RE: Portfolie... was Re: Am I experienced?

["John Locke" <mail -at- freelock -dot- com>]

Hello,

Good discussion.

I have an oversized leather portfolio containing awards and samples. When
choosing pieces to go into it, I try to select from the full spectrum. I
have a tutorial in there. I have  a white paper. I have a documentation
plan, a product description, an XML DTD, a file type specification, and
several other documents, all of which I wrote. Most of these came from a
single project for which my manager gave me permission. A couple are
publically available.

Unfortunately, much of my recent work I'm not able to use. My best technical
stuff explains a proprietary e-commerce platform in detail, using UML and
XML. I explain this in the interview, and I generally get quite favorable
responses. And my longest work I'm not happy with--the "powers that be"
chose a poor style, formatting, and organization overruling my judgement. (I
followed Andrew's advice, though, and did it wrong to the best of my
ability!)

So what's left? The magazine articles I wrote when I first started writing
professionally. Having print credentials seems to go a long way. And, of
course, my web site, where I direct all requests for writing samples. I've
had several interviewers pull up my web site with me right there in the
office. That sells them every time. I can also point them to some online
help topics I wrote (in the Windows help system, conveniently!)

But my point is, writing samples don't have to be technical. Write, and
sell, a couple of magazine articles on your favorite hobby and your
portfolio will improve immensely.


John Locke
http://www.freelock.com