.  Therefore, 50 artifacts and explanations are probably too many;  you might aim for a total of 20-40 pages of material, including your overviews and interpretations.  However, you might record, perhaps in a larger portfolio file, the artifacts that you decide not to include, with a brief note to yourself about how each is useful but why you didn’t select it as one of the best examples or manifestations of your capabilities.

What “voice” should you use?  Most portfolios use the first person and the active voice.  Use the past tense to explain a past action.

“I researched the training in public-opinion surveys, available on-line and through local community colleges.  After speaking with several instructors and colleagues who had taken instruction from each source, I decided to take the three-week course offered by…  Here is the final section of my last project report, in which I presented the methods and shortcomings of a widely cited local opinion poll.”  

Or

“Between October 2004 and March 2006 I increased my volume of sales by at least 15% each quarter.  I did this by paying close attention to which companies and agencies had won what contracts, making use of on-line resources.  Here’s a sample of my worksheet, identifying recent contract awards, the key contacts in the organization, and my marketing pitch to them.”

Use the present tense to claim attributes and competences.

“I am fluent in Spanish.” 

Use the future tense to articulate goals

“In the next two years, I will leverage my social skills and my experience working on teams to gain experience in formal managing  of a group.”

To whom should the portfolio be addressed?   One purpose of developing a career portfolio is to think of your work (and volunteer activities) as a series of manifestations of your abilities, and as sources for your development.  So you should really address yourself, becoming comfortable thinking about your goals, skills, and experiences as a lifetime project.

How customized should your portfolio be for each viewer?  Certainly your goal statement and your interpretation about the next positions you seek should lead an interviewer to conclude that the position they’re trying to fill is just the right fit.  Check to make sure that the set of skills, experiences, and characteristics that you claim include all the items listed explicitly in the particular job ad or position announcement.  You might consider customizing the captions for the (type of) position you’re seeking – this may be easier to do on an electronic portfolio or if you make sure to write captions on separate sheets of paper facing your artifacts.