Do you have a portfolio of your work? I don’t care what you do for a living, but if you want more valuable opportunities to fall into your lap, you need to showcase your work beyond getting our your resume.
Reetu Gupta has developed a platform for students to organize and share all of their work in one place to share with prospective colleges and employers.
She’s the co-founder of CirkledIn.
It’s an amazing tool we could all benefit from!
She got the idea after helping her daughter with her college applications. She wanted to create one place for all of her daughter’s accomplishments she could share over and over again with colleges.
Prior to going out on her own, she spent a decade at Honeywell in a variety of roles including general manager of their commercial displays product line and as a project manager in their aerospace division.
Lot of great lessons baked into our conversation including:
- Why building a portfolio of your work can be more useful than focusing purely on your resume.
- Reetu shares two reasons why she’s not a fan of side hustles.
- How she prepared her family for her transition into working full-time on her business.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Tell your story.
- Build community by sharing your work.
- Plan your actions.
How Reetu Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: 6:00am
- Core work activities + habits: 1) Customer acquisition. 2) Fundraising. 3) Team building and enhancing the team.
- Ideal work environment: A quiet space with wifi, coffee and people around.
- Regains focus by: Writing things down on sticky notes and being able to cross things off when they’re done.
- 90-day goal: To acquire 5 colleges to test their college portal; sign up 5 more high schools.
Inspirational Quotes
“It’s a platform where we say to students, ‘showcase yourself, get discovered.'”
“Our idea is that, with Cirkled In, we are putting kids at the center of the circle.”
“Talk about results and show how your soft skills helped you get those results.”
“I have initiative, I have ownership, I have leadership skills, and I can execute. One project shows everything.”
Coaching Advice
When talking about your work, Reetu recommends sharing the following overlooked attributes:
1) Highlight your soft skills. This can be difficult since they’re not really quantifiable. Share characteristics that describe how you work like grit, passion and perseverance.
2) Shares examples and stories. Soft skills are difficult to quantify, so share examples describing your capabilities from previous experiences that can differentiate you from others.
Resources + Bonus Materials
Technology Management MBA (TMMBA) Office