E-Portfolio: What do employers look for?

Authors Watty and McKay state that employers identify key benefits of a job candidate's e-portfolio as:

• Provides a body of evidence
• Helps in the recruitment process (with narrowing-down selection)
• Caters to the next generation • Helps employers get a “feel for the person”
• Offers an in-depth understanding of the applicant

Watty and McKay also say that e-portfolios can reveal things about candidates that the interview process may miss, such as:

• Personalised body of learning evidence against generic skills
• Learning style and preferences
• The lens through which they view the world/life
• Communication tool

In an article for Getting Hired, Jim Hasse suggests:

• Go business-like in your choice of colors and fonts. Keep it professional.
• Consider layout and create separate sections for education, experience, special projects, resume. You may want to avoid listing your references publicly, but make sure you can provide them if contacted.
• Provide pictures that are of good quality and illustrate the point of content.
• Use spell-check for the content and keep it up to date!

In an Educause Quarterly article, authors Ward and Moser write the type of information employers believed would be valuable in an e-portfolio include the following:

• Resumes/references (93 percent)
• Written work (39 percent)
• Projects (37 percent)
• Presentations (33 percent)
• Lesson plans (23 percent)
• Case studies (7 percent)
• Artistic performances (6 percent)

In the educational services area, resumes topped the list of preferred information, followed by lesson plans, projects, and written work, while health care employers wanted to see resumes, references, and presentations. A resounding 95 percent of respondents preferred to access the e-portfolio via a web-based link.

Sources:

Hasse, J. (2016). Your ePortfolio: Essential job marketing tool. Getting Hired. Retrieved from https://www.gettinghired.com/en/blog/2016/9/your-eportfolio-essential-job-marketing-tool.

Ward, C. and Moser, C. (2008). E-portfolios as a hiring tool: Do employers really care? Educause Quarterly 31, 4. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/11/eportfolios-as-a-hiring-tool-do-employers-really-care.

Watty, K. and KcKay, J. (n.d.). E-portfolios: What employers think. Global Focus Magazine. Retrieved from https://globalfocusmagazine.com/eportfolios-what-employers-think/.