A professional portfolio is a collection of documents, pictures, paintings, etc., that provide evidence of an individual’s abilities, skills, experience, and accomplishments. Where the resume only mentions the qualifications, skills, accomplishments, and experience of a person, a professional portfolio provides the evidence of these as well as helps a viewer to review the individual’s work samples as well.

A professional portfolio is, mainly, prepared by an individual seeking any employment opportunity or a deal or a contract, so that he can present it to the employer or the person seeking any service. Like a resume, a professional portfolio is a promotional tool that can help in marketing a person’s skills to the employer so to persuade the employer for hiring the individual. This function of the portfolio clearly reflects its significance.

Furthermore, the cover or title page of this portfolio, which is, usually, its first page and is the summarized version of it, holds similar importance. Therefore, it needs to be prepared attentively, formally and comprehensively. An attractive and relevant cover page has several benefits, such as:

• The employer or viewer can decide if he is interested in the person’s details to go through the complete portfolio. This would save the employer’s as well as the candidate’s time.
• It makes the first impression of the candidate, which means a good cover page would make a good impression and vice versa are applicable as well.
• If the cover page is attractive and catchy, it automatically generates interest of the employer in the rest of the portfolio.
• As it has the main details of the candidates, it would help the employer in the initial short-listing of candidates. For instance, if he is seeking an individual with MBA degree, a cover page can help in separating the portfolios of MBA graduates, instead of going through the complete portfolio in the initial phase, which would waste the time and effort.
• It provides a chance to the individual to market himself in a quick glance of the employer.

An individual may like to design his professional portfolio cover page himself or he may use an existing template from online sources or programs, like Microsoft Word. In the latter case, he can easily access and customize the template as per his requirements of the cover page.

The requirements may vary from individual to individual and scenario to scenario. For instance, in some cases, a person prepares a generalized portfolio and cover page that he can use for all the probable employers. On the other hand, in some cases, an employer may demand a customized portfolio with different details, which may mean a different cover page as well.

Nevertheless, the general details included in the professional portfolio cover page are:

• Name and details of the candidate.
• Name and details of the employer, if required and applicable.
• Qualification and specialization.
• Skills, experience, and achievements.
• Any quote or tag line, if required.
• Any image or picture, if required.
• Summary of the included documents.

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