The Career Portfolio Workbook

Consider using some form of three-ring binder for your Can-Do

Portfolio. Loose items that are stuffed into a briefcase can be hard to

find when you are in the middle of an important conversation. Alterna-

tively, these same items can be readily retrieved if they have been filed

under headings in a three-ring binder. Furthermore, a person who is

calmly flipping through the pages of a binder appears to be a lot better

organized than someone who is fishing about with his head stuck in a

briefcase! For this reason, we recommend that you use some form of

three-ring binder for your Can-Do Portfolio items. We will discuss the

look of this binder later in this chapter under “Getting the Right Look

for Your Can-Do Portfolio.”

Try using tabs with P.E.A.K.S. headings. We suggest that organiz-

ing the entries in your Can-Do Portfolio using the following six head-

ings is very useful:

Resume

Personal characteristics

Experience

Accomplishments

Knowledge

Skills

If your Can-Do Portfolio is organized in the above fashion, you will find

that it is very easy to put your finger on the document you need to high-

light one of your P.E.A.K.S.

Clearly, some of your items could be filed under more than one of

the above categories. In these cases you can put extra copies of the

same document in several different sections, if that helps you locate it

quickly.

The above organizational system is only a suggestion. You should

use whatever filing system you find works best for easily retrieving ex-

amples of your P.E.A.K.S.

Include extra copies of your P.E.A.K.S. resume.Note that “Re-

sume”is one of the tabs suggested above. Having several extra copies

of your resume filed under this tab is extremely beneficial. This way, if

some of the people with whom you are meeting do not have a copy of

your resume, you can hand them one. Even if you sent your resume in

advance of your interview, they may not have it.

A well-thought-out resume can give you openings to present key

items in your portfolio. In Chapter 5, we will show you how to put to-

gether a P.E.A.K.S. resume that encourages interviewers to focus on

your key P.E.A.K.S.

You can use a digital format for your Can-Do Portfolio in certain

situations.In most face-to-face interviewing situations you will want to

hand people documents that they can touch. They are more likely to

trust an item they can hold than something they see on a screen. But

in some situations having your Can-Do Portfolio stored on a disk can be

40 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio

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