Do's and Don'ts for Digital Portfolios

Do you have a digital portfolio? If not, you’re missing one of the most effective tools for getting noticed and getting ahead in the world of work. Whether or not you’re unemployed, you can still use a digital portfolio throughout your entire career to capitalize on opportunities and prove your value in many situations, including:

· Asking for a promotion
· Negotiating for better pay
· Interviewing with a potential employer
· Preventing the loss of a job
· And getting reimbursed for training or education

“In the past, the only people who created portfolios were artists and designers, but that’s no longer true. Today, people in all types of jobs use portfolios,” say Dr. Susan Amirian and Dr. Eleanor Flanigan, co-authors of Create Your Digital Portfolio.

A digital portfolio, however, can only be effective if you know what to include in it and how to present it. To ensure your digital portfolio is capable of getting great results, consider the following do’s and don’ts provided by Amiran and Flanigan:

Do include a treasure trove of materials that enhance your marketability. Items in your portfolio can include writing and project samples; media stories and clips about you; letters of recommendation; reports; photographs; a business head-shot; certificates of achievement; presentation videos; your resume; and more.

Don’t include material or information you wouldn’t want to discuss in a formal interview or meeting. Save pictures of your family, friends and pets for your personal scrapbook. Other portfolio no-no’s include: religious and political opinions, details about your personal lifestyle, and any information intended to be confidential with a current or past employer.

Do create an attractive, professional design and layout. While standard resume and cover letters rules typically limit people to using plain fonts and neutral colors, digital portfolios open the door for creativity and individuality. Take advantage of the vast collection of designs available through power point templates.

Don’t clutter your portfolio with clip-art and over-the-top animation tricks. It’s one thing to demonstrate your software and computer skills through a well-crafted design. It’s quite another to cheapen the quality of your portfolio with distracting, amateur graphics.

Do design jewel case inserts and CD labels to give your portfolio an extra touch. No matter how outstanding a portfolio’s content is, its presentation makes all the difference. No one will be impressed with a scratched CD that is labeled with Sharpie marker scrawling, so spend a few extra minutes designing the exterior of the digital portfolio and impress an employer before he or she even views its content.

Don’t distribute your digital portfolio without having a few sets of eyes take a look at it. You wouldn’t want a potential employer seeing your resume and cover letter without letting someone proofread them first, and your portfolio is no exception. Ask one or two people to proofread it for grammar and spelling mistakes and offer their feedback on your portfolio’s usability, design and layout, and their overall impressions of it.

Don’t forget to bring a print-out of your portfolio to interviews or meetings. Some people prefer a hand-held copy, rather than having to view something on their computer screen. A print-out will also allow you to reference items in your digital portfolio during an interview and leave behind with an employer or decision maker in case he or she has problems accessing the digital portfolio.

Do store a copy on a USB flash drive, zip disk or CD. This ensures that you’ll always have access to it in case you experience any number of computer catastrophes, such as viruses, tampering or accidentally deleting files!

Create Your Digital Portfolio is available at all major bookstores and from the publisher (http://www.jist.com/ or 1.800.648.JIST).