26 Portfolio Sections and Content
For your portfolio to be impressive and useful, it must be well-organized and easy to navigate. Include the sections listed below and clearly identify each section.
When choosing items to include, target your approach. Focus on keeping your portfolio relevant to your career goals. Selectively choose items from your portfolio to strategically strengthen your points related to keywords from the job you’re interviewing for.
Title Page
Include a cover page with a title (for example, Career Portfolio), your name, and your contact information.
Table of Contents
List all the sections of your portfolio and separate each section with dividers. This will allow you and the person viewing your portfolio to quickly and easily access the relevant information.
In your digital portfolio, hyperlink your table of contents.
Profile
- Career Goals, Professional Development Plan: Include your career-focused SMART goals. Consider writing a short biography, a mission statement explaining who you are, or a professional philosophy about your vision of the future in this industry. How about using your 30-second elevator speech here?
- Cover Letter and Resume: Include copies of your most up-to-date documents.
Education and Training
- Diplomas, Certificates, and Degrees
- If you have not yet completed your program of study, make a placeholder page that indicates the program, credential and expected completion date.
- Transcripts
- Scholarships
- Professional Development Documents (certificates of completion)
- Licenses
- Memberships
Skills
- Work Samples: Artifacts you have created that demonstrate a specific skill. Examples include:
- team projects
- presentations
- written reports
- webpages
- blogs
- volunteer and community service
- images and graphics
- Acknowledgments: Artifacts that demonstrate certain skills through recognition by another individual or company. Examples include:
- letters of recommendation from community service or volunteer experience
- certificates acknowledging performance at work
- thank you letters/notes or appreciation emails from clients or supervisors
- reference letters from previous employers
- employer evaluations
- awards
- customer satisfaction surveys
Add a caption to each item in your SKILLS section, clearly indicating the transferable skills it demonstrates.
There are certain items or pieces of information that should not be included in digital/electronic portfolios that are available on public platforms.
Do not include the following information:
- your full address or student number on any item
- another person’s name or contact information on any item
- assignments you have completed at Conestoga College or other educational institutions. Sharing such assessments on third-party sites is considered a breach of Conestoga College’s Academic Integrity Policy.
References
Include a copy of your references list.
Keep your portfolio up-to-date.
Regularly update your portfolio over the course of your education and career so you will be prepared to showcase your skills whenever the next opportunity presents itself.
Originally adapted from Portfolio Sections and Portfolio Content in Be the Boss of Your Career: A Complete Guide for Students & Grads, copyright © 2021 by Lindsay Bortot and the Employment Support Centre, Algonquin College, which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
Media Attribution
Stop Sign by davidblyons is available in the public domain on Open Clipart.
Keywords are words found in a job ad that describe the KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS and ABILITIES of the ideal candidate for the position. Keywords describe what the employer is looking for in an employee.
SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant/Realistic, Timed. Goals that are expressed in this manner are more effective than vague goals without completion plans.
