Portfolios for State Colleges and Universities Employees

Your professional portfolio is a showcase of your work to help you get a competitive edge in a tight job market.

A portfolio is a collection of items that highlights your skills and strengths in order to market your qualifications to potential employers. An "e-portfolio" is simply an electronic or online portfolio. In Minnesota, anyone can create an e-portfolio using eFolioMinnesota™ at no cost. View a sample e-portfolio.

Below are some of the ways that you can create and use a portfolio.

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1. How Do I Set Up a Portfolio?

   Effective portfolios require effort to determine the best ways to showcase your achievements and skills to potential employers. Whether it's online or hard copy, follow these steps to set up and use your portfolio.

   Step One: Analyzing

   Think about potential employers when deciding what you want to include in your portfolio. Employers want to know "why should I hire you?" Make a list of your skills, knowledge areas, competencies, and experiences. From this list, what do you want potential employers to know about you? Research industry trends and potential employers to find out what they want in an employee. A good place to start is to explore careers.

   Step Two: Collecting and Organizing

   Collect evidence of your activities, assignments, accomplishments, training, and other items that demonstrate your expertise as an educator. These materials can include lesson plans, class projects, research papers, performance reviews, and recognition from parents and former students. Review your collection and determine how to organize it: by subject, learning outcomes (skills), grade, chronologically, or other criteria.

   Step Three: Filtering and Presenting

   When preparing for interviews, review your portfolio materials to determine which items best support the job description and desired skills provided by the potential employer. A good-sized, hard-copy, job-related portfolio may be 10 to 20 pages. You can present your portfolio online or in-person. Make sure your portfolio is well-organized with a table of contents or easy to understand themes. Think of how to briefly describe your reasoning behind why you included each item. Consider including captions, summaries, or highlights as explanation

   Step Four: Interviewing

   How you use your portfolio will depend upon your style and the interest of your interviewers. You can start the interview by asking the interviewer when they'd like to see your portfolio. Or you can wait until you are addressing questions that can be supported by showcasing your achievements and skills. If possible, you may bring a laptop to an interview to highlight your online portfolio. Follow these general tips for preparing for interviews.




2. What Are Possible Items to Include in a Portfolio?

   Use this list to help you determine items for your portfolio. When possible, include outcomes of your achievements. When using a paper portfolio, include a table of contents.

   Your Qualifications

   • Summary or objective statement
   • Professional goals/learning outcomes
   • Experience and skills (resume, education and training, certifications, languages spoken, etc.)
   • Teaching evaluations
   • Leadership experiences
   • Professional memberships
   • Letters of recommendation
   • Transcripts and academic honors/awards

   Work Samples

   • Teaching (lesson plans, class projects, assignments, etc.)
   • Individual or team projects (event promotion, research, technical, etc.)
   • Writing (blogs, newspapers, journals, grant proposals, reports, marketing plans, etc.)
   • Artistic (artwork, photography, etc.)
   • Design (graphic, web, interior, apparel, exhibit, etc.)
   • Multimedia (presentations, videos, music, interactive, etc.)