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| Career Library: Career Files > Portfolio Development |
| At the Counseling and Career Development Center, students are provided opportunities to begin developing career portfolios. Individual counseling, career group seminars and career programs are several activities that enable students to collect representative work and performance samples. These collections serve as building blocks for portfolios.
Portfolios are documents of how personal attributes were developed and linked to a foundation for career and personal growth. Portfolios demonstrate to employers how students prepared for the world of work through goals, class work, internships, paid and unpaid work and volunteerism.
Constructing a portfolio involves four steps: career assessment and awareness, career and educational development, documentation, and usage. A brief explanation of each component follows.
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Career Awareness and Assessment
It is important to have a thorough understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. Aptitudes, interests, skills, values and attributes play important roles in career development, decision making, and planning. Also, knowledge about job opportunities and the structure of work, play important roles in identifying appropriate personal and career goals. Information about oneself and the world of work is critical to life long learning and career advancement.
Increased career awareness is enhanced thorough career testing and career counseling. Individuals are encouraged to access information by exploring and using the Center's computer information system - eDISCOVER, BRIDGES or O*NET. |
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Career and Educational Development
The process of career and educational development occurs under an umbrella of practices. Seminars, internship experiences, jobs volunteer activities, student involvement, recognition and achievement, and career programs are opportunities that are available for students to use for their personal development. |
Documentation
A key to developing portfolios is documentation. Evidence of performance are: career interest and trait assessment, internships, writing samples, study abroad programs, volunteering, awards, certificates, leadership experiences and extracurricular activities. Employers look for evidence to learn how students have prepared for the world of work. |
Usage
Individuals are encouraged to use their portfolios in a variety of career activities. These activities might include: sharing the portfolio with perspective employers to demonstrate the tasks undertaken to prepare for the world of work, using the portfolio with academic advisors for monitoring educational career plans, and demonstrating through the portfolio what individuals have done to prepare for admission into graduate school or some kind of professional school like law or medicine. |
What the Portfolio Might Look Like
Portfolios are unique and may look different from one another. They reflect your special traits, goals and experiences. Use it to distinguish yourself from others. Here are several suggestions to consider when putting your portfolio together:
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Cover Page - Develop your own cover page. Employers expect it to be different from those that others put together. Use a variety of font sizes and colors.
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Table of Contents - Each portfolio should have a table of contents arranged by themes, goals, experiences, internships, wok samples, volunteer work, etc. Be certain that each portfolio section is different from the others.
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Labels - Use a different label for each section. Consider color coding the labels to help illustrate differences.
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Sheet Protectors - use "nonstick" polypropylene sheets. Such sheets will not remove ink from printed pages. Use medium weight sheets with easy loading from the top side.
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Notebook or Binder Size - Consider placing your sheets in a binder arranged according to the sections of the portfolio. The eventual size of the portfolio can become large. For a job interview, only take those samples of your work germane to the career / job interview. |
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