New Service Helps Students Brand Themselves

While the traditional resume has its place in the job hunt, there is a new way to attract potential employers’ attention – the career portfolio. To make sure Kaplan University students are on top of this latest way to market themselves, Betsy Richards has transitioned to a new position – Director of Personal Brand Strategy.

She recently began teaching students how to use a program called Optimal Resume, which allows job seekers to build a website featuring portfolios with detailed information about their job skills and samples of their work. In addition to a resume and cover letter, a career portfolio might include presentations, writing samples or websites developed by the student. Students can include a URL link to their career website on their traditional resume and make it available through sites like LinkedIn and Twitter.

Betsy says the traditional resume is still applicable, but the career portfolio allows job seekers to take it a step further.

“A resume should be 1 to 2 pages, which does not always allow you to show all your skills and work history. The portfolio is the answer to that,” Betsy said. “Teaching our students to use this is giving them a leg up in the job market.”

One student who is completing an associate’s degree in Information Technology, is putting the final touches on his career portfolio/website and plans to start sending it out this month. He attended Betsy’s webinars on personal brand strategy, and was so impressed by what he learned that he shared the information with his wife and son who is a junior in college.

Betsy approves the students’ career portfolios before their career website goes live, and also helps them assess their career skills. She works with them one on one and presents webinars to groups.

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