technique for managing your career. The knowledge you gain both
about yourself and about potential career paths will enable you to make
career decisions that are right for you and increase your feelings of ca-
reer security. Here’s how:Make better career decisions. As you begin to gather and then assess
the documents for your Master Portfolio(the collection of every item
that could be included in your portfolio), you are likely to notice that
your life has certain themes and patterns. The process of identifying
the skills and accomplishments that you are most proud of will give
you a strong sense of the things you like to do and the situations that
seem to bring out the best in you. The process of doing information-
al interviews, which are used to target your portfolio, will also give
you a clear idea as to which jobs and fields are most appealing to you
and whether or not you have the qualifications to succeed in these
areas. Armed with this self-knowledge and marketplace knowledge,
you will be in a good position to make career decisions that are right
for you.
Increase your feelings of career security. Since few organizations
these days can guarantee lifetime employment, your ability to con-
tinue to be gainfully employed will depend upon the level of your em-
ployability. Having a high level of employability means that you have
the qualifications that employers are looking for. Your present em-
ployer may let you go, but if that happens, there are likely to be many
others who will quickly hire you. The more versatile you are, of
course, the more potential directions you can go in, and hence the
higher your level of employability.
In Chapter 8, we will show you how to use our portfolio system
to achieve a high level of employability. Job security may be a thing
of the past. But career security is quite attainable when you learn
how to create and maintain a career portfolio.WHAT FORMAT SHOULD A PORTFOLIO BE IN?
The format that you use for the portfolio you bring to an interview will
influence how well you use your portfolio during that meeting. If your
documents are organized in appropriate, easy-to-remember categories,
you will be able to easily select the right document at the right moment.
During an important interview you do not want to be continually fum-
bling within your portfolio to find something, as this will disrupt the
flow of the discussion and may leave the impression that you are not
well organized. This is certainly not the effect you are trying to achieve
with your portfolio!Your Master Portfolio
Prior to going on an interview (or ideally, even before you start looking
for a job), you need to collect every item that you feel you mightbe able
to use at some future date. We call this collection of potentially usable
items your Master Portfolio.8 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio