lot about valued P.E.A.K.S. by talking to successful students, profes-
sors, and recent graduates.
Given your time constraints, you will probably only be able to do
abbreviated informational interviews with the people with whom you
talk. But if you would like to learn more about how to conduct an in-
formational interview, refer to Chapter 4. And if the career opportunity
you are pursuing is something other than a job, you might also have a
look at Chapter 7.
To complete Step 5, make a list of the particular P.E.A.K.S.the per-
son you will be showing your portfolio to is likely to consider most de-
sirable. And again, be sure to include key personal characteristics. If
possible, indicate which of the P.E.A.K.S. on your list are of the highest
priority. This list is your best guess at this point in time, based on all of
the information you have gathered.Step 6: Find Documents That Demonstrate Your Desired P.E.A.K.S.
In this step, your mission is to gather all of the documents you can
quickly get your hands on that give evidence of P.E.A.K.S. you have
that would appeal to the particular peopleto whom you will be showing
your portfolio. From Step 5, you have a list of the P.E.A.K.S. that are
likely to be considered most desirable by the person or people who will
be evaluating you. Your job now is to do the best you can, in the time
you have, to find documents that demonstrate you have these desired
P.E.A.K.S.
Letters of commendation, performance evaluations, certificates,
papers, images of things created or of activities led are just a few ex-
amples of the kinds of items that might be included in your Can-Do
Portfolio.
As we noted earlier, it is important to remember that portfolio doc-
uments can come not just from your work life, but also from volunteer
activities, from courses taken, from extracurricular activities you were
involved in at school, and, in some cases, from hobbies and leisure ac-
tivities.Anydocument that gives evidence of one or more of the desired
P.E.A.K.S. on your list should be collected.
To get an idea of the range of items that might be included in a
portfolio, and to get you thinking about useful items you might have,
read “What You Should Be Looking For,”in Chapter 2. The table enti-
tled “Examples of Portfolio Documents”might be particularly useful for
giving you some ideas.
We should point out that Chapter 2 focuses on casting a wide net
to collect items for a Master Portfolio. But right now, you are looking for
items that give evidence of the specific P.E.A.K.S. on your list from Step- To get a clear understanding of how to identify items that support
particular P.E.A.K.S., refer to “Selecting Items That Best Demonstrate
How You Have the Desired P.E.A.K.S.”in Chapter 3.
Remember that your portfolio documents do nothave to be self-ex-
planatory. You will be explaining whatever items you show during an
interview. Portfolio items should be used in the context of a conversa-
tion, not as stand-alone items that tell their own story. For a quick syn-
146 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio