Where is the evidence of your potential?

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do" ~ Henry Ford.

Creative professionals, like artists and architects, have used career portfolios, sometimes known as the "the book", to promote themselves and their skills for decades.

In today’s competitive, knowledge-based labor market, other professionals are discovering the value of portfolios.  They don't always have to be a physical book, and with online resources, anyone can create a  virtual professional portfolio.  That is actually how I see LinkedIn - as a museum where people display their lives through a virtual professional portfolio.  Curating that just means adding items and information about who you are, what you have done, where your interests lie and how others in your orbit see your work.

Value of a Virtual Professional Portfolio

If well thought out, the act of putting together your virtual professional portfolio can help you reflect on your work as evidence of your values, interests, skills and abilities.  It can help you clarify and filter what's important to you in current and future opportunities.  It can help you develop a tool which is strategically laid out to influence others about past successes and future potential.