Today’s world is marked by competition. There are limited job opportunities, and many students compete for that one top position. Everyone wants to succeed, but students often take the old paths. This leads to rejection in job opportunities. Employers want to hire people who have relevant skills and are up to date with the new skills in the market.
New skills and experiences are required to present a positive image of yourself. This is where a portfolio comes in. It presents your qualifications, experiences, and skills. It is important for students to work on building a student portfolio. It increases their chances of getting hired in top companies.
Here is a guide for students on how to build a strong career portfolio to attract top recruiters.
WHAT IS A CAREER PORTFOLIO?
A career portfolio is a collection of your work experiences and related accomplishments. A career portfolio plays an important role during job interviews or applications. It provides proof to your employer about your qualifications and reasons why they should hire you.
Here are some purposes of a career portfolio-
- Enhances job opportunities. Makes you stand out from the crowd with your accomplishments.
- Highlight your strengths and experience in your field of interest.
- Showcase your accomplishments and skill sets.
- It aids career planning as well. It helps students build strong career preferences. It helps them recognise their weaknesses and improve them. ## HOW TO CREATE A JOB PORTFOLIO?
If you are also wondering how to create student portfolios, here is a comprehensive guide for you on building a career portfolio for students. Most people create their career portfolios online, and employers, too, prefer a soft copy of the portfolios.
STEP- 1 GATHER YOUR CONTENT
One of the main things about a career portfolio is its content. The content includes your samples and accomplishments in the field. For example, if you are looking for jobs in content writing, your portfolio must have samples from previous work experiences.
For students, a career portfolio must include their samples from internships or any volunteering they do. This gives the employer something to look at and judge you. You can actively add to your portfolios.
STEP- 2 SEPARATE YOUR WORK
Many people have various skills and try out different career paths. If your work samples range across different fields, you must create a sections column in your portfolio. It can easily be done on online platforms. You can add a column with all your different samples separated and combined in sections. This helps the employer find the skills and samples that are suited for the open position.
As a student, you must explore different fields before sticking to one. Since a career portfolio also helps in career planning for students, it is important to explore. For a student’s career portfolio, this step is important.
STEP-3 SECTION FOR A RESUME
A career portfolio highlights your work. A resume holds your personal and professional details. It provides your educational qualifications, certification courses, and work experience.
Many employers consider a resume and a career portfolio to be a simple addition to it.
As a student, you can build your resume by doing certification courses and internships.
STEP- 4 MAKE YOUR CAREER PORTFOLIO PROFESSIONALLY PERSONAL
You can add a page about your personal goals and experiences. On this page, you can include your personal details along with what professional goals you have.
If you are a student who has no prior experience of work experience, you can create this section and add personal works. For instance, if you are looking for jobs in content writing, you can add your personal blogs or articles. These will give a sample to the employers to judge you on. As a video editor, you may add personal video editing samples or Canva templates to show your skills.
STEP-5 MENTION YOUR SKILLS
A career portfolio must highlight your skills in a concise yet clear manner. You can create a page to highlight your skills and expertise. You can list the skills and how they make you the right choice for job opportunities.
STEP-6 ADD YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND RECOGNITION
A section of your career portfolio can be dedicated to your accomplishments. This section can include all your awards and recognitions as an employee.
As a student, you can add your school awards and recognitions.
CAREER PORTFOLIO EXAMPLE
The career portfolio example is for a student looking for internships or job opportunities in the content writing field.
Things to include in the career portfolio-
- If you have done internships previously, you can add your samples from those internships.
- If you wish to explore other job opportunities as well, like in video editing or designing, you can add samples related to that as well. In such a case, you can add columns with titles like content writing, cinematography, editing, and more.
- Add a column titled resume, where you attach your resume document and highlight the basic details in text as well.
- Add a column named About Me. In this column, add your details and goals.
- Add a section mentioning your skills, such as creative writing, and achievements like winning a writing competition or a poetry competition. Attach the samples if possible.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q.1) What is career portfolio meaning?
Ans. A career portfolio means a comprehensive and collective document of all your work experiences. It includes work samples and accomplishments. It adds to your resume.
Q.2) Why is a career portfolio important for students?
Ans. A career portfolio helps students explore different fields of career opportunities. It also helps in career planning for students.
Q.3) What are the important things to include in a career portfolio?
Ans. Things that you can include in your portfolio are previous work samples, personal work samples, personal details, and skills.
Q.4) How do you create a professional portfolio?
Ans. In order to create a professional portfolio
- you must collect your work samples
- add your updated resume
- highlight your skills, and accomplishments
- Write a brief description of yourself.
Q.5) What accomplishments can I add as a student?
Ans. You can add your awards and recognitions in school that are relevant to the job opportunity you are looking for.