The Career Portfolio Workbook

ual’s point of view. Here we’d like to make the point that organizations

can benefit from having their employees use the Can-Do Portfolio sys-

tem, as well.

An organization can use this system to do the following:

Encourage employees to continue to develop themselves in produc-

tive ways

Get the right people in the right jobs

Here are ways you can use the Can-Do Portfolio system to do this.

Encourage P.E.A.K.S. informational interviews within your organi-

zation. Employees who are encouraged, even required, to do a certain

number of informational interviews in their organization are likely to

become more proactive in managing their careers within the organiza-

tion. Conducting informational interviews will enable them to develop

a better idea of what kinds of jobs and activities would be most ap-

pealing to them in the future. And, if they ask P.E.A.K.S. questions,

they will improve their understanding of the P.E.A.K.S. they will need

to develop to get desired work assignments and promotions.

If the culture of an organization does not explicitly encourage em-

ployees to go on informational interviews, few people will feel comfort-

able doing so. To have a successful program, managers must be en-

couraged to grant informational interviews. Managers who do so are

likely to find that responding to questions during these interviews

sharpens their own thinking about the key things involved in the posi-

tions being discussed.

Require portfolios for annual reviews that cover all of the

P.E.A.K.S. categories.Requiring employees to present portfolios that

have documents from each of the P.E.A.K.S. categories during annual

reviews improves the chances that professional development issues will

be worked on throughout the year and properly discussed during the

performance review.

During annual reviews, in addition to discussing an employee’s ac-

complishments, progress made developing useful skills and knowledge

and the extent to which relevant experience has been gained may be

looked at as well. Personal characteristics can also be discussed to the

extent that they are relevant to the employee’s performance of her job.

For example, if an employee has demonstrated a greater patience with

customers during the past year, this could be commended. And if more

work needs to be done in this area, this room for improvement can be

noted and discussed.

For this “Total P.E.A.K.S.” portfolio approach to be successful,

managers should be required to unambiguously specify the particular

kinds of P.E.A.K.S. that their subordinates should seek to develop and

demonstrate in the upcoming year.

Create a P.E.A.K.S. master resume database. As noted in Chapter

1, firms that are most adept at reshuffling their employees to capital-

ize on emerging opportunities can gain a significant competitive ad-

vantage by using P.E.A.K.S. master resumes. Requiring employees to

Chapter 7: Getting That Raise and Other Important Uses for Portfolios 111