Building a Portfolio

Your portfolio is what gets you hired, so you want to put some effort into it.

Your portfolio doesn't have to contain published work, although that often helps. The more important thing is that it shows your range of skill and whether or not you have good taste or judgment as to what constitutes good writing. It also shows how organized and professional you are.

You can and should customize your portfolio for different jobs. Have a base of your best work in a range of different formats, and make portfolios with subsets of those suitable for the jobs you want to apply for.

There are plenty of resources out there for making a great portfolio in whatever your field of writing is. Make sure you do a quick Google and check them out.

Whenever you get rejected for a job, you should always ask for feedback on your portfolio and try to improve it accordingly.

You should be updating your portfolio all the time as your skills develop. The normal process is to look back at your portfolio from a few weeks ago, cringe at what you thought was good, and replace most of it with newer work.

What next?

Read Applying for Jobs.