What is an e-Portfolio

What is an e-portfolio?

According to the Wikipedia, "an electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a cohesive, powerful, and well-designed collection of electronic documents that demonstrate your skills, education, professional development, and the benefits you offer to a target reader" (more information from the Wikipedia available here)

Companies are increasingly using them as evidence to back up a job seeker's resume and cover letter and to see if you have the skills and experience necessary to do the job. It's a good way to make your application stand out!

e-Portfolios also have an archival nature since they document and record a person's past experiences and projects. They also form a permanent record over time of a person's evolving activities and progress.

Some jurisdictions require all students graduating from secondary school to have an e-portfolio as part of their graduation requirements. The European Union has an ambitious initiative to have all EU citizens develop an e-Portfolio by 2010!

More than half of all employers use keyword scanning when shortlisting job applicants... that is they store electronic copies of resumes or e-portfolios and scan for keywords related to open job postings. Most employers now also "google" prospective employees before making the final offer. In some cases, when Facebook comes up high in the search engine listing with pictures of that wild and crazy party you were at, it might not be what the employer was hoping to see.

Having your e-portfolio appear in the search engine rankings instead can be very powerful and could make the difference between getting the job or not.

Here are some e-portfolio samples that were done by students in the Financial Management and Marketing Programs at the British Columbia Institute of Technology back in 2005 using this tutorial.



Katherine K. (Financial Management)
Alim A. (Financial Management)

Here are some e-portfolios students from Capilano University made using this tutorial (with some modifications... in some cases with different blog tools).



Choyal Brown (School of Business)
Jess Sloss (School of Business)