Creating Your Administrative Assistant Career Portfolio

What to Know When Creating Your Administrative Assistant Career Portfolio

An exceptional career portfolio for an administrative assistant is designed to showcase you and your personal and unique brand. It highlights all you have accomplished and displays your key professional goals. It serves as both a high-level and a granular view of the contributions you’ve made to your organization and leader’s overall successes. A stellar career portfolio captures your evolving skill levels, professional recognition, career enhancements, development endeavors, and notable accomplishments. 

Administrative Assistant Portfolio

A common misconception about career portfolios is that they are only needed in order to obtain employment or to fulfill a corporate requirement. To be very clear, a career portfolio’s primary purpose is NOT about job hunting.

A career portfolio helps you demonstrate that you take your chosen career as an administrative assistant seriously, you are proactive and driven, you know how to elevate your leader and the company through proficient work, and you always strive for greatness.

What to Know When Creating Your Administrative Assistant Career Portfolio 

Your career portfolio should leave an impression. It should have a real “wow factor.” A well-executed administrative assistant career portfolio is much more than a two-page resume. The goal is really to tell the story of your professional journey. The added bonus is that you will have a complete history of your career cataloged and easily accessible at all times. 

That fact may make this resource more valuable to you than anyone else. It can help you continue to grow by serving as a marker for where you are now and help you laser focus on your future professional goals. It can also showcase how far you have come over time. Here are some helpful tips to make sure your career portfolio has as much muscle as possible and is always serving to guide you forward:

  1. Don’t ever consider your portfolio finished. You should be constantly updating your career portfolio so that it grows with you.
  2. Keep a backup. You should maintain multiple copies of your career portfolio including a hard copy and a copy on a USB.
  3. Make sure it showcases who you are professionally. It should introduce and explain your brand. It must tell your story, and that story is important.
  4. Let it be a catalyst for change. Leaders take notice of forward-thinking assistants.
  5. Ask for feedback on your portfolio from several people in your organization with whom you regularly interact.
  6. Know your strengths, and use them. Know your gaps, and work on them. Always be improving.
  7. Be a generalist or a multi-specialist. Assistants shouldn’t just excel in one area at work. They should be the best jugglers in the office. Don’t get lasered focused on doing only one thing really well. Broaden your professional skills.
  8. Always continue to learn and grow in your craft. Make sure you’re doing everything you can to stay current.

Cover Letter and Resume Tips for Assistants

If you are focusing on obtaining a new job as a personal assistant, you may also be wondering about how to create an incredible resume and an impressive cover letter. You need to make sure you really highlight your skills in your administrative assistant resume and cover letter. Here are some quick tips for those key professional elements.

Administrative assistant resume tips:

  • Make sure it looks sharp and is easy to navigate
  • Use a professional font
  • Avoid grammatical and spelling errors
  • Review your job description and be sure to incorporate the skills that align with your role
  • Highlight your experience
  • Use clear and concise language


Administrative assistant cover letter tips:

  • Review the job description carefully and include keywords or phrases used in the posting
  • Spend the time needed to craft a well-written, customized, thoughtful cover letter
  • Use a conversational tone while keeping the content professional
  • Avoid generic greetings 
  • Explain why you’re interested in the position and convey that you understand what the company does
  • Use as much “you” language as you do “I” language
  • Emphasize your applicable skills, experience, and what you have to offer


The Administrative Professional Skills
That Stand Out

Now that we’ve covered traditional career portfolios, resumes, and cover letters, it’s time to move onto the digital world. It’s important now, more than ever, that your career portfolio contains a digital element. The goal is still the same: it should represent your professional brand and tell the story of your career and accomplishments. A digital career portfolio can really help you stand out from the pack.

It has some key benefits too. Your digital portfolio is always available to work for you and help you shine. It’s “up” at all hours for all to see. It can do a lot of leg work for you if you take the time to set it up correctly and promote your professional brand consistently. 

The internet offers varied and impressive platforms that you can use to promote yourself. Some options come with a fee, while others are free to use. Make sure you research and thoroughly understand each platform you use. Your digital career portfolio options are many and varied, but don’t jump in over your head. 

Let’s take a look at some of the platforms available and the benefits they provide:

Personal website or blog

  • Link directly to your work from other sites
  • Several great options available for relatively easy website creation
  • Showcase your writing skills
  • Show off your design and website management abilities 

LinkedIn

  • A necessary platform to utilize for all business professionals
  • Reputable site
  • Great space to house testimonials of your work
  • Can serve as your online resume and provides outstanding access if you’re job hunting

SlideShare or Prezi

  • Offers PowerPoint style presentations
  • Allows you to showcase your presentation creation and execution skills
  • Interfaces well with other sites such as LinkedIn


As with any professional promotion endeavor, you must be responsible for your content. Be careful when using sites that don’t belong to you. If they change their terms of use or shut down the site, you could potentially lose your portfolio and all the work you put into it. I would recommend updating all versions of your career portfolio three to four times per year when you aren’t job hunting and more frequently when you are. Be a vigilant cultivator of your professional brand!

Creating the Perfect Career Portfolio

Creating the Perfect Career Portfolio eBook

An All-in-One Guide eBook

Avoid corporate misinformation and ill-fitting templates that may work for some professionals but are not geared specifically for the administrative assistant position. Be well on your way to presenting your career retrospective and future plans to influential people.

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