How to sell yourself, and your skills, with an online CV/resume/portfolio

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Job hunting? Your best advert for you and your skills is the work that you are already doing

The content you create, and your activity on social platforms, will show potential employers just how well you can hack it as a multimedia journalist.

So you need to make everything you do online an advert for you; a selling point for your skills, experience and talents.

There are two sides to doing this:

• One is making sure you have great content on your websites or blogs, and that you are active on the most important social media.
• The other is creating an online hub – a CV, resume or portfolio that tells an employer everything they need to know to convince them you are worth serious consideration for a post.

That online CV should be an at-a-glance guide to everything that is great about you.
And, as much as possible, you need to ensure that any bit of work or social interaction an employer comes across links them to your online CV, so they can check you out.
You won't always have control over that side of things, but if you do, then buttons such as 'Follow me on Twitter', 'Share on LinkedIn' and others are very useful.

So what are the best ways to build your online CV or portfolio?

That’s what we’ll look at here.
What we won’t look at now, because we have already covered it extensively in a range of MMJ Masterclasses, is which social media you should use, and how to do them well.
For the low-down on that, if you are a subscriber to MMJ, you can check out these Masterclasses:
Masterclass 6: How to master Facebook and Twitter http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/441
Masterclass 8: Getting the most out of YouTube, flickr and LinkedIn http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/546
Masterclass14: Audioboo http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1060
One area we haven’t yet covered is Google+. Its potential for journalism isn’t yet clear, but as soon as it’s possible to gauge its potential – and I’m cautious because of the failure of Google Buzz and Google Wave to live up to expectations – we’ll take an in-depth look at it.

So here’s what we will cover here

We’ll look at a range of ways of presenting your skills and experience online  including:

• How to create a simple one-page CV/resume/portfolio website on Wordpress, Blogger,  or any other platform you fancy
• How to create a more advanced CV on Wordpress using a bespoke theme
• How to put your CV on your Facebook page
• Other useful services such as Journalisted, e-byline, Findstringers and Retaggr

This is just a brief introduction to the subject of promoting yourself online, and we’ll return to it with a full Masterclass later. It forms just a small part of substantial careers content on the MMJ site

Want to know more about developing your career in journalism?

On MMJ we have an extensive range of Masterclasses covering most aspects of choosing, starting and developing your career in journalism.
There are links for subscribers below.
If you want to subscribe, just buy the textbook – in e-book or paper form – and you’ll get free access to the whole of this website

MMJ careers content in full

Sector guides

Masterclass3: What the B2B sector has to offer http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/356
Masterclass 7: What consumer journalism has to offer http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/472
Masterclass 9: What TV journalism has to offer http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/562
Masterclass 10: What local paper journalism has to offer http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/569

Freelancing and entrepreneurship

Masterclass 12: How to build your own job http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/569

General advice

Masterclass 13: How to get your first job http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/966

Journalistic specialisms profiled

Masterclass 26: International Journalism http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1650
Masterclass 27: Political Journalism http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1692
Masterclass 28: Sports journalism http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1705
Masterclass 29: Celebrity, showbiz and arts reporting http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1739
Masterclass 30: Business and Financial Journalism http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1789
Masterclass 31: Travel Journalism http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1812
Masterclass 32: Science, Health and Environment reporting http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1821
Masterclass 33: Fashion Journalism http://www.multimedia-journalism.co.uk/node/1840

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