you like to be. When you are shuffling through your Master Portfolio
documents at home and at your leisure, you are not in an interview sit-
uation where you need to be able to find what you are looking for im-
mediately.
Truthfully, one of the authors likes to just toss stuff into a big box
and then periodically assess what he has and file it accordingly. The
other author feels more comfortable if he can carefully file things into
separate folders right up front. If the two of us were forced to use each
other’s approach to filing documents for our Master Portfolios, we’d
probably both quit!
The key is to find a filing system you will continue to use.We have
suggested some headings that might prove useful for filing and
retrieving the items in your master collection of portfolio items. These
are only suggestions.
If using the headings we have suggested for your Master Portfolio
collection sounds like something you do not want to do, then chuck this
system for filing your documents and try some other approach. The
important thing with your Master Portfolio is that you keep collecting
and evaluating potentially useful documents and that you file them in
a way that allows you to retrieve them easily.HOW TO KEEP TRACK OF THE CONTENTS OF YOUR MASTER PORTFOLIO
Whatever system you use for filing your documents, you will want to
know what’s actually in your Master Portfolio collection. Keeping track
of all the different documents in your Master Portfolio may be fairly
easy when you start out, if you haven’t got many documents to include.
However, if you are industrious about tracking down and soliciting
items that you would like to include in your portfolio, it soon becomes
difficult to remember everything you have in your Master Portfolio.
You can keep weeding things out, so that your Master Portfolio
remains a manageable size. But, as noted earlier, this is not an advis-
able strategy, since you never know precisely what sort of work and jobs
you will be going after in the future. If you decide to make a significant
career shift, an item that seems of little use today may prove im-
mensely useful at some point in the future. For example, there may be
items you now have that document some esoteric knowledge that you
have that is of little use in your present job but would prove to be just
what an employer is looking for in a future job. We have often observed
that people who are dissatisfied with their present job are able to make
successful career shifts by marketing special skills and knowledge they
have that they would love to use but are unable to do so in their pre-
sent job. So your best bet is to keep all those documents that don’t seem
to fit into your present career, since you never know when they might
prove useful.Career P.E.A.K.S. Master Summary Sheets
To help you keep track of all the items in your Master Portfolio collec-
tion, we have created a Career P.E.A.K.S. Master Summary Sheet. YouChapter 2: Assembling Your Master Portfolio 25