How To Build A Solid Portfolio With Babajide Duroshola
On the 28th of November we had the opportunity of hosting a Tweet Chat with Babajide Duroshola who is a Community Manager and Technical Talent at Andela Nigeria. Where he spoke on building a solid portfolio as a Software Engineer or whatever field you may find yourself. You can follow the hashtag #TweetchatwithBabajide on Twitter.
Please note that the contents shared in this article rightfully belongs to Babajide Duroshola.
What is a portfolio?
Career portfolio are used to plan, organize and document education, work samples, and skills a professional possesses.
People use career portfolio to apply for jobs, apply to college or training programmes, get a higher salary, show transferable skills and to track personal development. This allows professionals show their competitive edge.
At the center of having a solid portfolio is “personal branding” in today’s market teeming with thousands of product and services, all of which are rapidly commoditized, a brand stands, from the cluster and attracts attention.
A while ago, i found this cool acronym for B.R.A.N.D. It says the Blueprint_Relationship_Agreement_Nature_Distinctiveness of an entity.
So if you are a B.R.A.N.D, what wound be your:
B: BLUEPRINT — What would be your master plan to achieving that great goal?
R: RELATIONSHIP — What relationship would you form? What thoughts or impressions?
A: AGREEMENT — What is your brand promise to those you serve?
N: NATURE — What would be your inherent nature? Charter? Style?
D: DISTINCTIVENESS — How would you stand out from the rest?
Basically how would you show up? And how do you want to be experienced?
So basically how do you to be “identified”, “Trusted”, and “Valued”? And what “Strategy”, “Advertisement”, and “Marketing” do you want to deploy?
So in BUILDING A SOLID PORTFOLIO, there are 5 critical steps to follow after all you are a BRAND.
STEP 1:
Determine your area of expertise. It’s okay to be Jack of all trade but to build a solid portfolio you need to be a master of 1.
STEP 2:
Begin to write and publish about your area of expertise. The only way you can show true thought leadership in an area is by you documenting your learning and knowledge of the said area of expertise.
STEP 3:
Flesh out your social media profile. This is where most of your skills and activities can be housed. I’ve seen people use blogs, YouTube, Facebook etc. In fact on my CV you would see links to content i have created.
STEP 4:
Pick up public speaking. Yes thought leaders cannot run from this. Public speaking helps you build your ability to communicate your skills and guess what? Helps build your portfolio (Imagine being a TED Talks speaker).
STEP 5:
Network!!! Associate yourself with other strong brands (people that is) meet people, build your network, gain mindshare in your area of expertise.
Now when all this is done, get a PHYSICAL PORTFOLIO jacket (Storage) to store your self generated content. This could be by having a personal website, Dropbox, or an online jacket you can always reference when people are curious about your work.
Other notable things to do are:
- Find ways to add value
- Edit your online profile to fit your brand
- Be purposeful about why you put online
- Don’t be scared to Reinvent yourself!
Now you can ask questions!!!
Chat ended here after questions were answered by Babajide Duroshola.
The #TweetchatwithBabajide was filled with knowledgeable insights on HOW TO BUILD A SOLID PORTFOLIO.
This is something the Ingressive community will be doing weekly, we have other resourceful programs in the Ingressive Community on Slack. Which you can join HERE.
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