P3: Plan Your Content
Plan out which projects should be in your portfolio. When it comes time to create a professional portfolio, we have a hierarchy of desired projects:
- Projects from jobs or internships, paid or unpaid, will have the most impact on a potential employer since they have been created in workforce conditions
- Projects from volunteer work for non-profits
- School projects
- Projects from hobbies or independent work if they are relevant to your career. For example, if you are an amateur photographer and want to use that skill in your job, provide some of your pictures. Or, if you are an artist and are pursuing graphic design, you might provide some of your art.
As you work up the ladder from student to intern to worker to senior worker and so forth, you will need to update your portfolio, adding in impressive workforce projects as you go along.
Internships and Employment
Employers will favor portfolio examples from previous employers. One of the best things you can do for yourself is to get an internship. The ideal internship is paid, but even unpaid internships can help with the job search and provide examples for your portfolio. I encourage all my students to have an internship before graduating.
Volunteering
The job search can be a challenge in many ways. If you find yourself out of school and unemployed, volunteering for your local non-profit, especially if it has any connection to your field, can be wise. It provides multiple benefits:
- Builds esteem: getting no response or being rejected for job after job can be a soul-sucking experience. Volunteering can help rebuild your esteem since it helps you feel good about yourself.
- Experience: if you can do anything near your field for the non-profit, you can put that experience on your resume. Volunteer work in your career still counts as experience. Since most junior-level jobs require a year or two of experience these days, that experience can help.
- Employer perception: employers will look at you positively if an employer sees that you were out getting experience rather than sitting home and not doing much; it can make you stand out.
- Networking: whenever you are working with others, you are networking. You never know the connections of the people you are working with. The administrative assistant or development manager at a nonprofit might be friends with the hiring manager at a local company which just might give you a foot in the door.
- Examples for your portfolio: Volunteering will provide real-world examples that you can post on your portfolio which can only help in the job search.
Schoolwork
If you do not have work-related pieces to put in your portfolio, schoolwork is perfectly acceptable, especially schoolwork that displays your skills. Take any feedback from your teachers, instructors, or professors and make your project the best you can before placing it in your portfolio.
Hobbies or Practice
If you do not have other examples, projects from hobbies or work on your own are appropriate for your portfolio if they are relevant to your career. For example, if you are an amateur photographer and want to use that skill in your job, provide some of your pictures. Or, if you are an artist pursuing graphic design, you might provide some of your art. If you are a computer science student and have created an app on your own, that would be appropriate for your portfolio.
