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Internet Innovations: Try an Online Résumé and Portfolio
by LeeAnne Kryder, Ph.D.
There’s a new way for interns and college graduates to distinguish themselves from their competitors in job searches: online résumés and portfolios. To determine if either of these tools will work for you, consider the following.
Online résumé
An online résumé takes advantage of “hypertext.” That is, you can make a word on your résumé link to an actual text or graphic sample, or perhaps to an explanatory web site. (See figure 1.) Posting your résumé on the Web gives employers easy access to evidence of your skills.
Because web text is more interactive, imagine how much easier it is for a potential employer to click on your e-mail address in your online résumé and actually send you a message! Paper résumés summarize your experience and skills, but online résumé links enable you to do more than mention that your internship required you to write press releases, brochures and reports—you can actually show these documents by linking directly to your online portfolio.
Online portfolio
“Portfolio? I thought that was for artists?” you might say. Well, technical and marketing communications writers have been carting hard copy samples of their work to and from job interviews for the past twenty years in large binders. But, with an online portfolio, you never need to worry about leaving your work behind. Online, your work is readily up to date and available to multiple interested viewers in diverse locations.
Benefits
Not everyone has an online résumé or portfolio, so having one of these will make you stand out in the applicant pool. Just put your portfolio’s URL (address) on your print résumé and business card, so viewers can readily access your strongest, most representative work. Online versions also allow you to provide beautiful, color-perfect samples of your brochures, reports and posters without expensive print publishing costs. And what better way to demonstrate your ability to work with new media than showcasing your web-based résumé and portfolio?
Difficulties
There are difficulties in adopting these new communication vehicles: You must invest some time to learn web-writing skills. This means learning about both design and readability and getting some training in Dreamweaver or other web-publishing software. You’ll need access to a web-hosting site and perhaps use of a scanner or digital camera for your portfolio contents. Some students (see Erica Rosenthal’s web site) are using blogging software to mount their online résumés and to display sample documents. (Blogging templates have more constraints but are also often easier to use and faster to implement.)
Advantages for students
The good news is that, as students, you probably have access to all this equipment and training through your school. Even if you are not currently looking for a job or internship, you can (and should) start now to build your online portfolio. At least learn how to save your document as a PDF and then store it somewhere else—on your school’s server, on a CD or memory stick, or perhaps on Google as a “Google Doc.”
Tips for success
Online résumé
Some viewers will prefer a print version for portability, so be sure to include a link in your online résumé to a PDF version that can be printed in an attractive format. Because research indicates that viewers read more slowly online and do not like to scroll, you may want to “lighten” up your explanations and simply link to another page to give more details. Keep your paragraphs short (ideally, anywhere from one to five sentences) and your sentences crisp.
This attention to navigation and readability applies to your portfolio pages too. Another consideration is your safety and privacy: Web-based documents should not contain personal contact information (street address, telephone number) that you might normally provide on a paper résumé.
Online portfolio
All too often, students create some a splendid report or presentation for a class and then sometime later—after they upgrade to a new computer or suffer a hard disk “crash”—they lose their project. If you think you might want to someday show off some of your written creations to a potential employer or graduate program, act now to save these documents by storing them as digital documents. You will want to save your MS Word, PowerPoint and Excel documents in a PDF format. This will allow you to have more control over the document: It will appear as you’d like the viewer to see it, with no opportunity for changes to be made to that document.
If you have only a hard copy version of a document, scan it so it becomes a digital image. And if you wish to include documents that you’ve created for an employer or client, be certain to get permission to show them in your portfolio.
When you are ready to create an online portfolio, first start with an outline or map. Design your web site so that a viewer might quickly be introduced to his/her options: viewing (or printing) your online résumé, contacting you, or learning more about you or the documents in your portfolio. Then, make some editorial decisions: Do not include everything you’ve ever written or produced! Your portfolio should only contain your very best, most representative work. If you are including documents written for a class, be sure to make corrections suggested by your teacher and then upload a clean, improved version.
Develop categories for your portfolio documents: You might cluster documents under headings like “marketing,” “collaborative work,” “journalism,” or “technical writing.” Some are more specific, with titles like “fundraising letter,” “press release,” “informational brochure,” “grant proposal.” Portfolios may include testimonials or recommendations from clients, managers and team members. See how Alexa Hart (UCSB business communication minor) organized her online portfolio.
A very important element of your portfolio is a short summary or explanation to accompany each document. Your viewers will want to know something about the document, including why you selected it as a representative work. Besides some explanation, your summary should include when the document was created, who the intended audience was, what types of skills were required, and perhaps what software or equipment was used.
Internet innovation promises good results. Good luck!
About the author
LeeAnne G. Kryder, Ph.D., teaches and directs the business communication emphasis in the Professional Writing Minor at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB). She is a member of IABC and serves on the board of directors for Association for Business Communication.
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