Portfolios

A career portfolio is a visual representation of your personal traits, experience, accomplishments, knowledge and skills. Any applicant may find portfolios useful in the application process, but historically portfolios have been used most widely in the fields of arts and education.

Purpose: To organize and document your accomplishments in work and school. The portfolio provides evidences of skills and knowledge which can be used:

• As a visual aid in an interview
• As supporting documentation for applications for jobs, scholarships, and graduate school
• To demonstrate worth for raises and promotions.

What to Include: The portfolio might include your resume, writing samples, class projects, photographs, transcripts, awards, certifications, and information and documentation from internships, clinicals or student teaching.

Paper or Electronic: For the job/grad school application process, it is best to have an electronic portfolio. For interviews, it is easier to have a paper portfolio. When you’re not sure how it will be used, do both. efolioMinnesota is a product of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities and is available free to all Minnesota residents for creating an electronic portfolio.

Steps in Building your Portfolio:

• Reflect on accomplishments and how they fit with your goals.
• Collect information for your portfolio.
• Select the documents most pertinent to your goals.
• Build your portfolio.
• Publish your portfolio to an electronic site.

Sharing With Employers: For electronic portfolios, include the URL for the portfolio on your resume. This will allow an employer to view your work before or after an interview. For paper portfolios, consider bringing 15-20 items in a folder or binder to share and integrate as part of the interview process.