Workshop Title: Career Portfolios & Personal Branding Workshop Description: A career portfolio serves as a targeted visual representation of relevant personal characteristics, experience, accomplishments, knowledge, and skills. In a competitive job market, it’s important to have an “edge”: portfolios greatly enhance your credibility by offering proof of your qualifications, and establishing your “brand.” Corporations have always benefited from strong branding in many ways. Branding enables them to charge a premium for their products and services, increase their market valuation, thrive during an economic downturn, and attract and retain quality employees and partners. But branding isn’t just for giant corporations or grocery store products. In the new millennium, everything is a brand! Just as large companies cultivate their personal brands, we should do the same for ourselves, and the students and clients we serve with this process. Personal branding is a way of clarifying and communicating what makes you different or special. Successful personal branding is authentic. Successful personal brands are not created: they are uncovered, strengthened, and nurtured. This interactive workshop will outline the concepts of personal branding and career portfolio development, and offer participants hands-on activities to help them extract their personal brands and “tell their story” to a targeted audience in a career portfolio.

AV Needs: A digital projector, (for PowerPoint), flipchart or white board and markers Contact Information for Presenter: Carmen Croonquist, M.S.ed. Home address: 615 Ninth Street, Hudson, WI 54016 Phone: (651) 497-7178 (home); (715) 425-3572 (work) Email: Carmen.jean.croonquist@uwrf.edu Presenter’s Bio: Carmen Croonquist, MSE, CCMC, JCTC, serves as the Director of Career Services for the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She also teaches career exploration classes for Century College in St. Paul, MN and is the President of Career Currency Coaching & Consulting Services. Carmen is a certified career/life management coach, a Trainer for the Dependable Strengths Articulation Process, and a certified branding strategist through Reach Communications. For the past eight years, Carmen has coordinated the Twin Cities Career Planning & Adult Development Network (CPAD). She has served on the Board of Trustees for the Minnesota Career Development Association and The Center on Education & Work's Policy Council (University of Wisconsin-Madison). In 2003, Carmen received the Marty Dockman Merit Award from the Minnesota Career Development Association for her contributions to the field of career counseling. A strong advocate of career portfolios since 1995, Carmen has spoken widely on this topic to professional associations, conferences, job clubs, community agencies, and classes. In 2005, she was invited

to Iceland to provide a series of portfolio seminars to the Icelandic Counseling Association and the University of Iceland. Carmen was referenced by Dick Bolles in the 2007 edition of “What Color is

Your Parachute?” as a portfolio expert.