Knock the socks off of your next interviewer!
Back in my undergraduate program, a project that was assigned in one of my technology courses was to develop a professional portfolio utilizing a high-tech tool. I used PowerPoint to build an easy to navigate and professional looking “program” that will allow interviewers, principals, and other stakeholders to view all my qualifications (resume, cover letter, transcripts) and showcase my technological skills at the same time.
Yesterday, I made a new portfolio for my counseling career. I have an interview in a few days and will be bringing this with me to give to the panel (on inexpensive zip drives).
The video below shows you how I storyboard and created the portfolio, so you can create your own.
A few notes before the video: First is to make this portfolio represent your personality. Have fun with it, but keep in mind the viewer. Things to avoid are: fonts that are difficult to read (try to stick to a serif or sans serif font), unflattering photos, and colors that do not go together. Also, use a site like stock.xchng to find free, high-quality stock images to use as a background (and other images) for your portfolio. The packaged images in PowerPoint are tacky and overused so try to spruce it up (check out the categories of texture, light blurs, etc). You can also deselect the “advance slide on click” option to only let users click on hyperlinks, which is nice so they don’t click and accidentally advance to the next page (thank you to my wife for user testing my portfolio and finding that nugget of info). Finally, try to break away from using the slide templates. Start with a blank template and add things like text boxes, your own images, and smart images (not word art!). This gives you both flexibility and a customized look.
Check out the video below and jump start your interview.
Link to embedded video:
Photoshop tutorial I used to create the buttons:
Article about digital portfolios:
Free stock image site:
The blog author, Jeffrey Ream M.S, PPS, writes for The Counseling Geek. Connect with Jeff via email, Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.
Thank you so much for this post! It helped me SO MUCH put together a digital portfolio! Great site 🙂
You are very welcome! I am glad to be of help.
Other good sources are sliderocket and prezi. You can create them online easily. I made mine on sliderocket and linked it in my cover letter. I had an interview and they mentioned how impressed they were with it. I did not get the job, but it did land me my first interview. Here is mine for example:
http://portal.sliderocket.com/BRJMS/Sonlay-s-Pr-sum-
What are your recommendations for those using a Mac? I wouldn’t want to give my portfolio to a potential employer who couldn’t open the file on their Windows computer! Thoughts?
What are your recommendations for those using a Mac? I wouldn’t want to give my portfolio to a potential employer who couldn’t open the file on their Windows computer! Thoughts?