1. Put your portfolio together with same care as you put into your resume and cover letter.

2. Use materials that demonstrate your best abilities or greatest achievements.

3. Organize the portfolio into categories – news stories, editorials, printed advertisements, direct mail examples, posters, photographs, etc.

4. Audio and video media should be placed in pocketed dividers in the back. Use DVD or audio CD for easy playback.

5. Put your resume at the front.

6. Mount items carefully – use plastic presentation pages or scrapbook type materials for mounting.

7. All items displayed in the portfolio should look authentic, but readable.

8. Might need to label and date items that are not self-explanatory.

9. Cover of portfolio should feature your name.

10. Make the portfolio visually interesting, but avoid the homespun scrapbook look – keep it classy and professional.

11. Amount of material in the portfolio is relative to your range of skills. Show a significant amount of material where you are strong, or present a significant amount of material of various types to show your diversity and flexibility. You can do a little of both.

12. Use a nice looking binder, notebook, or scrapbook to contain all your pages. Have Kinkos bind your work using spiral binding, if necessary.