Portfolio perfection

They say to never judge a book by its cover. This is why, when it comes to getting employers to discover your potential and abilities, a portfolio can be a very powerful tool, for example during an interview. Whilst the first impression employers perceive of you during your interaction might be deceiving, just like the looks of a book cover, portfolios tend to reflect who you are more accurately. CVs and resumes already provide a detailed description of your achievements. Nonetheless, unlike this type of summary of your qualifications, portfolios are more personal and creative and therefore allow you to not only show what you are capable of once they are built, but also to discover what you are capable of in the process of building them. Self-discovery is possibly one of the most important reasons why you should create your portfolio – how can you present your true, valuable self to other people if you don’t know who you are yourself?
When creating a portfolio, you are forced to look into your prior experiences, which can be both life and work experiences. You will re-live them, you will re-evaluate them, and you will learn from them. You also might learn things from them that you did not pick up whilst you were living them. And just like everything in life, from advice to people, you have the power to choose what to include for your future and what to leave behind. Once you have elaborated on experiences from your past, you will have found out things about yourself that you might have forgotten whilst going through other, more recent experiences. You might re-discover an old passion or you might even find a hidden talent of yours that you had previously never considered. You might find out you have improved on some skills, you might find out that you never want to work in a certain area ever again, and you might find out that you have actually always been pretty good at something, which will give you a nice ego-boost. And you will also reflect on your personal goals and values before including them in your portfolio, which is likely to make you feel more deeply about them.
In general, after having written your portfolio, you will be more convincing about how employable you are when applying for a job. You can only promote yourself well when you know your strengths and weaknesses, so start writing your life down instead of only designing the book cover!