Utah 4 H Horse Portfolio Training

Okay, hi everybody, thank you so much
for watching this 4-H portfolio training,

my name is Kelsey Romney,
I'm from the state 4-H office,

and I'm excited to be here tonight
with Jessie and Megan.

We're gonna talk a little bit about
what the 4-H portfolio is,

and how it applies to you
in the 4-H horse program.

So first of all,

the 4-H portfolio is a combination
of a resume and a cover letter,

and, the reason that we do 4-H
portfolios is for a number of reasons.

But from a 4-H perspective,

it is the standard application tool
for all leadership activites,

it leads to national opportunities,

it- we have often county award nights
and portfolio contests.

We have- this is the first application
that you need to complete

in order to become
a 4-H state ambassador.

And we have the state 4-H
portfolio contest as well.

From a practical application,

4-H portfolios are teaching you
how to write a resume and cover letter

which are going to be
extremely useful for your future.

The things that are most important for you
that this will apply to

is the job applications,
college applications,

scholarship applications,
and leadership positions beyond 4-H.

So as you can see
here with these graphs,

it's really important to see
that 4-H-ers are already

reporting that they will use this tool
for their future.

98% that they- reported
that they will use their 4-H portfolio

to apply for jobs.

96% said that they'll use
these skills to apply for scholarships.

81% said that they'll use these
skills to apply for leadership positions.

And 93% said that they will
use these skills to apply for college.

So we're hoping that
what you're learning today

is going to be extremely
useful for you moving forward.

Okay, so let's talk a little bit
about what the 4-H portfolio actually is.

And the first part is
we're gonna kind of work in reverse.

We're going to talk about
the 4-H resume first.

The resume is a cumulative summary

of your experience in 4-H,
and your background.

So, just like you would
tailor a real resume

to whatever job you're applying for,

the 4-H resume should
be tailored to your 4-H experience.

Most of the whole content of
the resume should be all about 4-H.

There's one portion that we'll talk
about on the rubrics later.

One portion is designated for your
non-4-H experience,

so if you have anything really exciting
that you want to throw into that section,

that's great, but for the most
part it's all 4-H stuff.

The sections that we can talk
about a little more specifically are,

project involvement,
4-H activities and experiences,

4-H awards and recognition,
4-H leadership, and 4-H community service.

It's important to notice that
each one of these sections

are actually worth different amounts.

So they're weighted differently
on your resume- or on your rubric.

So if you want to score really high,
you want to put more content

in the sections are- uh,
have more points associated with them.

And then each year you'll want to
update your information

and maintain the most important
pieces in the resume,

while maybe dropping some of
the things that are less important to you.

Like we said at the beginning,
this is cumulative,

so you want to make this represent
your whole experience,

just on the two-page maximum.

Okay.

Here are some sample resumés that
we wanted to share with you.

The important part to notice
is that you're welcome to use

any template you can find,
or come up with your own.

We don't expect there to be
a perfect standard

of what they all should look like.

It should look like you professionally
on a piece of paper.

If you need help, if you're not
quite so graphically inclined

then go ahead and check out
any resume rubric-

or template, I should say-

that you can find in Google, in-
uh, on Word, on all different platforms,

there's a lot of
resumé templates out there

and we have a couple that we can
share with you as well,

we'll drop it
in the description on this video.

Um- there are a few templates
on Google Docs

that you can click on and start
filling out your 4-H experience.

Just make sure to make it your own,
change the colors, change the font,

change the content.

All those things so that it
displays your experience.

These examples right here,
I hope you can see there's

some major differences
in the formatting,

some of them use more design,
some of them use different colors.

Keep that in mind as
you make your own resume.

Okay, now let's talk a little bit
more about the cover letter.

So the cover letter actually
is the first part that an em-

employer would read when they're-
when you're applying for a job.

And the cover letter
should be one page long.

There's a standard format
for a cover letter,

so if you haven't seen that
or you aren't familiar with that

make sure that you notice what that is
before you start writing.

And it should be a narrative to
accompany your resume,

so if you think about the
resume as a bunch of bricks

that you're laying about your
experience,

the cover letter is kind of
the cement that holds it all together,

so you want to be sure to explain things

that are not already listed
in your resume.

You want to talk about the skills
that you've acquired,

the experiences you've had,
those types of things,

it's your chance to explain
what you've listed on your resume.

So the other part of the cover letter
is that just like the resume,

it should be tailored to the application
that you're applying for.

In 4-H we make this really easy

because we list the objectives
that we want you to state.

I'll show you these objectives
right here for the horse project.

So, make it really easy for the judges,

and specifically address each one
of these different objectives.

As you can see there's
four of them.

I would recommend writing
four paragraphs.

Each paragraph addressing each objective

so it's very simple
for them to read and look at.

From a real-world application
when you go to apply for a job,

it's a little bit more difficult
because they often don't list

the objectives they're looking for
in a candidate,

so it's up to you
to read the job responsibilities,

and sift out those objectives,
and sift out..

which ones you're going to address.

But we want you to learn those
skills here in 4-H,

and practice how to clearly communicate

how your experience matches what
those employers are looking for.

So that's what we're trying to help you
learn by writing a cover letter.

Okay here's a cover letter example,

and you can see the formatting here
this way as well.

Some important tips to keep in mind
when you're writing a cover letter

is that you want to
maintain a professional language.

So, often people will use this to write
kind of their 4-H story,

or maybe write it as it would sound like
as a public speech,

and that's a different type of language.

So if your just starting out...
uh, do your best, get help,

and always have someone
review what you have written.

But if this is maybe your second or third
or fourth time writing a cover letter,

make sure that you're
elevating the content as best you can

to summarize it into really
professional language.

You don't need it to be miles
and miles long, this is on the long side.

This example that I'm showing you here,
this is a longer cover letter,

so just keep that in mind,
you have a one page limit

when you write the cover letter
for these contests.

Then also just make sure that you
include your signature at the bottom.

If it's a digital submission, which
all of our 4-H contests.. probably are,

make sure that you check
with your contest.

But if it's a digital submission,
you can use a digital signature,

so don't worry about having to
print out, sign your document,

and re-upload it, I know that can
be kind of a headache,

but a digital signature is acceptable.

And then, like I said before,

just make sure that you have
someone else review it

always, always, always,
no matter what you are applying for,

have someone
review your cover letter, because...

the chances are high
that you've made at least one error,

whether it's just a typo,
or a grammatical error, or anything,

make sure you have someone
review the content.

This is your chance to put your best
foot forward in any scenario,

so whether you're applying for
a 4-H contest,

or you're applying for a job,

or all those other opportunities
that we talked about before,

make sure that you're making
the best impression you can,

and this is your chance to do so.

So keep that in mind when
you're writing your cover letter.

Okay I want to just talk to you quickly
about the rubrics that we have.

So both the resume and the cover letter
are out of a 100 points total.

If you receive a blue ribbon in total,
on both documents combined,

that means that whoever scored
your portfolio,

whatever judge looked at your portfolio,
would interview you for a position.

So that's the real-world
application for this,

and that's how you know
you are on the right track.

If you do a red,
you probably just forgot a section,

or you just need a little bit more help
on something, so just keep working at it,

and if you receive a white, that's okay,
it just helps you set goals for the future

and see- helps you see
where you can improve.

As our 4-H motto goes, of course,
we're all about making the best better,

so whether you're the best in the class,
or maybe you need a lot of improvement,

everyone should be receiving feedback,

especially if you enter
the state portfolio contest.

But everyone will be receiving
feedback from the judges

on how you can do better,
so just keep that in mind as well.

And that's the same thing
for the rubric for the cover letter.

So now I just want to
show you the.. link to-

this is the link to our portfolio page

and this is what the page looks like
on our home screen on utah4H.org.

So you can see that...
we have this right here.

This is under more opportunities,
so if you go to our homepage on Utah 4-H

and then you scroll
all the way to the bottom,

I'll show you right now,

scroll all the way to the bottom,
click more opportunities,

and portfolio, that's the fastest way
to get to this page.

This has just more information for you,

if you need to read
more about the fine print,

if you need more examples,
we have examples down here.

We have a guidebook,
all sorts of things that can help you

and the rubrics,
so you can check those out,

the other important piece
is the cover letter objectives.

So for you who are in the horse project,
you can click right here

and it will show you these objectives
again, so you can access those at any time

and then if you're entering any other
4-H portfolio contests,

just know that these
are all right here

and the objectives
are unique for each contest.

So you want to make sure
that you are looking those up

every time you enter a 4-H contest.

4-H portfolio contest.

Okay?

Okay. That's our page and, um,

I just wanna say thank you so much
for watching this again,

and if you have any questions,
feel free to contact me

or Jessie or Megan,
and we would be happy to help you out.

Thanks!