Application materials · Level Starter · Job hunting Portfolio Job hunting
Portfolio: three pieces are enough
A portfolio with too much material and no idea what to include.
Prompt
One criterion: can a hiring manager tell in twenty seconds that you have done this job. Actions and results, never adjectives.
Task: A portfolio with too much material and no idea what to include.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- the abilities required
- what I have
- my role in each piece
- format
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- three pieces only, one per required ability
- each with problem, my judgement, result
- state exactly what I did in the team
- drop drafts and irrelevant work
[Process]
1. Read the job description and extract the three things they screen for
2. Rewrite each experience as context, my action, result
3. Delete unverifiable adjectives
4. Mirror their vocabulary without inventing
5. Name the weakest link
[Output]
Rewritten material, what was cut, what evidence is missing.
[Do not]
- Never invent experience or numbers
- No 'expert' or 'proficient'
- Never one resume for every role
- Do not present duties as achievementsWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- the abilities required
- what I have
- my role in each piece
- format
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- three pieces only, one per required ability
- each with problem, my judgement, result
- state exactly what I did in the team
- drop drafts and irrelevant work