Creating Your Corporate Writing Portfolio

A lot of creative professionals are losing their jobs and incomes, especially writers and freelancers due to laws affecting the gig economy (HB 5 in CA and the recent law signed in NJ) on top of the current economy.

I know a lot of corporate writers (marcomm/branding, documentation, creative content generation, even some tech writers) that are being laid off and trying to figure out how to go beyond just their resumes and understand what hiring managers are looking for.

I’ve been hiring content creators on and off for years, and one of the easiest things you can do to set yourself apart is set up a portfolio showcasing your writing; most hiring managers ask for writing samples, so you might as well do the legwork up front. If your content is part of a public-facing website, use the Wayback Machine at Archive.org to create a link (or list) showing your contributions. (This is how I manage my legacy column content for the Seattle Times http://bit.ly/1sqZ0r7).

For corporate professionals, especially tech writers, there is often an issue of IP and non-competition. In this case, you should have some snippets (2–3 sentences) that show your writing style, with a longer overview of what the general informational overview of the content’s purpose; this shows both your own communication style and ability to use a specific “voice”. Put this section behind a password-protected area of your portfolio (Obviously don’t include any truly proprietary content). Alternately, do the same thing as a PPT that is password protected.

You have several options for creating a portfolio. You can use a simple platform like Wordpress or Wix to create a website. (I personally like Wordpress because there are so many plug-in and theme options.)

If you are an Outlook user, your Office365 account gives you superb options. You can set up individual documents, folders, presentations etc. and create a view-only link.

Googledocs don’t allow password protection, but you can upload a password protected file to your google drive with an encryption plugin.

Dropbox can be configured to require a password for viewing, of course make sure the content is not in an editable format (.pdf, .ppt, or a .jpg are probably easiest options).

If you want more information about writing portfolio sites, there are plenty of websites out there to look at.

As the saying goes: content is king.