Creating a great portfolio

Portfolios. Don't think that only models, artist and graphic designers need them. A portfolio of your past work can make a solid impression on prospective employers. Start with a leather notebook. Inside, encased in plastic or attractively mounted, might be some of the following:

Reports that you have written including proposals, training programmes, analyzes or marketing plans. Letters and memos received from former colleagues or subordinates about projects on which you both worked. Letters of congratulations. Articles by or about you. Contributions to newsletters or in-house magazines and articles you've written even if unpublished.

Your portfolio should include enough material to reflect your unique talents an experience. Don't include anything that is confidential or the property of the company you worked for. If you've just left college or university, your portfolio might include certificates of all the projects that you've participated in. This will impress upon your interviewer that even though you don't have organizational and leadership skills, qualities which are much sought after in the working world.

So while others send in one-sheet resumes that clinically spell out their achievements, your portfolio will demonstrate your achievements and leave a vivid impression of yourself on people.