Sharing Your Career Journey
I rolled my eyes more than once whenever I heard my parents tell me how it was “back in the day.” Fast forward 30 years, and now I find myself thinking about how it was “back in my day.” I’m not talking about music, sports, or entertainment, although they have all changed so much. Rather, the importance of building and promoting your personal and professional eminence. You may be thinking — what defines eminence, and why do I care about it? Simply put, eminence includes the roles, activities, skills and impact you build over time to create a professional image.
Equally important is how you share and help others build their eminence throughout a professional career. It is the cornerstone of professional growth.
We work with an organization of technical content professionals, content designers, content strategists, and even some software developers. Our observations about the importance of building and sharing eminence include working with these team members but any lessons learned can apply to other professional domains.
Looking Back
Let’s take a quick trip back in time, when the most important tool that professionals carried in their back pocket (or backpack) was a resume. The resume has stood the test of time and allowed anyone to share, in short snippets, a view into their professional and personal achievements. Many of us still use some form of a resume today, and while the formats are diverse, the content is clear. A good resume includes a goal or abstract statement, a short summary of education and training, relevant experiences (including impact) and a brief glimpse into the personal side of an individual.
Any resume, whether it be a traditional printed version or a digital offering, is just a foot-in-the-door opening. Similarly, many of you might also be ready to do a 60 second sell. Like a salesperson looking to convince a prospective customer, the 60 second sell is a thought-out personal short story to catch the listener’s interest. After a catchy opening, it’s important to include your accomplishments, training achievements and other anecdotes to make the story come alive from start to finish in one minute.
Moving Forward
As we fast forward to today, while both the resume and 60 second sell remain very important tools, the portfolio of experience has evolved from both tools, representing a more comprehensive and detailed view of your projects and capabilities.
Unlike a resume or 60 second sell, your portfolio of experience, through various projects, tells a story about your skills growth, career achievements, and business impact. Projects on a resume can seem disjointed and a 60 second sell isn’t enough to get to know someone. A portfolio of experience puts emphasis on your personal experience and the journey that led to your destination.
Key Items in a Portfolio of Experience
A portfolio of experience is a living and changing collection of artifacts that highlights your important accomplishments, skills, and experiences, while allowing you to demonstrate the impact you’ve made in different situations and on projects.
As you create your portfolio of experience, choose relevant examples to create your professional image. Key aspects should include:
· Business impact — What did you contribute to help make the projects successful? What did you learn from a project that did not go well? Keep in mind that difficult projects can sometimes offer you even more valuable experience.
· Skill craft growth — What new skills are you learning and how are you applying them in different projects and experiences?
· Eminence — How are you sharing your experience or giving back to others across your team, professional or local business community?
Your projects should tell a story. You want to make sure you are communicating your accomplishments and showing impact in a concise enough manner that it quickly captures and retains others’ attention. Some areas to focus on when defining each project are:
· Resolving business problems or addressing requirements — What was your role? What contributions did you make in resolving the issue?
· Evolving your role — Share the evolution of your role on a project. How did you take on a leadership role, or share your skills, grow yourself and grow your discipline?
· Emphasizing your impact — What was the impact to the business, the team, and your career growth? Can you equate this to a measurable impact?
Your story should also have a compelling visual component. Consider how to present your story and all its components with an appealing and easy to understand format. When selecting examples to include in your portfolio of experience, keep in mind that while a picture may be worth a thousand words, it is important to choose the correct imagery.
A simple visual that supports your narrative and engages your reader is important. Just as you would not fill up the pages of your portfolio of experience with endless strings of text, don’t create a confusing and distracting graphical format for your story.
Finally, like a book club or design critique, we have had success hosting portfolio of expereince round tables. This is a safe atmosphere to get feedback from peers. The questions others ask not only bring clarity to a confusing story, but also point out missing information to help complete a story.
Bringing It All Together
When looking at both building eminence and sharing accomplishments, all three tools: a resume, the 60 second sell, and portfolio of experiences, can be used to accentuate each other and highlight your abilities, skills, and impact.
The evolution of career building has seen a shift towards continuous learning, skills development, and adaptability in response to changing industry trends and technological advancements. The tools you use to build and promote your professional eminence should also be adapting alongside you.
The co-authors of this article are Phil Siconolfi, Manager, IBM Z Content Development, and Dave Hans, Program Director, IBM Z Content Development at IBM based in Poughkeepsie, New York. Phil and Dave are both managers responsible for the technical content design and development of products, but more importantly, for guiding the career development of a diverse community of professionals. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
