From the course: Digital Networking Strategies

Promoting your work and accomplishments

From the course: Digital Networking Strategies

Promoting your work and accomplishments

- When you're looking for a job, your resume goes a long way toward making a first impression but at the end of the day, the person reading it can only take your word for the claims you're making. You can make yourself look great on paper, does how does an employer or a new connection know that you actually have the skills to back it up? This is why you need to be able to display your work, and an online portfolio is the perfect way to do that. When gathering the project that you want to include in your portfolio, there are a few considerations to keep in mind. First, you of course want to display your best work. Second, you want your portfolio to attract the types of opportunities that you're looking for. To do that, you should display the types of projects that you want to work on in the future, and then third, you need to consider copyright laws. By default, any time someone pays you to do work, they have the rights to that work, and unless you have a specific clause in your contract that states otherwise, you should be careful in determining what you showcase within that portfolio. Be sure to avoid including any work that may be considered confidential to your employer, and if you have any doubts as to what constitutes that sort of sensitive information, you can go to that employer or client and ask them for written permission. You can also include any unpaid work you've done like school projects. When you've decided what work to include in your portfolio, and you're sure that you have the right to display it, the next step is to create the actual portfolio. There are plenty of options depending on what industry you're in and what kind of work you do. You could use Flickr, Behance, Medium, or LinkedIn Publisher. Your university may also allow you to create and store a portfolio on their career center page. Now if you really want to take your portfolio to the next level, you can even build, or hire someone to build a personal website for you where you can publish a portfolio as well as any other materials that could be helpful for your networking. As helpful as it is to have a formal online portfolio, have you ever thought about using your social media pages as a type of impromptu portfolio? Employers and professional connections will see it this way whether or not it shows your best side. Now that you know this, you can start using your social media presence to your advantage. Post your work to your social media on a regular basis. This not only shows your work itself, but it shows that you're passionate enough about your work that you want to share it with your family and your friends. This is especially helpful if you're into social media marketing or into the digital marketing field. If a company is going to trust you to manage their social media, they want to see that you've been able to establish a great social media presence for yourself too. In fact, I recently spoke with the director of marketing at a Fortune 500 company that's in the entertainment industry. He verified that not only does he check every candidate's social media before he interviews them, but he told me that for the last social media manager he hired, part of the reason he hired them was because they were already posting a lot of content that showed an interest and an expertise in the entertainment field. When you've curated your social media page so that it paints you in a positive light, you'll want to add those profile links to your resume. You don't have to link all of them, but choose the platforms that are most relevant to your career path. I always advise my clients to add LinkedIn links to their resume, and I advise many of them to include their Instagram profiles, too. In fact, in many cases, the employers even reference their Instagram profiles in the interview, so I can tell you for a fact that many employers will check your profile. Whether you're building your professional network or you're actively seeking a new job, an online portfolio is a way for you to show your network that not only do you have experience, but that experience has led to well developed skills, too. Between creating your own portfolio and using your social media posts to your advantage, you can attract new contacts to your professional network, and put your career on the fast track.

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