Re: Portfolios and examples

[jewahe -at- comcast -dot- net (Jeff Hanvey)]

I tried something new on a recent interview - I took my laptop with me (and made sure the battery was completely charged up, although I did have the power cord).

I keep all of my writing samples on a file server on my home network - they are fairly well organzed, so I can find just about anything I need to show at a moment's notice. 

I just copied the entire folder over to my laptop harddrive. As we were interviewing, I was able to quickly illustrate my point by showing the pertinent sample.

The really good part was that I maintained control of the samples throughout the process - there was no paper so shuffle, no worries about inadvertantly leaving something behind, etc.

As backup, I did bring with me a small binder with a sampling of everything I've written. I don't include full manuals. I'll often include a single topic, as well as some form of TOC to show how a particular topic fit into the larger document. If necessary, I could leave these behind for the interview to review later. I also choose items that are fairly innocuous whenever possible so that I'm not giving away any trade secrets. However, I've rarely seen where the interviewer was really interested in reading the samples. I've only had one interview in which the interviewer actually read the samples, and she seemed to be looking for reasons not to hire me (it was a really bad interview). In most of the interviews I've had, the interviewer never even asked to see my portfolio. 

In all cases, I've been asked to present samples ahead of time, so I tend to concentrate more on providing those in a usable format. I take the same approach to providing samples - created a doc that lists each job I've had as a writer, provides an overview of the projects I worked on at that job, and provides an innocuous sample of a topic or two that I consider the best illustration of what I did at the job. 

I make this sample portfolio available in both PDF and CHM format. It is a small document, so that it can be emailed easily. On a side note, the samples are not provided as originally published - I reformat them into my own style sheet. I'm more interested in showing my writing ability; the overview provides the info about the tools and delivery method, which can be also be addressed better in the face-to-face interview.

The interview commented that by handling the interview in this manner, I showed a lot about my general work process and organizational skills.

HTH
JWH.


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
> + What kind and how many examples do some of you have in your portfolios?
> + How many examples would you say are too many?
> + How far back would you keep examples from?
> + Do you include entire examples of manuals, or only excerpts?
> + What do you keep your portfolio in?  Art-type portfolio?  Briefcase?
>  Grocery bag?   (I've got enough that it requires it's own briefcase
> and then some, which is why I'm looking to take a few things out.)
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