The common practice in the current job market is to submit a resume and cover letter when applying for the opportunity identified. While these two documents are significant, designing and presenting a professional portfolio is equally essential.  A professional portfolio ensures that the applicant provides the potential employer with more information about individual work and achievement (Nkonki, 2016). Therefore, two of the most suitable professional portfolio development strategies include:

Collecting examples of their works

A professional portfolio is based on individual qualifications and achievements. Therefore, collecting samples of their works to help the potential employer to better understand the applicant as an individual and as a profession. These examples of personal work, may include evaluations, reports, and surveys, specific materials designed in college, or the previous place of work. In most cases, employers look beyond the academic qualification of an individual, which means that the inclusion of these works increases the chances of qualifying for an opportunity (Galán-Mañas, 2018). Besides, a candidate can go a step further and include photos of themselves working to prove that they participated in these activities.

Ensure that individual documents are organized clearly and concisely

 In essence, the primary objective of creating a professional portfolio is improving the visibility and credibility of an individual, which can be enhanced by a concise organization of personal documents. Putting the documents in a particular order, such as from the most important to less significant, shows the employers that the candidate is serious about the job.  Therefore, the candidate needs to ensure that all documents are up to date, clean, and organized in such a way that the employers or the audience do not spend more time to locate a particular document (Ahmed & Ward, 2016). For example, an individual might arrange his or her work from recent achievements to past achievements. Such a strategy shows that an individual has higher organizational skills.

                                                                                          References

Ahmed, E., & Ward, R. (2016). A comparison of competing technology acceptance models to explore personal, academic and professional portfolio acceptance behaviour. Journal of Computers in Education, 3(2), 169-191. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-016-0058-1

Galán-Mañas, A. (2018). Professional portfolio in translator training: Professional competence development and assessment. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 13(1), 44-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399x.2018.1541295

Nkonki, V. (2016). Lecturers’ perspectives on the effectiveness of portfolio assessment for a professional development course. Journal of Communication, 7(1), 87-94. https://doi.org/10.1080/0976691x.2016.11884886