Tips for a Professional Portfolio

Hey 2010 PR graduates! On May 13, 2010 (for Temple U, anyway) we’ll slide our tassles from left to right, or is it right to left? Anyway, we’ll slide our tassles and throw our caps and be officially graduated from college. What a great feeling! Well, until you remember that there is this scary thing called the real world that you’ll be entering on May 14…

Even though graduation is bittersweet, I have determined that being prepared is the only way to curb my real world anxiety. Over the past year and a half, through internships and my PRowl Public Relations experience, I’ve been collecting important documents that I’ve written or designed. I began this collection with the intention of taking the cream of the crop to use in my portfolio, the absolutely necessary tool to gain employment in the PR field. Well, the time has come to pick and choose from everything that I’ve been collecting and finally create my own professional portfolio. But where to begin?

Of course, in this age of the internet, I turned to Google for answers and stumbled upon a jewel of helpful information on SlideShare.com in the form of a handy 17-slide presentation on Public Relations Portfolios by Karen Russell. Important slides include ‘What does the employer expect?’ and ‘What goes into the portfolio?’ as well as ‘How should I organize it?’ She ends with the optimistic seventeenth slide ‘I got a job! Now what do I do with it?’ and lets us know that our portfolios should be living documents, constantly updated for future opportunities.

Check out Karen Russell’s full presentation here and take advantage of her tips and tricks while creating your own portfolio! Good luck, grads!