For anyone looking for a job and/or internship in a creative or technical field, an excellent personal website — or “ePortfolio” — is necessary. When I started putting my first ePortfolio together as I freshman, I realized it’s a lot easier said than done, however, and for media analytics majors especially so. There aren’t exactly many examples out there to reference. (But mine is, and I invite you to check it out!) We may have a small pool of work samples to choose from because of nondisclosure forms. The work we can share is often very technical —it’s not as pretty to look at as a reel, Instagram campaign, or new packaging design (the sorts of work our peers in communications are creating) might be; and not only is technical work less attractive, but it’s tougher to explain to people outside of our field.
So, with those hiccups in mind, I’d like to share with you some tips I’ve picked up the past three years that might help you to put together a better, stronger, more thorough portfolio — the kind of portfolio that lands internships and jobs.
Be specific!
At many companies, the people responsible for sorting through resumes and making recommendations for employment, are not the people in the trenches. That is to say, in our case, they aren’t analysts themselves. So what? So, they usually don’t understand everything we do. I’ve been told that they’re generally referencing a checklist of experiences or skills they have been given when they look through candidates.
If you include a dozen writing samples and a couple of data analyses, how are they to know that you know how to write a whitepaper and use R? Or, say they’re looking specifically for examples of your SPSS skills? Or they want to see if you have ever written a website audit? You have to sort and/or label your work! I know, there’s a temptation just to make a few pages (e.g., “Writing,” “Coding,” “About Me,” etc.) and call it a day, but while that makes for a simple, clean website, it’s not particularly user-friendly. New subpages or clear sections and/or labels will help visitors to your ePortfolio navigate with ease.
Don’t forget to explain so what?
Carefully researched reports, detailed audits and analyses, they’re fine and dandy and you ought to include them; good work examples are an essential part of an ePortfolio.
But do you know, for example, what is much more impressive than a report about the results of a consumer survey? The fact that your report prompted your boss to reevaluate their website’s checkout process. What’s more impressive than a text analysis of tweets by U.S. senators? The fact that you were trying to understand what kind of language appealed to young voters. You should always explain the purpose or outcome of your work — tangible goals and results are more relevant to potential employers.
Sometimes, this information may already be included in your work, and that’s fine. When it’s not, you may simply add it as an addition, caption, side note, or reflection. You just need something along the lines of “I chose this research question because…” or “After I submitted this report, my employer….” or “The results of this study prompted…”
Share your experiences.
In some situations, your supervisor (professor, employer, mentor, advisor, etc.) might allow you to include work after you have redacted personal information or changed names, but what do you do when that’s not an option? When you can’t add your favorite pieces of work in your portfolio, it’s frustrating. You worked so hard! You’re so proud of your accomplishments! You want to share it with the world! Well, in a way, you still can.
When you can’t share your work, share your experience. Call it a reflection if you like, but a short explanation of what you did, what you learned, who you worked with, what you would have done differently, what you will do differently moving forward, etc. can demonstrate to someone reading your portfolio that you have not only had valuable experiences but have grown from them as well.
Don’t forget the nitty-gritty.
Now, we’ve talked a lot about how to make your ePortfolio appealing to recruiters and HR representatives, but when your name makes it to the shortlist, odds are someone more familiar with the demands of the job with review your work. For their sake, you shouldn’t exclude the work you’ve done “behind the scenes.” Don’t put it on the front page, and don’t make your visitors scroll through pages and pages of code or background research or data cleaning to find your conclusions, but you should put that kind of work somewhere.
For code, I recommend a GitHub account. It’s a great place to upload code and datasets. Methodologies should be included in your reports, and background or preliminary research is the sort of thing you can include in a side note or discuss in a brief reflection. This work is worth adding because it is what you will most likely spend 95% of your time doing for your future employer.
Add visuals when possible.
Ok, so we don’t make many graphics or put together packages, but we have our own visuals. We make graphs, charts, and presentations. Just because those aren’t what one might typically think of when they think of sprucing of a website, doesn’t mean they aren’t worth including. When you have impressive visuals, don’t hesitate to add them with context. (I stress that background is necessary because I don’t care how strong the correlation of your dot plot is if I don’t know what it means!) Presentations are especially nice additions because they demonstrate your ability to communicate insights and are (hopefully) entertaining to look at.
I hope that my tips will help you to create or improve your portfolio. It’s worth noting, however, that great content won’t do you much good if your website doesn’t work well. With that in mind, another post will be coming soon related to ePortfolio-hosting platforms and tools for creating personal websites.
Meg Malone 