NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR CAREER DEVELOPMENT & YOUTH INITIATIVES OFFICE

2015

CareerZone

Quick Guide

Creating a Portfolio Account

WWW.CA REERZ ONE.NY. GOV

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 2

CONTENTS

Beginning your portfolio 3 Creating an account 3 Creating a username, password, and security questions 4 Entering your contact information, defining your educational level

5

Creating your portfolio 6 Creating a career plan/path, saving your occupations 7 Entering your volunteer experience 8 Contact Us and Instructor Notes 9

Key

Point of attention – Mouse click – Tab you should be on -

What is a portfolio?

What is a portfolio? A portfolio is a way of documenting your achievements in a specific field. It is a way

of proving that you can do the things you say you can. Portfolios may include samples of your work,

assignment scores, or other evidence of your abilities. The two main types are Learning portfolios and

Job portfolios. Job portfolios focus on your work history and are designed to help you get or advance

within a job, while Learning portfolios focus on your abilities as a student. The CareerZone portfolio is a

combination of a Job and Learning portfolio; creating a career portfolio. A Career portfolio helps you

combine a Learning portfolio with the best features of a Job portfolio, and points out how the things

you’ve learned as a student relates to the work of work.

On the following pages of this guide, you’ll find CareerZone tools that help you understand the

importance of your current education and work experiences for the future. In order to create a

CareerZone portfolio account, we collect some information from you with your permission. Your

CareerZone portfolio account is password protected; make sure you keep it in a safe place. For more

information about the information you enter in the portfolio, you can check out our privacy statement.

Available at: Privacy Policy

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 3

The portfolio section of

CareerZone allows users to

create a secure, password

protected account in order to

save interests, activities,

occupation searches and other

information. The end result

includes a NYS Department of

Education Career Plan

document.

To create a portfolio, select “My Portfolio.” The portfolio is electronic and provided at no cost to the user.

If users do not have an

existing portfolio account,

select “Create Account.”

If users have an existing

portfolio account, sign-in

with the existing Username

and Password.

If users with existing portfolio accounts forget their username and/or

password, select “Forgot your username?” or “Forgot your

password?” This will prompt the user to enter their email and home

address information so users can retrieve passwords via email.

Did you know? As users complete the CareerZone portfolio modules, some of these modules fill in a NYS Department of Education Career Plan document. In order for users to view the Career Plan document, they must be signed in to the Intermediate (grades 6-8) or Commencement (grades 9-12) Portfolio levels. The Young Adult level will not provide students with a Career Plan (see page 3 for more information).

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 4

Users are required to fill out all

fields marked with a yellow dot.

Users should

use only

letters and

numbers

when

completing

the required

fields.

Tip! Record usernames, passwords, and security answers. Doing so not only helps if youth forget, but also allows them to access their accounts for assessment purposes.

Tip! Help users remember their usernames by using a standard method for creating usernames (e.g. Firstname.lastname). When creating passwords, create a standard method but ensure that users’ passwords are unique enough that they could not access each other’s accounts (e.g. Last name, Last four digits of their home phone number).

Did you know? Challenge Questions are designed to protect the online identity of the CareerZone portfolio users. CareerZone uses a set of questions that only the person who created the answers would know. Ensure students remember their answers by keeping them as basic as possible (e.g. use one word answers and lowercase letters, avoid punctuation).

The challenge questions allow users to access their portfolio

account if they forget their username and/or password.

*Note: In addition to the challenge questions, an email address

must be provided if a user forgets their username and/or

password.

Select “Next”

Did you know? For security reasons, passwords on CareerZone must be updated every 90 days. Help ensure youth remember new passwords by creating a standard method for updating passwords (e.g.: adding the number 1 then 2, then 3…to the end of the password each time it must be updated).

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 5

Time Saver! Skip fields not required (such as Birthday and Phone Number). BUT remember to provide an email address!

Tip! If users do not have an email account, either have them create one at home prior to creating a CareerZone account or create a standard class email address that can be used. This is the ONLY way users can retrieve a forgotten username or password!

Did you know? Users who provide a birthday that shows they are 18 or older will automatically create a CareerZone Young Adult portfolio account.

The

School/Organization

and School District

fields will

automatically

populate when

portfolio users

(grades 6-12) enter

their school’s

information.

Did you know? CareerZone’s list of schools comes from the New York State Education Department’s most recent School Directory and includes all public and non-public schools in New York. Enter your school’s formal name in order for it to appear. If your school isn’t appearing please contact careerzone@labor.ny.gov. If a youth is not in school, they can type in the name of the organization helping them in the School Organization field.

Select Sixth to Eighth grade to access the Intermediate portfolio level or Ninth through Twelfth grade to access the Commencement portfolio level CareerZone Young Adult is for users ages 18 or youth not enrolled in school.

*Note: Although an

email address is not

required, it is critical

for the users who

forget their

information and need

to reset usernames

and passwords.

Security questions

and answers will be

needed as well and

can be found in the

“Account Info” tab. Select “Next”

Select “Create Account”

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 6

Below are the modules included in the Commencement version of the Portfolio. Here users can save

favorite occupations, record school classes, volunteer experience, and work experience, and complete

other modules that will help develop their Career Plan.

The modules in the Commencement level

portfolio include:

Assessments including the new

Combined Assessment Report

Informational (i.e. Future Goals and

Dreams)

Work/Volunteer Experience

Job Search Tools (i.e. Reference List,

Letter Writer, Resume Builder)

Tip! Modules can be completed in any order. We recommend that users begin by checking that their grade level is correct using Personal Info. Then they can explore occupations by completing one or more assessments (highlighted in this screenshot).

The Career Plan will pull

together the information the

individual user entered into

each module.

Modules

needed to

complete the

NYSED

Career Plan

Did you know? If users wish to fill out the NYSED Career Plan, it is important to remember to complete the following modules: Personal Info, Job Readiness Skills, School Classes, Areas for Growth, Life Skills, Saved Occupations, Future Goals and Dreams, Afterschool Activities, Volunteer Experience, Work Experience, Education History, Final Activity, and Annual Review.

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 7

The Career Plan module

prints out as a NYS

Education Department

Career Plan which supports

the NYS Career Development

and Occupational Studies

(CDOS) Commencement

Credential.

The Career Plan compiles the information entered

in the portfolio modules. It will also track what

grade level the youth was in for each entry.

Here is an example of the Saved Occupations module.

Youths can save occupations by:

Using the search feature found in this module

Marking an occupation as Favorite when viewing an

Occupation Profile. Did you know? Saved Occupations

also appear on the Career Plan

document under Work Preferences,

Careers of Interest and

Characteristics and is needed to

complete the Future Goals & Dreams

module, which also appears on the

Career Plan.

Tip! Export user’s lists of saved occupations into a PDF or CSV (Excel) file for documentation.

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 8

Volunteer Experience Next Page

Above is the Volunteer Experience module. Document user’s work in modules like

Volunteer Experience by:

Printing out the modules they complete (as shown above)

Accessing user accounts by recording usernames and passwords

Viewing user’s Career Plan document

Did you know? Users can print

out any page found on

CareerZone, including Occupation

Profiles and individual portfolio

modules.

Print Preview

Catch a glimpse of a Commencement level

Career Plan and more helpful hints below.

Did you know? Users must be in the correct grade level (using the Personal Info

module) to ensure that their Career Plan is as accurate as possible.

Tip! Although the Career Plan can be filled out entirely through CareerZone’s Portfolio modules, we suggest handwriting in any areas that users may have missed when completing the portfolio modules.

CareerZone Quick Guide: An Overview to Creating CareerZone Portfolio Accounts

Career Dev. & Youth

Initiatives Office

www.careerzone.ny.gov P a g e | 9

Phone: 1-877-226-5724

For questions or assistance with the

CareerZone System, please contact:

Email: careerzone@labor.ny.gov

Instructor Notes

Tip! Use this space to record:

Standard methods for youths to record their usernames, passwords, and password updates

Strategies for retrieving forgotten passwords (record answers to Challenge Questions; use a class email address, etc.)

The order you would like users to complete Portfolio modules (note that some modules need to be revisited more than once)