FAQs

What is Careerfolio?

• Careerfolio is platform that facilitates resource matching and connections for stakeholders of the higher education sector. If you are a career academic, a professional, or a student in the higher education sector, Careerfolio enables you to build networks on purpose around your future resource needs and options rather than networking by default through your past encounters with people or organisations.   

• Whether you have specific resource/skillset needs, or you have specific resource/skillset option available to share, Careerfolio connects you to the appropriate target. All the information you need to start your career growth on Careerfolio can be found below.

How do I create an account on Careerfolio?

• Step 1: Visit Careerfolio’s website and click on “create account”
• Step 2: Enter your first and last names, your email address and then create a password. Before you click on “Continue”, you need to ensure that you have agreed to Careerfolio’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy policy 
• Step 3: Check your email. Careerfolio will send link to the email address you provided. Click on this link to activate your account.
• Step 4: Start building your profile by indicating the following: a) your status or job title, b) institutional areas of interest, c) subject, discipline, or professional area of interest, d) institutions affiliated with, and e) location. However, for the purposes of CV download as a PDF document, you may add your address and phone number but to protect your privacy as a user, your address and phone number will not be visible to the public on your profile.
• Step 5: Select categories and skill areas where you can contribute to the growth of others, and where you’ll need support from others to grow. This selection will help you to get relevant feed of flexible jobs, institutional and professional resources on the homepage when you log onto Careerfolio.
• Step 6: Add a profile picture and a banner image for your profile background.
• Step 7: Consolidate your profile building process by creating content for “About me”, “Certification & Qualifications,” and “Skills & Experience”, “Career Goals and Aspirations”, and “Track Record & Achievements”. For the purposes of CV download, you can add the details of your referees. However, to protect the privacy of the referees, their information will not be visible to the public on your profile.  
• Step 8: You may download your CV in a PDF format on your profile page

How do I build a credible and marketable profile on Careerfolio after creating an account?

• About me: Use the “About me” section to provide a comprehensive information about yourself by giving a detailed profile of your profession, vocation, passion, or mission. Here, it will be useful to give details of where you’ve been, what you did, and the impact it made for people and/or organisations.
• Certifications and qualifications: Provide a chronology of all the qualifications and certifications for the training you received. These can include academic, professional, career, and personal training.
• Skills and experience: Provide the details of the skills you have mastered in your professional and academic pursuits. Then, provide a chronology of your working experience. These include both professional and non-professional working experience.
• Aspirations: Provide details of your aspirations by highlighting where you want to take your academic career, profession, or education. This will enable people and organisations visiting your profile to find compatibilities between your aspirations and their own aspirations.
• Track Record & Achievement: Provide a record of tasks, roles, and achievements that detail the impact you have made in your academic and professional career.    
• Professional resources: Build your professional resource portfolio with the “Create A Professional Resource” button by highlighting the things the resources you have developed for which people might want to connect with you. The professional resource section is a personal blog for you to build a portfolio of content that give credence to your capabilities, competencies and expertise. You can also use the section to promote your ideas, books, case studies, patents, concepts, methods and creative stuff for which people and organisations might be willing to engage with you. 

How do I benefit from Careerfolio after creating an account and building a profile?

• You can build and download a PDF format of your CV.
• Opportunity to access professional and institutional resources posted by individuals and organisations.
• Ability to find potential partners, fellows, mentors or mentees for collaborative endeavours.
• Ability to create or join a group for collaborative endeavours
• Ability to post a casual academic job for free
• Access flexible academic and consultancy jobs, which can be performed as part of your career development process.
• Build an institutional page, if you have the right to build that page on behalf the relevant organisation.

PEOPLE (CONNECTIONS)

Who is an ideal user of Careerfolio?

Careerfolio is, essentially, the platform for professional academics, higher education students, and professionals who work in the Higher Education sector. If you belong to any of the above categories, Careerfolio enables you to find professional and institutional resources, relevant people to collaborate with, career-enhancing flexible jobs, and to build a downloadable CV on your profile. 

How much does it cost to identify and connect to relevant people, organisations, groups, resources and flexible jobs on Careerfolio?

It cost nothing to search for, identify or connect to the relevant people organisations, groups, resources and flexible jobs on Careerfolio. 

How can I identify relevant people, organisations, groups, resources and flexible jobs on Careerfolio for my career? 

You can do so by actively searching on the appropriate pages on Careerfolio. Alternatively, as an individual user, you can identify relevant people, organisations, groups, resources and flexible jobs on Careefolio passively by outlining specific skill areas you seek support from others for growth on your profile page. Once you have outlined specific skill areas you seek support from others, anytime an information is published in those skill areas, they will automatically appear on your homepage under jobs, institutional resources or professional resources.   

How does my connection to people on Careerfolio differ from those on other social media or professional network platforms? 

• Unlike other social media or professional network platforms where you automatically get updates when your connections make any post, the same cannot be said for Careerfolio. On Careerfolio, you get updates from your connections and those you’re not connected to in as much as they publish in skill areas you have outlined on your profile as areas where you can help others grow or need help from others to grow. 
• However, Careerfolio offers you a distinctive opportunity to organise your connection to people in a way that helps you to optimise your relationships. Essentially, you can connect to people as an fellow to defend a common career interest, a partner to pursue a common career goal, a follower to be updated on their professional resources, a mentor to impart knowledge and expertise, or a mentee to learn from top performers in your field. 
• In the “Messages” section on Careerfolio, you can filter your connections and either broadcast or narrowcast a message to them. For instance, you select your partners alone or both partners and fellow and send a message to them. Or you can select all the categories of your connections and send the same message to them.

INSTITUTIONS

How do I create a corporate, business or institutional profile?

To create a corporate, business, or institutional profile account on Careerfolio, you need to create an individual account/profile first. Once your individual account profile has been verified and established, you can create a corporate, business, or institutional profile by clicking on the (+) next to “My Messages” to find a dropdown list of things you can create including an institutional profile. Click on institution and follow the prompts to create an institutional page.

Can I create more than one corporate, business or institutional profile?

Yes, you can create more than one corporate, business or institutional profile under one single user account. If you’re an online or digital entrepreneur, Careerfolio offers you the opportunity to promote multiple companies under a single user account.

Can I promote a resource under a corporate, business or institutional profile?

Yes, you can create more than one corporate, business or institutional profile under one single user account. If you’re an employee for an organisation and works at multiple departments or units in the organisation, you can create multiple institutional profile for those departments or units once you have been authorised to do so on behalf of those departments or units. Additionally, if you’re an entrepreneur, Careerfolio offers you the opportunity to promote multiple companies under a single user account. 

Can a company promote its products and services on Careerfolio?

Careerfolio’s platform is not a platform for trading in products and services, it is a platform for identifying, connecting to and sharing resources for career development. Therefore, if an organisation, a business or a company has knowledge resources that facilitate career development, they can post it under “Institutional Resource” section on their institutional profile.  

What benefits do an organisation, a business or a company get for having a profile on Careerfolio?

• Exposure to a pool of on-demand intellectual resources.
• Ability to advertise casual and flexible academic jobs subject to the Terms and Conditions of Careerfolio
• Connecting to academics, professionals and higher education students who can work remotely on various tasks that do not need long-term human resource commitments
• Ability to invite contributors to work on specific tasks or projects. 

How does an organisation, a business or a company demonstrate its areas of competence on Careerfolio?

Careerfolio enables institutions to build a profile that includes “About Us” and areas of business under “services”. In addition to these, Careerfolio enables institutions to build a content of “Institutional Resources” to promote their services or products that facilitate career advancement for academics, higher education students, and professionals who work in the area of knowledge creation and application.   

How do I create an “Institutional Resource” on Careerfolio?

• Step 1: Go to your company, business or organisation profile page and click on the (+) tab on the right corner of the page.
• Step 2: Under the dropdown of the (+) tab, click on “Institutional resource”
• Step 3: Enter the title of this specific resource
• Step 4: Create the content for this resource by using text, images and/or videos to describe this resource. You can also add links to other platforms that show more information through videos, texts and images. Don’t forget to add a banner image.
• Step 5: You may add tags to your resource to help people in these areas see your resource
• Step 6: You may add documents, such as PDF file, to explain this resource in detail to prospects.
• Step 7: You may provide a link to a third party website for more details of this resource.
• Step 8: Click on “Add Institutional Resource”
• Step 9: You may select categories and skill areas where you will want this resource to be published so that people who are interested in these skill areas can easily see the resource.   

How does does an organisation, a business or a company’s connections on Careerfolio differ from those on other social media or professional network platforms?   

Careerfolio enables organisations to organise their connections according to professionals, clients, providers, stakeholders, and followers. With such categorisation, it is easier to send the same message to connections in the same category.  

FLEXIBLE JOBS

What is considered to be a flexible job on Careerfolio?

A flexible job on Careerfolio is classified into four main categories. The first category involves casual academic jobs, which includes casual marking, casual teaching, programme revalidation, external examiner activities and other short-term Higher Education job contracts. The second category involves internship jobs and placement opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate taught students to make intellectual contributions to companies. The third category involves project jobs, which may require an academic or a professional to engage in consultancy work on a specific project. The final category involves fixed-term jobs such as knowledge transfer partnerships (KTP), and other industry-related jobs which may require the recruitment of someone for a fixed period of time.      .     

How much does it cost to advertise a flexible job on Careerfolio?

It is free to advertise casual academic jobs on Careerfolio. However, to post a flexible job in the internships, projects and fixe-term job categories, it cost £20 for a single job advert or £190 for ten job adverts. If you or your organisation posts internship, project or fixed-term jobs regularly, it will be useful to opt for the £190 package.

How do I post a job on Careerfolio?

• Step 1: Go to your individual user profile page and look for the (+) button on the upper right of the page near “My Messages”
• Step 2: Click on the (+) button to find a drop down list of things you can create and click on “Flexible Academic Job”, which is mainly for industry related jobs or “Casual Academic Job”, which is mostly HEI related casual jobs. Kindly note the “Casual Academic Jobs” are free to advertise on Careerfolio but “Flexible Academic Job” costs money to advertise on Careerfolio.
• Step 3: Enter the title of this specific job
• Step 4: Create the content for the job by using text, images and/or videos. You can also add links to other platforms that show more information about the job through videos, texts and images.
• Step 5: Select a sector for the job.
• Step 6: Provide the advert information by indicating the remuneration of the job. You can provide further information describing how the job adds value to the potential applicant’s profile.
• Step 7: Upload a banner image to give a vivid description of your job.
• Step 8: You may upload a documents such as PDF files for more details of the job.
• Step 9: You may add a video link to other platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo and add tags to the job.
• Step 10: You may add a URL link for prospects to apply for the job on a third party website.
• Step 11: Click on Continue.
• Step 12: Select the categories and skill/area in these category where you will want the job to be identified.
• Step 13: If you are posting this job on behalf of a company, a business or an organisation with a profile on Careerfolio, select this organisation.
• Step 14: Click “Save” to publish this job on Careerfolio’s flexible job market
• Step 15: Once you publish a job, you will have to wait for the approval of the job before it appears on Careerfolio’s flexible jobs page. This is done to ensure that all jobs published on Careerfolio meet our Terms and Conditions. Careerfolio will update you by email when your job advert goes under review and when it is approved or declined.

Can I post a flexible or casual job under a corporate, business or institutional profile?

Yes, you can post a flexible or casual job under a corporate, business or institutional profile. However, the permission to promote a job under a corporate, business or institutional profile is only given to the individual user who owns/manages the corporate, business or institutional profile on Careerfolio.

How many job ads can I post on Careerfolio?  

There is no limit to the number of flexible job ads you can post on Careerfolio. However, if your advert involves internships, projects consultancy, or fixed-term jobs, you will need to pay the required fees to advertise on Careerfolio.      

How long will my job advert be active on Careerfolio?

Jobs will be active for 30 days. After 30 days, you can reactivate it by using your credit to facilitate this. 

INSTITUTIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES

What is an institutional resource?

An institutional resource is a resource, which is available at specific institution or organisation and is accessible by meeting the qualification criteria outlined by such an institution or organisation. For instance, some resources such as scholarships, research grants, training events, seminars, courses among others available at organisations may be accessible only when the qualifying criteria for accessibility has been met.

Who can publish an institutional resource on Careerfolio?

• Both institutions and individuals can post institutional resources on Careerfolio. Once an institutional page has been created on Careerfolio, the administrator of the page can publish any resources available to be accessed at that institution. When an institutional resource is published by the administrator of the institutional page, it will appear at the profile page of the institution and on the institutional resource page on Careerfolio.
• Individual users on Careerfolio can publish institutional resource through the “Home” page after log-in to Careerfolio. However, this publication must either be authorised by the said institution or be based on publication of the resource by the institution on other platforms or outlets. For instance, when a University has announced a scholarship opportunity on their website, an individual user of Careerfolio can share this information as an institutional resource on Careerfolio and provide a link to the original source of the publication. When an individual publishes an institutional resource, it only appears on the institutional resource page on Careerfolio for viewers to see.    

What is a professional resource?   

A professional resource is one that has been generated or created by an individual user on Careerfolio. Professional resources can be accessed by contacting the individual who holds title to that resource. Some of these resources include books, articles, white papers, case studies, methods, concepts, patents, online content and channels among others developed by an individual who holds title to it.

Who can publish a professional resource?

Any individual user of Careerfolio can publish a professional resource. Users can publish professional resources as titleholders or not. Where users publish professional resources they do not hold title to, they must be authorised by the titleholder of the resource do so or this resource should have been published elsewhere by the titleholder.    

How do I start sharing or publishing resources on Careerfolio?

• You can start sharing or publishing resources on Careerfolio by first creating an account. Once your account has been created and verified, you can use the “Home” page to share “Institutional Resources” or “Professional Resources”.
• An individual user can also share “Professional Resources” using their profile page on Careerfolio. On the profile page, you can click on (+) sign next to the “My Messages” tab to find a list of things you can publish and this includes “Professional Resource”.
• An institution can create an “Institutional Resource” when an institutional page has been created for it by an individual user who will be the administrator of the institutions profile page on Careerfolio. See earlier comments under institutions for details on how to crate institutional page and institutional resources through the institutional profile page on Careerfolio  

How will users of Careerfolio find my resources?

There are two means through which users of Careerfolio can find your resources. First, users can find the resource passively. When users are creating an account at Careerfolio, they have the opportunity to select specific skill areas where they can offer support to or seek support from others to grow their career. When users have made these selections on their profile page, they will automatically see your resource once it is published in those skill areas. The second means through which users can find your resources is to engage in an active search for institutional resource or professional resources at the “Home” page after log-in to Careerfolio.  

How will my prospects on Careerfolio be convinced that my resource is worth considering?

In creating the resource on Careerfolio, you can use text, images, links to videos, and documents to showcase the value of the resource to those prospecting for your resource.

GROUPS

How do I create a group on Careerfolio?

To create a group on Careerfolio, you need to create an individual account/profile first. Once your individual account profile has been verified and established, you can create a group by clicking on the (+) tab on the right side of “Messages” to find a dropdown list of things you can create including a group. Click on group and follow the prompts to create a public or private group.

What are the benefits of groups on Careerfolio?

Careerfolio offers four main unique benefits of belonging to a group. These include a group of people with: a) different skillsets for cross-pollination of ideas, b) similar skillsets for learning new skills, c) complementary skillsets to work on projects, and d the same skillsets to advance knowledge on a particular field. 

Is every group on Careerfolio open to everyone?

No. Groups on Careerfolio can be public or private. If a group is private, you’ll need the approval of the group administrator before you’re allowed to join. Even if the group is a public one, you still need the approval of the group administrator to join.

What is the difference between a private and a public group on Careerfolio?

The difference is that the public group is open to everyone irrespective of their field of expertise (although request for membership must still be approved by the group administrator) whereas a private group may be restricted to members within a specific field of expertise. 

Can I invite members to join my group on Careerfolio?

Yes. Once you have created group on Careerfolio, you, the administrator of the group, can always invite members to join the group.

Can I create more than one group on Careerfolio?

Yes, you can create as many groups as you want on Careerfolio to serve different interests.

OTHER

What are the key things to watch out for on Careerfolio (potential challenges)?

Scamming. Careefolio strives to collect as much information and content on individuals and companies to help prospects to make an informed judgement about dealing with them. However, scamming is one key threat to using any online platform like Careerfolio. If you identify any person or company with a relevant resource, you’ll need to make sure that you’ve satisfied yourself sufficiently about the authenticity and credibility of these persons or companies before dealing with them on commercial basis.