“I'm a firm believer in getting students out of the classroom and into experiences in nature. If students get out of their element, in a new place that stimulates their senses, that's where the best learning happens.”
Natural Sciences Assistant Professor Nick Baer
Career Portfolio
| What is a Portfolio? |
| A portfolio is a place where you store things related to your training, work experience, contributions, and special accomplishments. It is the place to document all your work-related talents and accomplishments so that you have a good sense of your "assets." |
| An effective portfolio is a visual representation of your experience, strengths, abilities, skills - the things you like to do, and do best. |
| There are wide variations in professional portfolios and in where and how they can be used. Here's a starter list of artifacts to consider. Begin you collection with whatever is relevant to you. |
| List of Suggestions |
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Education
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Activities
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Work-Related Activities
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Personal Qualities or Strengths
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| Notice that few of the items on the list are actually physical objects. Others imply the existence of objects, and some are intangibles, like activities or personal qualities. You'll need to bring out the intangibles, by creating something to represent them visually, like a fact sheet or companion page, which compliments your resume. Having a visual representation of your accomplishment will give you an opportunity to talk about why you have included a particular item and what it represents in terms of your abilities. |
| Collecting Portfolio Artifacts |
| It is usually best to collect portfolio artifacts while they are being created, but it is possible to create portfolio items that "represent" your past accomplishments after the occasion has passed. |
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1) At the time (artifacts made on the job/during the volunteer activity, or hobby)
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2) After the fact (representations of artifacts made at the time)
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| Information Ownership |
| When collecting artifacts to represent your past work accomplishments, include only items which you clearly own, or which you have permission to include. For example, if you have written a report while employed, your employer is normally considered the owner, even if you wrote it as a contract employee. Be aware that you should not be divulging proprietary information of any kind. Be especially wary of showing any information relating to sales figures, computer programming or business development plans. |
| If you are unable to get permission to use examples of your work, you still should be able to (creatively) demonstrate your contributions. For example, try converting your sales figures into percentages. ("My team increased the sales of our division by 37 percent." or "My program led to a 40 percent increase in customer satisfaction, according to our annual customer survey.") Visually, the figures could be represented by a pie chart, or bar graph, as long as it is not possible for a reader to take proprietary information from you display. You may be able to scale down a copy of your example to the point that the figures are not readable, but the concept of your accomplishment is visible. Or, perhaps, you could remove or obscure the actual data. |
| Students have a distinct advantage in this situation, because their writing, research and data manipulation samples from classes are clearly owned by them. However, students must be aware that they cannot freely make use of work they have completed during an internship or period of employment, unless they have written permission from that employer. |
| Designing Your Portfolio |
| Keep in mind that your portfolio displays you to a reviewer; therefore it must present you in a professional manner. Don't skimp on your portfolio display system as "the book is often judged by the cover!" Buy the best quality cover that you can afford; you can use this tool for a very long time, not just for entry into graduate/professional school and/or your first professional employment. Acetate or plastic sleeves are a good way to display and protect materials. |
| Arrange your portfolio in much the same way you would organize your resume, showing in priority order your information that relates to the needs of your reviewer. A well-organized portfolio indicates that you are a serious candidate. You may choose to include a table of contents to help direct the reviewer. Plan to label and index materials, placing like materials together under a labeled tab so that you can turn to that section easily in the course of conversation with your reviewer. |
| Using Your Portfolio |
| Your portfolio will not speak for itself; you must explain it. Remember, your portfolio is a means, not an end! Don't make the mistake of relying on the portfolio to sell your skills to an interviewer. A good portfolio can be a big help, but in the end it's you, not the portfolio, that will need to prove your ability. |
| Always bring your portfolio to interviews. When the interviewer begins to ask questions about your resume, you can use your portfolio to support your responses. For example, an interviewer might say, "I see that you have worked at your school newspaper. What were your favorite assignments?" You might reply, "My favorite assignments include this article (turn portfolio towards the interviewer and show him/her the article in the portfolio) that required a lot of research and this creative writing piece (show article) that I wrote for a special edition." |
| During some interviews, you may not have the time to show your portfolio to the reviewer in detail. If possible, carry extra copies of pieces of which you are most proud (or those most relevant for that given interview) so you can offer them to the reviewer to examine. If you have a series of on-site interviews scheduled throughout the day with several representatives of the same employer, offer to leave your portfolio with the key person while, for instance, you go to lunch with several others who might become your peers. You could also offer to send copies of the materials to the reviewer as a follow-up to the interview. |
| If you do not get to share the contents of your portfolio at all during a particular interview, given whatever circumstances, you can still use your portfolio to prepare for an interview. Reviewing the contents of your portfolio before an interview should provide you with fresh examples that you can draw from during the course of your interview. |
| Where to Find More Information |
| RLS Career Consulting Agency |
| SpringNet Nursing Center for Nursing Portfolios |
| Martin Kilmendorf's Portfolio Examples |
| Electronic Portfolios |
| http://electronic portfolios.com/portfolios/bookmarks.html#hied |
| http://electronicportfolios.com/portfolios.html |
| http://electronicportfolios.com/ |
| A "How to" Workshop on Electronic Portfolios at Penn |
| http://www.upenn.edu/careerservices/college/electronic_portfolio.html |
