The Best Way to Actually Use That Ed Leadership Portfolio You Had to Make in Grad Schools

by Kate Wolfe Maxlow

You did it! You got an interview for an educational leadership position! Your fabulous resume and poignant cover letter got you in the door, and now it's time to wow them with your knowledge and charm. You pick out your interview outfit, practice some potential questions you found online, and find a brand new 4 inch binder for that leadership portfolio you had to create in grad school.

Here's the thing about that binder: no one on your interview team really cares about it. They're certainly not going to use the interview time to leaf through it thoughtfully and say, "Hmm. Tell me what you were thinking here." And that's a good thing. You want your interview team concentrating on you; if they're looking through your portfolio, they might miss when you say something awesome.

"So, wait a minute," you might be thinking. "I was told this portfolio was incredibly important to demonstrate my leadership abilities and now you're telling me I shouldn't even bring it to my interview?"

What I'm saying is actually that while you can bring a select few key artifacts, but yes, leave the rest of the portfolio at home. Instead, make sure to link the portfolio on your resume, and it's more likely to help you GET the interview. The point of the interview, however, is to meet you in person, not to leaf quietly through a 100-page scrapbook. Here's how to choose what artifacts to actually bring:

1. You only want to bring about 1-5 artifacts with you. Think of them more as "work samples" rather than a "portfolio."

Your artifacts should fit in a professional-looking portfolio like this one. You don't want to walk into the interview looking like a pack mule. While you're at it, pack a couple of resumes as well. It's pretty unlikely that anyone will actually ask for your resume at an ed leadership position interview (they already saw your resume; it's why they asked you for an interview), but it never hurts to have one or two just in case.

2. Unless asked, resist the urge to bring technology or digital copies of your work samples.

Look, I'm all about the technology. But also: you don't have that much time in an interview. Setting up your laptop, establishing an internet connection, connecting to a projector...that all takes way too much time, and you want to spend that time impressing people with your dazzling intellect, not having them watch you fumble with adapters. Unless you are specifically asked to bring something in a digital format, go the old fashioned route and buy yourself some heavyweight 8.5x11 inch paper and print your artifacts. Bring 3-4 copies of everything, unless you are specifically told that there will be more people on the interview panel.

If you really have something amazingly cool that's only available digitally, put a bitly or QR code on your business card. People may or may not look at it after your interview, but there's a chance you'll get points for trying while also not wasting people's time.

3. Choose artifacts that enhance, not replace, what you are most likely to be asked about--and only if you think someone has to physically see it to understand its awesomeness.

Let's say that you created the School Improvement Plan template that is now used by all the schools in your district--by all means bring that in! If the topic naturally comes up as a part of the conversation, then go ahead and show people your awesome formatting skills and how well you remembered your Strategic Planning courses.

A couple of caveats here: only bring an artifact if it can be visually understood and its awesomeness assessed in about 10 seconds. And only bring it out of your portfolio and share it if it naturally comes up in conversation. For instance, if asked, "Tell me about a time that you dealt with a colleague you disagreed with you and how you handled that," don't say, "Well, I reminded the colleague of the values described in our school improvement plan, which I designed for the entire district, and oh by the way, I have a copy of that template." Instead of receiving kudos, you'll lose points for being off-topic.

4. Don't bring something that everyone else in your leadership preparation program could also bring.

So you created a professional development on phonological instructional strategies and you really want to bring in your 36-slide presentation? Even at 6 slides per page, it's too many. A better choice would be a one-page plan for the year-long book study that you facilitated with your teachers, especially if it includes an easy-to-read graph demonstrating improved student gains for that content in your school.


Keep in mind: even if you stick to these rules and keep your artifacts limited to just a couple of really high-impact things, it's likely that you still won't actually use them. Artifacts are more the staple of a performance review rather than an interview. In short, if you can easily put your hands on some high-value artifacts that distinguish you from others AND you are okay with the idea that you might not use them at all, it's fine to bring some copies. But don't do it at the expense of preparing for potential interview questions; that might actually get you more bang for your buck in the end.


Kate Wolfe Maxlow is the Director of Innovation and Professional Development for Hampton City Schools. You can follow her on Twitter @LearningKate or on Linked In or email her at kmaxlow@hampton.k12.va.us.