How to Build a Great Portfolio

Dear info marketers,

I have been tracking a lot of people on the job hunt these days. It's a tough hustle, especially in this day and age. I haev done it myself...

Years ago I needed some extra cash. I was broke and was having trouble finding a job. A friend I had met in a writer’s group asked me about freelance writing.

“Have you ever considered it?”

I told her I had but wrote off the possibility as I had no experience. She smiled and changed the subject. A few weeks later there was a message on my answering machine from an Internet company saying that I had been referred to them by my friend to write the content for their website.

I called my friend later to thank her. Towards the end of the call, she gave me one last piece of advice.

“Keep all the galleys of what you wrote and bookmark the website on your computer browser. It’ll help build your portfolio.”

She was right. I did what she said and it helped me get several jobs later on. Building a portfolio will also help you as an information marketer. If you get into the position where you are being offered a job to write information content for someone but need to show your work, a portfolio is as essential as a resume to display your qualifications.

Here are some tips on building your portfolio:

--Save everything: I have come across people who, after a few gigs, toss some of their completed written material thinking they will never have to use it again. They may have had a bad experience doing the job or do not feel the work was very good or it is unimportant. But this is a bad habit. Keep everything. You never know what the future will hold and what material might come in useful to apply for a particular job down the road.

--What to include: What to include in your portfolio is ultimately relative to what job you are applying or being considered for. For example, if you are offered a contract to write information about sports, leave your other information products or newsletters at home except perhaps one sample to show your ability to write on diverse subjects. Like a resume, keep it short and brief and only include three to five samples of written content.

--A carrying case: I went out for coffee with my friend a few months later after that first writing gig. She brought along her portfolio. It was a hug leather case that cost her almost one hundred dollars. But she organized it and equipped it with her business card, a pen, and all relative samples in plastic laminate pages. Do the same. You don’t have to spend too much money, but get a good robust carrying case that can organize all of your samples and be readily opened and displayed to a potential employer.

--The digital portfolio: In this day and age, print material is transforming to digital media. Be ready for this. Make sure all your content is digitized into document files that you can e-mail to prospective employers i.e. in PDF or Microsoft Word document form. Get a USB drive that you can carry around with you and hook up to a computer if you need to send out samples at a moment’s notice. Being ready for the future often means keeping up with current changing trends and the digital route is a good way to be prepared.

--Update it: Keep all your files, but make sure your carrying case and digital portfolio shows your most recent and prestigious samples first. When someone looks at it, you should be ready to show only the best examples first. Period. Keeping updated will help you with this.

At the end of a coffee meeting, my friend told me an interesting story where she was at an interview for a job. The employer took her portfolio, flipped through the first six pages in a few seconds, and offered her a job on the spot. Pretty great, no? This might not happen to you right away, but if you get your info marketing portfolio ready now, there is no reason why it can’t.

Best of luck!

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