How To Document Your Skills and Experience

You finished the internship. Wrapped up the summer job. Volunteered at an event. Helped with a big project at work. And then you moved on.

A few months later, someone asks you in an interview to tell them about a time you solved a problem, and suddenly you can barely remember what you did last Tuesday.

The experiences you’re having now can help you land your next job, internship or opportunity, but only if you remember enough to talk about them.

That’s why it’s worth getting into the habit of documenting your work as you go.

You don’t need a formal portfolio or a perfectly organized career plan. Save the things you’re proud of. Keep track of what you accomplished. Write down the details while they’re still fresh.

Future you will have a lot more to work with.

1. Take the photo

Not everything needs to live on your résumé.

• Take a photo with the volunteer team you spent Saturday working alongside.
• Photograph the event you helped set up before the doors opened.
• Capture the before and after of a display, project or space you worked on.
• Save a copy of the menu, flyer, social post or signage you helped create.

These little pieces can eventually become part of a portfolio, LinkedIn post or personal website. Even if they never become public, they can help you remember the story behind the work.

Just make sure you’re allowed to photograph or share something before you do, especially when you’re at work.

2. Write down the numbers

Specifics make your experience easier to understand.

Instead of trying to remember later that an event was “really busy,” write down what you know now. Maybe you:

• Helped welcome 500 guests at an event
• Worked 20+ events over the summer
• Served 75 customers during a busy shift
• Helped manage registration for 300 attendees
• Created 10 social media posts for an internship
• Trained three new employees
• Volunteered 25 hours with an organization
• Helped set up a banquet for 400 people

You don’t need an impressive number for everything you do. But when a number helps explain the scale of your work, save it.

3. Write down everything you actually did

Job titles rarely tell the whole story.

Before you leave a position, internship or volunteer experience, make a giant list of everything you did. Don’t worry about making it sound résumé-ready yet.

Did you answer phones? Train someone? Handle an upset guest? Open or close? Use a specific software or reservation system? Help set up events? Work with vendors? Create content? Manage money? Solve a last-minute problem?

Write all of it down, and later, when you’re tailoring a résumé for a specific opportunity, you’ll have a much bigger bank of experience to pull from.

4. Save the work you’re proud of

Did you create something?

Keep a copy when appropriate.

That could include a presentation, graphic, event plan, photo, video, writing sample, project outline or other finished work.

You can eventually use your strongest examples to build a portfolio. And portfolios aren’t just for designers and photographers. Showing what you’ve actually done can be valuable in events, marketing, hospitality, operations and plenty of other careers.

5. Save the nice things people say

Did a manager send you an email saying you handled a difficult situation really well? Did a guest leave a compliment? Did your supervisor praise a project you worked on?

Save it.

Positive feedback can remind you of strengths you might not recognize in yourself, and it can help you identify stories worth telling in future interviews.

If you’ve built a particularly strong relationship with a supervisor, you can also ask whether they’d be willing to provide a short testimonial or LinkedIn recommendation.

6. Ask for a reference before everyone moves on

Don’t wait until you’re applying for another job six months later. Before an internship, seasonal job or volunteer experience ends, ask a supervisor or manager:

“Would you be comfortable being a reference for me in the future?”

Then save their preferred contact information and stay connected. It’s much easier to ask while the work you did together is still fresh in everyone’s mind.

7. Connect with the people you met

You don’t need to send an awkward networking message to everyone you’ve ever worked with.

But if you met a manager, coworker, mentor, vendor or industry professional you’d genuinely like to stay connected with, add them on LinkedIn or exchange contact information before you leave.

A great summer coworker could work somewhere completely different two years from now. Your internship supervisor might hear about an opportunity that fits you. Careers are long, and relationships have a funny way of coming back around.

8. Write down the stories, too

This might be the most useful step of all. Think about a few moments when you:

• Solved a problem
• Helped a guest
• Worked through a stressful situation
• Took initiative
• Made a mistake and fixed it
• Worked successfully with a team
• Learned something quickly
• Took on more responsibility

Write a few sentences about what happened, what you did and how it turned out.

These are exactly the kinds of examples employers ask for during interviews. You’ll be glad you captured them before the details disappeared.

Give Future You Something to Work With

Keeping track of your experience isn’t about turning every moment of your life into career content.

It’s about recognizing that the things you’re doing count.

The photos, projects, numbers, responsibilities, feedback and relationships you collect along the way can help you build a portfolio, strengthen your résumé, write a more specific cover letter and walk into an interview with real stories to tell.

They can also help you build a positive digital presence that actually reflects who you are and what you’ve done, rather than trying to create one from scratch when you suddenly need it.

So when you finish a job, internship, volunteer experience or big project, don’t immediately close the chapter. Take ten minutes to document the expe

You already did the work. Make sure you remember it.

Ready for what’s next?

Keep building your experience with volunteer opportunities, internships and all kinds of hospitality jobs!