Portfolio Packages: Beyond Pictures

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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2003-02-15

Portfolio Packages: Beyond Pictures
By Jim McNay, Brooks Institute of Photography

OK, you've got a solid portfolio. Your professors say your pictures have the power to stop traffic. Strangers look at your work and are moved to tears.

In short, you have The Stuff.

Now it's time to work on the rest of your portfolio package.

These are the elements that may insure someone actually looks at your portfolio!

We come to the resume and the cover letter.

Resumes should probably be pretty standard, pretty straight-ahead. You want to have your contact information there: name, address, telephone, e-mail address, cell phone if you have one, perhaps a website address.

You probably want to address your educational background, such as any degrees you've earned, your current educational path. You need not go back to high school on the resume.

For this resume, remember to start with the most current information about you, and work backwards in time. This is called resume style. You list your current school first, and then list the one immediately before that and so on back in time.

You may want to address your employment history. Start with your current job, then list the most recent one or two before that.

Remember resume style is to list your current information first, then work back in time with the other listings.

Next students might want to add any special skills, interests or certifications they have. Remember, part of the aim of a resume is to say something about yourself that separates you from the pack of other aspiring photographers out there. This is the place for scuba and water safety certification and pilot's licenses. Foreign language or overseas study experience fits well on the resume here.

While no one wants to stifle student creativity, the resume is not the time to get cutesy. Day-glow paper, angels flying across the page, glitter sprinkled on the paper will not show you are a "star" and endear you to potential employers.

Where a student can show their creativity is to make all this information fit on one page. That sometimes takes some doing. But that is the aim. Unless a student has had a previous life and a distinguished career in some other field, for students just completing a degree (any degree, their first or their fourth) the bias is toward the one-page resume.

This includes room for about three references on the page as well. Adding the phrase "references available upon request" only slows reference checking if someone is interested in you. Listing references-with telephone numbers-accelerates the process.

For students new to resume writing there is help. In the library are books on how to write resumes. In the business section of the campus bookstore there are similar volumes. Flipping through them will give the student more than enough ideas on how to draft a professional looking resume.

Also, campus student placement centers or employment counseling centers often have people willing to review resumes and give students a critique. Make use of these services.

However the student gets the resume written, have another set of human eyes look it over, particularly for grammatical and language errors. There are differences in the use of the words "there," "their," and "they're" that are crucial.

And use the spell check feature on the computer. Enough said.

Cover letters sometimes are more of a challenge. Again, there are library books and others in the business section of bookstores where students can see good examples before writing their own.

These letters allow a student a bit more creativity than a resume. The challenge is to write in an interesting way without slipping over into silly. Attempts at comedy should be avoided. That is a separate career path for which really funny writers get paid a lot of money.

A cover letter should briefly introduce the student and explain why they are writing. Next students can touch on a couple of their college career highlights, such as work on the student or local newspaper, or a previous internship history. These are worth repeating since one is never sure if such items will be noticed when the potential employer glances over the resume.

Next a student might want to say a word about why they want to intern for that news organization in that town. Here it helps to have looked at the publication or researched what happens in that part of the country.

Wrap up the letter with a thank you and get out of Dodge.

Again, have someone with good language skills read over the cover letter. And run that spell checker just one more time.

Oh, yes. As you address the letter ask yourself, does the editor spell her name "Sarah" or "Sara"? Or is it "John Smith" or "Jon Smyth"? Ya wanna know.

Bottom line: Study up on how to write resumes and cover letters, then have them read over by at least one other human before they hit the mail. Well-written documents like this may not get you the job, but poor ones may well cost you an opportunity.

*****

Photographers, particularly those in school or seeking to break into the photojournalism, are welcome to send ideas for future columns to Jim McNay at jmcnay@brooks.edu.

Questions about getting started in photojournalism that might be answered in future columns are also welcome.

Related Links:

Jim McNay's Member Page

Brooks Institute of Photography

Related Email Addresses:

Jim McNay: jmcnay@brooks.edu