Big business folders with lots of papers and stationery. That’s the aptest definition of a portfolio, but it’s not quite complete. After all, anyone can use a portfolio, from business owners to college students, and let’s not forget stockbrokers, managers, and investors.
Now, everyone has a basic idea of what a portfolio looks like, but few can really define it clearly. So, in this article, we will go over everything that our readers need to know before purchasing a printed business folder and making use of it. We will pay special attention to the variety of portfolio types and where (and how) they can be of help to us.
Using Printed Business Folders or Portfolios in Business
Any business owner worth their salt will have several key portfolios handy. After all, that is where all of the relevant business data is kept. And some of that business data includes:
- The company’s mission statement
- Product samples
- Overhead costs
- Sales and profits figures
- SWOT analyses
- Growth matrices
- Marketing analyses
- Case studies
- Success stories
- User test results
- Shareholder lists
- Project ideas
- Goals, objectives, and future plans
- Investments
- Acquisitions
- News stories
- Customer stats
- Press releases
- Sponsorships
- Awards
- Reviews
- User testimonials.
All of that information is vital for the company to prosper and reflect on past events. So, it’s instructive that we update our portfolio at the end of every fiscal year for further accuracy and easier planning going forward.
Using Printed Business Folders or Portfolios in Education
Both educators and students have their own portfolios whether they’re in the form of custom conference folders or corporate leather folders. It’s a crucial tool to see how much they have grown and progressed throughout the school year. Furthermore, it helps them both assess what to do moving forward.
Typically, an educator’s portfolio will contain lesson plans, curricula, syllabi, classroom practices, and many other relevant documents. To a tutor, a teacher, a professor, and a counsellor, such portfolios serve a two-prone purpose. Firstly, they show just how much the educator has progressed in a single year. Secondly, and more importantly, it’s an excellent back-catalogue of all the work that was done. Using this portfolio, the educator can further their career and earn more respect (and more money).
Students use the portfolio for similar purposes. The business folder will contain their academic record, their successes, medals, diplomas, but also their absences, low grades and behavioural assessments. With this portfolio, the student can see how much they’ve grown and developed education-wise. In addition, a clean portfolio can open doors to better schools later down the student’s life.
Physical vs Digital Portfolios: Differences, Pros and Cons
As their names suggest, these portfolios differ in where we save our data. A physical portfolio is one which we can literally pick up and carry around with us. It’s usually a binder or a case full of printouts of all the relevant data we need. On the other hand, a digital portfolio is a collection of those same documents, but not printed. Instead, they all remain in one place online, either on a Cloud drive or on a hosting website.
Both options have their own ups and downs. For example, we can take a physical portfolio such as GoPromotional‘s University Portfolio everywhere with us. Furthermore, it’s inexpensive, looks professional, and it’s incredibly fun and rewarding to put together. Finally, it comes with no tech issues whatsoever. Still, it does cost a lot to print everything out, and our actual carrying space is limited. More irritatingly, if we lose the portfolio, that’s all of our work down the drain.
Digital portfolios tend to be a lot more flexible and hold far more data than physical ones. In addition, we can quite literally access them anywhere. Plus, if we have to present our work to a potential client, they will appreciate how tech-savvy we are and it might work to our professional benefit. However, web domains and maintenance come at a cost. Furthermore, we won’t have any access to our files if there’s no internet or some tech issues arise.
What Should a Conference Folder Portfolio Include?
A Person’s Bio or Summary
A short professional biography is always a good way to start a portfolio. Alternatively, we can simply provide a summary of everything that’s within our binder. It should be concise, to-the-point, and easy to read, but professional enough to impress all potential partners or employees.
Work Examples
Each portfolio contains the best examples of a person’s work, the ones that show off what we can do and what the end results of our hard work are like. It’s best to use work that isn’t older than 3 years.
Headshot
Professional photos are a given with any portfolio. The pic we use has to look decent, which means it can’t be blurry or messy. In addition, we ought to look dressed for the part on it. To put it bluntly, that means no holiday snaps, selfies, or anything spontaneous. We need business attire, sleek hair, and a serious look of determination on our faces.
Resume
When job hunting, it’s always a good idea to have an up-to-date resume in the binder. The resume ought to contain our entire work history, educational background, and any and all side-projects we might have worked on in the past. Furthermore, the employer should be able to read the resume easily, so we must make sure to pick a simple-to-scan format.
Degrees, Licenses, Certifications
The title is rather self-explanatory. If we have a good educational background, we should state it clearly and prominently in our portfolio. So, any degree from a suitable college should find its way among headshots and resumes. Moreover, if we have a license or a certificate from a different credible source that can help us with our vocation, that’s a huge plus. Naturally, we should include any such documentation alongside our degrees in our portfolio.
Contact Info
Home address, phone number, email address, any useful personal links, and websites — any employee, from office worker to freelance artist, must have these available. We can print them all out in an easy-to-read Word doc file and place a few copies in our portfolio.
Extracurricular Work
It might seem odd to put extracurricular work and volunteering efforts in a professional resume. But such small details can make all of the difference when looking for work. After all, an employee with lots of non-work-related activities can only benefit the company in the long run.
News Articles
When others talk about us, it’s a signal to the employer that we mean business. And yes, even if it’s a local newspaper or website that mentions our name, we should include it in the portfolio. All publicity is good publicity, after all.
Awards and Honours
Any employee will have at least some history when it comes to competing. So, any awards, participation trophies, medals, etc., ought to be listed in the portfolio. They show our competitive side and the willingness to take pride in our achievements, no matter how small they might appear.
Goals
As an employee who wants to progress, we ought to list several goals in our portfolio. It’s best to have a short, five-year plan with several attainable goals in mind.
References
Just like news articles are good publicity, the praise of other individuals serves as the best PR. We should add a few different references from people within our industry to show the potential employer how much value we have as workers.
Inspirational Quotes
Last, but not least, quotes that inspire us and help us push forward should also find their way within the confines of our portfolio. After all, they are what gives us strength and vigour, so it’s only natural that they should come with us wherever we go.
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Why Do Portfolios Matter?
Organisation
When we build a portfolio and keep it neat, we’re actually acquiring a new skill, that of organisation. It will help us sort through the information and pick out the most useful parts as we progress. Furthermore, it will provide some order and discipline in our lives, which are both vital for self-improvement.
Professionalism
This might sound a bit shallow, but sometimes looking professional is every bit as important as simply being professional. Wearing a nice suit with a neat portfolio in our hand will always leave a good impression on people. In addition, it will have a positive psychological effect on us personally.
Self-Reflection
Portfolios are effectively little time capsules of success and failure. When we go over them, we are reminded of what we can or can’t do, what we succeeded at, and what still needs to be done going forward. It’s an excellent way of facing one’s past professional self and improving on whatever is necessary.
Proof of Skills
What better way of showing off who we are and what we’re capable of than a professional portfolio? After all, it literally contains our biggest achievements, as well as some of our goals and dreams. And the best part is, some of the information we have was readily verified by other people, including past colleagues and employees. It’s all there, in the proverbial black and white.
Portability
If we require easy access to our work history, past projects, etc., then few things are as effective as a portfolio. It doesn’t matter if it’s digital or physical, a binder with a summary of all our work is always a handy tool and we will only benefit if it comes with us wherever we may go.
Creativity
The way we put our portfolio together also serves a purpose. Namely, it shows how creative we can really be when we have an important task before us. We may opt to use printed post-it index flags to mark and segregate documents. We may also opt to use gel pens or highlighters to make our portfolios more colourful. Furthermore, it enables us to test out different looks until we settle for one that works for us the best.
Constant Growth and Updates
A portfolio is a being that constantly grows and develops. It’s like a sizable collection of comic books. We constantly add new issues to it, expanding it greatly, but we also give away the issues we don’t necessarily need, allowing it some breathing room.
Different Types of Portfolios Listed
Now that we know a little bit about portfolios, it’s time to delve into all of their various types out there. The following list is not extensive, but it does provide some of the most prominent, most frequent portfolio types we can utilise. Depending on where we work (or want to work), we will choose one of the following:
- Assessment portfolios
- Showcase portfolios
- Process portfolios
- Development portfolios
- Working portfolios
- Product portfolios
- Hybrid portfolios.
Assessment Portfolios
An assessment portfolio contains pieces of work that we want someone to judge. Usually, it will have either past projects, former work, or, in the case of students, materials that the teachers can grade. With this type of portfolio, we’re trying to impress the other party by showing them exactly how successful we can be in a given field.
Showcase Portfolios
Showcase portfolios are similar to assessment ones, except we’re not using products or items that we want others to grade. Instead, we’re using the ones that we know have value. To put it into perspective, a typical student will use an assessment portfolio for the teacher to grade him. But an above-average student will use a showcase portfolio to get entry into college or win a scholarship.
Process Portfolios
A process portfolio takes a different approach than the first two. Whereas assessment and showcase portfolios illustrate how great we are, process portfolios show what we did to get to that point. In other words, instead of showing the results of our hard work, they point to the work itself, complete with errors, discarded ideas, and compromises we had to make along the way.
Development Portfolios
Development portfolios are, once again, similar to process portfolios, but they take a more all-encompassing approach. For instance, a process portfolio might contain specific projects from the idea phase to its completion. However, a development portfolio represents us, from our humble beginnings to our roaring success at present. It’s a fine time capsule that shows the employee how much we’re willing to change and grow as a professional.
Working Portfolios
Working portfolios are, by their definition, not finished. One such portfolio will contain different stages of certain projects, meant to show how it has grown over the years. And yes, it is quite similar to a process or a development portfolio. The only major difference is that there is no discernible end here. We are really not showcasing the results with this one, but rather our work ethic and our willingness to push the project to the end. In addition, it illustrates that we’re proud believers of certain projects well before they enter their final stages.
Product Portfolios
Of all the portfolios listed here, these are the ones that work the best when we’re at trade shows or corporate events. They make the best possible use of the “show, don’t tell” approach. Instead of containing raw data and numbers, product portfolios actually have samples of the products we’re selling, shipping, or manufacturing. It’s an excellent way of showing our partners directly what we handle and how we handle it.
Hybrid Portfolios
Once again, the clue is in the name. A hybrid portfolio combines elements of two (or more) different options listed earlier. However, since those portfolios tend to be the biggest and contain the most data, having a physical copy of them is difficult. That’s why they work best when we have them in a digital format. Of course, if we can have a physical copy, it’s best we use a big and sturdy carrying case.
Knowing Our Portfolios In and Out
Be they digital or physical, big or small; portfolios are a must-have for anyone who wants to grow and progress professionally. We highly recommend that all of our readers start building their portfolios today. It will more than pay off in the future.
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