Professional ePortfolio
A professional portfolio is a collection of one’s work designed to display candidacy for future roles an individual may be seeking. Keeping a portfolio is one way to “document your professional journey” (Loretto) and provide insight into your character and how you’ve grow from project to project or from one job to the next.
The most integral purpose of a Professional Portfolio is to demonstrate how one’s experiences can be applied to the various contexts and duties typically involved in the field in which one is working. This can be achieved by listing notable projects then detailing the processes carried out to complete them. After providing insight into personal processes, following up with an assessment of the skills that were strengthened during the project can help audiences determine relevant scenarios to which the portfolio owner’s skills could be transferred.
Professional portfolios are not strictly valuable to people seeking new positions. Even individuals satisfied with their current employment can maintain portfolios to enhance credibility and career development. Building and keeping a professional portfolio requires awareness of how you’ve developed from your experiences, and this awareness can guide your professional practice. For example, if, when characterizing a project, you notice challenges you had to overcome, this can prompt reflection of ways to overcome similar challenges more efficiently or steps that could have been taken to prevent those some challenges from arising.
If an individual is building a professional portfolio to enter a field in which they’ve not yet worked in, having a robust understanding of the responsibilities of a professional in that field is essential when framing your experience. By researching and learning more about the contexts that influence the work environment you are pursuing, you can more effectively make connections from the experiences you have gathered to key attributes of a successful professionals currently working in that field. For individuals starting new careers, this is an imperative feature of the professional portfolio, because it can permit you to compete with other applicants who have already acquired highly relevant work experience.
Sources:
Loretto, Penny. “What Is a Professional Portfolio?” The Balance Careers, Dotdash Meredith, 26 July 2020, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-a-professional-portfolio-1987043.