Work Experience Portfolio

Any work experience gained, whether through a part-time/temporary job, placements or voluntary work is going to look good on your CV. However, it is not enough to just gain the experience, you need to recognise how you have developed skills and qualities as a result. Creating your own Work Experience Portfolio will help you to do this.

Benefits of creating a work experience portfolio

• It will help you think about your skills and personal attributes in a way which will enable you to communicate them clearly to employers during the application process.
• It will act as a handy reminder of your skills when you make applications in the future.
• It will provide a useful resource to give to your tutor and other people, when you ask them to write references for you.

Who should create a work experience portfolio?

• First, second and penultimate year students can use it to make more effective applications for further work experience (particularly summer internships and placements).
• Final year students can use it to help them enhance their applications for graduate jobs or further study.

When should I start to develop my work experience portfolio?

Ideally, you should begin to develop your Portfolio as soon as you start work. However, you can still compile one retrospectively as a way of reviewing previous experience, although, this isn't as effective as producing a Portfolio as you go along, but still a worthwhile exercise.

What should I include in my work experience portfolio?

A completed Portfolio consists of the following:

• Skills Records - each detailing the type of work experience undertaken, the skills / attributes / knowledge developed as a result of the experience, and examples of these in practice. Use the Skills development record template on the right hand menu and complete it every time you start a new job.
• Reflections - use this section to incorporate any examples of audits, action plans, logs, journals or other tools that you have used to help you with your development during your work experience. This section will be very personal to you so develop it to suit your own style (see WEP compilation guidelines)
• Supplementary evidence - the capabilities demonstrated on the records may be supported by the inclusion of supplementary evidence (see WEP compilation guidelines)

Further support

If you need any assistance with the development of your portfolio please contact us via our Email Enquiry Service