Job skills portfolio emphasizes your unique qualifications

Professional employment resources

A job skills portfolio is a great marketing tool to show that you are the right person for a particular employment opportunity.

A portfolio is a collection of pieces of information that highlight your skills. This is a great marketing tool to show that you are the right person for a particular employment opportunity. The job search portfolio is a new twist on the old portfolios for graphic artists, teachers and writers. Now it is common for all job seekers and can be called job skills, job-search or a professional portfolio. This portfolio can be used during an interview to emphasize your unique qualifications.

This needs to be updated on a regular basis. Keep the portfolio in a standard 3-inch binder and use tabs or dividers for easy navigation. Consider having an electronic version available as well.

When done, your professional portfolio will:
* Emphasize your achievements
* Highlight your skills and abilities
* Set you apart from other candidates
* Illustrate your creativity
* Support your position in an interview

What goes into your portfolio is very important. What you put in depends partly by the type of interview and questions you might be asked. When you have thought about this, choose items that will help you to answer these possible questions. Some items to consider including are:

* Career Summary about your work philosophy, organizational interests, and often will include a comment on where you see yourself in five years
* Mission Statement about your career path
* Your current résumé
* Scannable Résumé – Include a text only version.
* A list of major accomplishments
* Work Samples – Include your best work to-date, including presentations, papers, brochures, projects, and material on CDs or other multimedia
* A list of publications
* Testimonials from employers, evaluations and reviews, customers comments, or recognition of any kind that you have received
* Letters of Recommendation
* Honors and Awards
* Conferences/Workshops – List the ones that you gave, participated in, or attended.
* Education – Include transcripts, degrees, licenses, and certifications along with a brief description of each if required.
* List any associations that you are member of and any professional development programs you have completed.
* List your military service if applicable and be sure to include any awards or honors received
* Any volunteer activities
* Have a list of references (between three and five and make sure to include full names, titles, addresses, and phone/e-mail).
* Writing samples
* Letters or commendation
* Documentation of technical or computer skills
* Newspaper articles or press releases relating to you and/or your work
* Internship or co-op reports
* Artwork if applicable
* Photographs demonstrating special skills if applicable

These are only some of the pieces to consider including. The contents will depend on your discipline. The important thing is to think ahead to each job interview, consider the potential questions, and then choose the portfolio pieces to support your answers.

A portfolio becomes infinitely more valuable when you're getting lots of job leads and going on interviews. We recommend using a service like ResumeDirector to start getting job leads. Using their service, your resume will be posted on over 90 job sites at once - including Monster, HotJobs, CareerBuilder, etc. To find out more, visit this web page: http://www.jobwerx.com/resume_director.html

ResumeArrow is another powerful tool to increase your flow of job leads. Sign up with their site to have your resume sent by email to thousands of recruiters and employers in your industry and desired work locations. To find out more, visit this web address: http://www.resumearrow.com/def.php3?pc=13CS756

For more information on other helpful job searching resources, please feel free to search for more on our website; http://www.jobwerx.com/search.html

Special thanks to Michael Green, Editor, Career Reports JobSearchInfo for his contribution.

Make sure your PC is adware and spyware free.

E-mail this page to a friend

American Management Online Training & Development Courses

Strategic Supply Management
CEU Credits: 2
Course Objective Teach procurement professionals how to establish and operate a supply management department that achieves strategic objectives.
Sign Up for This Course Now!