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CAREER CORNER: PORTFOLIO
Text: Marc Ramos Garzon
#strategic As I mentioned last time, being a student is time-consuming. There’s all the school work and parties to attend, and now some douche (not me) recommended you join some volunteer organization for fun, experience and improving your resumé (see issue #2). You know what else can improve your resumé? More experience! The joke is, though, that you already have it, you just don’t know it. Or you will. It is everything you create in your spare time, the projects you work on during your education and your passions. So how do you tap into it for a killer job after graduation? #early Set your goals from the start. You chose a study programme at university for a reason. Why? Where do you want to be? What do you want to work as? In a company? Which? When you have answered these questions, check what you need to get there. Don’t do it later, do it now. “Later” is too late.
Now that you know where you want to go, work towards it. Don’t pick project topics to pass the subject. Think how they can affect your goal. Do you want to work in Company X? Write a project related to what they do, using the skills they look for in their job offers, or in their area. Are you working on a hobby in your spare time? Could it be used to reach your goal? Of course you should have hobbies unrelated to your career, but some of them might be useful. An engineer creating robots in his spare time who blogs about it will have more chances to get into a job than his peers. #portfolio And that’s not just for artists, think of the engineer I just described. Point is, in this day and age you need to show others what you can do. The better you can show it, the more chances they want to hire you. And yes, there are some careers that will have a harder time doing this, but starting a blog takes 5 minutes, and you can write all about supply chain management advancements or your views on famous branding failures.