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>Becca, as a hiring manager, I'd wonder why you were showing
>20-year-old work that wasn't directly relevant to technical
>communication when you'd just completed a techcomm degree. I don't
>recommend that you use the tearsheets as portfolio samples.
good point.
A lot of my samples are old because it's been maybe 8 years since I last worked in the field.
>
>Here are some ideas for you: in any of your class assignments, did you
>produce clearly written and well-laid-out documents? If so, I'd say
>those are prime material for your portfolio. To demonstrate those
>skills further, you could find some utterly badly written and laid-out
>docs (a VCR or DVD player manual might be just the thing) and re-do
>them with clear writing and good layout, then show the "before and
>after". If you were a candidate for a spot on my team and showed me
>that sort of sample, I'd be impressed, and you'd stand out in my mind
>as not only a good writer, but also an innovative one
I do have some class materials I'm showing. I need to play with some help files, too, and add some of that to my portfolio.
Right now, other than the scanned material that's 10 or more years old, all I have is class material. Iike the idea of doing procedures for the VCR/DVD player. Thank you for the idea!