By Brenda L. Peterson, The Layoff Lady

If you work in an industry where potential employers want to see examples of your previous work, putting together a portfolio is a good idea. As someone who works in the field of learning and development, I know that it's valuable for me to have additional evidence to prove that I actually have all of those skills I brag so much about on my resume. Whether you're job searching or building your overall career resilience and opportunity readiness, having an online portfolio is a good step to take.

Like any new endeavor, figuring out where to start can be challenging. There are countless options, and even more opinions, on what the ideal portfolio looks like. Here is my five-step process for helping you to create a portfolio that works for you.

This is the step you might be tempted to skip. However, if you don't take a little time to figure out what you're trying to accomplish with your portfolio, you most certainly won't reach your goals.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help you clarify what you want:

• Who do you want to see your portfolio?
• When do you want them to access your portfolio?
• Which of your skills do you want to showcase?
• What stories are you trying to tell?

Depending on your answers to these questions, your goals may include one or more of the following:

• Have work samples available on-demand.
• Share lessons learned with select people.
• Tell the story of past projects.
• Showcase evidence of specific work skills.
• Support a job search.
• Build opportunity readiness.​

The answers to these questions will influence your portfolio creation choices.

The specific content you include in your portfolio will depend on your overall goals. In my chosen field of learning and development, here are a few of the kinds of work samples I might want to include:

• Communications plan
• eLearning module
• Facilitator guide
• Job aid
• Learning strategy document
• PowerPoint presentation
• Project plan
• Storyboard
• Technical documentation
• Video
• Webinar recording

Remember, your portfolio is not just about the documents you include. It's also about the story you tell about how you solved a problem and how the artifact you include supports that narrative. 

Once you have identified your goals and thought about the skillset you want to showcase, it's time to choose the specific documents you will include. Here are a few possibilities for locating or creating your actual work samples:

• Class projects
• Previous work (anonymized as needed)
• Projects completed for other organizations
• Publicly available resources
• Re-creations of past work
• Sample projects
• Work samples created as a part of a hiring process

Whether you have existing documents you used in previous roles, re-create samples similar to past work projects, or re-purpose project documents created as part of another interview process, determine what you will include.

Since you are creating an online portfolio, choosing the underlying technology is an important step. While there are countless options available, here are three viable choices to consider:
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• A file-sharing platform: Using Google Drive, DropBox, or OneDrive is a way to stand up a portfolio quickly. You can enable sharing for anyone with the link or set permissions for each person who you might want to access your work. If you have a Gmail account, you already have access to Google Drive without any extra cost.
• A Canva portfolio: Canva includes templates to create a free portfolio. Canva provides video tutorials and several examples from which to choose. Overall, this is a website with a specific focus. While there will be a bit of a learning curve to set up the site, you'll also have additional options for including the story behind each work sample instead of just a list of documents. 
• A website: While most people think of WordPress when they think of website creation, tools like Weebly and Wix have free options with more user-friendly interfaces. You can create a website with multiple pages or a page on an existing website accessible by a direct link. Websites have various options, meaning you have more control over how you create a site but have many more decisions to make upfront.  

Depending on your goals, you may have your portfolio as a website that someone could discover on their own or a link that can only be accessed after you share it with someone. Regardless of your portfolio format, there are a few cases where you will proactively share your portfolio link: 
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• In a job application.
• Included with your contact information in your LinkedIn profile.
• As a link at the top of your resume or cover letter document shared online.
• In an email to a colleague or hiring manager.

At this point, you may be excited about all the possibilities and overwhelmed with uncertainty. Here's my recommendation for creating at least a starter portfolio for yourself.

• If needed, create a Gmail account, then access Google Drive.
• Create a folder called [FirstName]  [LastName] Portfolio. In my case, Brenda Peterson Portfolio. 
• Upload six documents you created that showcase your skills. 
• Set sharing options to view only and copy the link for later use.

Congratulations. You now have a portfolio. Take a week off from looking at it, and then make an appointment with yourself to revisit your portfolio goals and next steps. 

What goals and design choices did you make with your online portfolio? Include your thoughts in the comments. 

Whether you are employed and searching for a role that is a better match or in a post-layoff career transition, job searching has many challenges. Perhaps the most frustrating part is that you can't control when you will get a new job. The whole process takes as long as it takes. To make the waiting and uncertainty more bearable, focusing on the aspects of your job search you can control is helpful. 

When working toward a goal, it's always helpful to identify your goals and track your progress toward those goals. This will also help you to evaluate what you are doing and adjust as needed to help you see greater success. There are two kinds of indicators to help measure success: leading indicators and lagging indicators. 

When working toward a goal, most people focus on lagging indicators. In a work setting, if I deliver a training session to help boost product sales, future sales numbers are a lagging indicator. Many factors contributing to future sales are outside my control—like what competing products exist, commission rates, or market conditions. Ultimately, sales numbers are a lagging indicator of success because they show up later on.

Focusing on lagging indicators is how we are encouraged to measure progress in much of life. We look to the scale to show us if we lost weight, our temperature to see if we are healthy, and an accepted job offer as proof of results. While these are all the ultimate measures of success, they are the outputs of many tangible factors we can track and control. Which brings us to...

Along the way, it’s more helpful to focus on leading indicators. These are the easily measurable, countable, check-off-able items that are within your control. In my sales training scenario, leading indicators of success would include holding the training session, the number of attendees, knowledge check results from each participant, and the presence of a reference document. I can control all of these things, count them, and check off tasks completed.

Focusing on the right leading indicators doesn't guarantee I'll achieve my lagging indicators of increased sales, but that success is more likely to happen. Similarly, if I commit to the daily tasks of walking for 30 minutes, eating 5 servings of vegetables, and drinking 64 ounces of water per day, I am positioning myself for more success in my weight loss goal. Those right actions, and tweaking them as needed, will eventually lead to that number on the scale moving in the right direction. 

Within the context of a job search, here are a few lagging indicators of job search progress. You can also not directly control these actions happening:

• Finding a current employee to refer me for a specific job at their company.
• Getting a collegues to put in a good word for me with a potential employer.
• Hearing back from an employer about an initial interview.
• Being invited to a follow-up or final job interview.
• Recieving a job offer.

All these lagging are definitive, and are indicators of legitimate progress toward getting a new job. You also can not directly make any of these things happen. 

During your job search, it's important to focus on activities that can position you to reach those milestones. Here are the broad areas you can impact:
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• Build or strengthen networking connections with people who work in my industry or for a possible employer (which may lead to a referral)
• Highlight my professional skillset through my LinkedIn profile (which may lead to an employer reaching out about an open position)
• Apply for jobs that are a good fit for me (which may lead to a call back)
• Improve how I position my work experience (which may lead to my resume being selected for an initial phone screen)

Now, turn those squishier ideas into leading indicators. Do this by creating specific, countable, check-off-able tasks on your to-do list. Here are a few examples: 

• On LinkedIn, spend 15 minutes each weekday reacting to and commenting on posts made by my connections and companies that I follow.
• On LinkedIn, make a post each Tuesday at 10:00 am that starts with a sentence about a valuable skill I have and includes a link to an article about that skill. 
• On LinkedIn, make a post each Thursday at 2:00 pm that includes a work-relevant inspirational quote.
• On LinkedIn, send five requests to connect with new people each week.
• Identify five jobs that meet my job search criteria.
• Apply for three jobs with tailored resumes.
• On LinkedIn, follow the LinkedIn page for each company where I apply.
• Take part in at least one professional development activity per week.

Having this list of tangible actions to take will keep you on track to achieve your goal of finding a new job.

Some weeks, you do a lot of waiting, which makes you feel like you are terrible at everything and destined to be stuck right where you are. Other weeks, people will trip over one another clamoring to talk with you about yet another amazing job opportunity. During those weeks, you feel like this is all easy and you can do no wrong. Stay the course and keep on keeping on knowing that eventually something will pop.

How do you sustain momentum during your job search? Share your thoughts in the comments.