ties and might give you an opening to discuss your computer creden-
tials.
Even in an intensely technical environment, it’s still probably a
bad idea to present your portfolio via computer. You run the risk of dis-
rupting the flow of the interview. You might be perceived as trying to
take control of the interview away from the interviewer by plopping
your laptop down in front of him or her. And there’s the danger that
your portfolio will become the focus of the interview, not you.
You might e-mail copies of digitized documents to your interviewer
after an interview. If you want to provide your interviewer with copies
of documents from your portfolio, e-mailing these documents as an at-
tachment might be an option, if they are digital files. Here are some
technical issues to bear in mind, if you are considering e-mailing a doc-
ument:Be sure the document is in a format that does not get changed with
transmission.
Be sure that the recipient has the appropriate software to open the
file.
Be sure that it won’t take a long time for your recipient to open the
file.
If you compress the file so that it will not take a long time to trans-
mit and open, be sure that the images don’t become blurry as a result
of compression.For a more detailed discussion of the above technical issues, please
see the section in this chapter entitled “Technical Considerations.”
Whether you send your documents by e-mail or conventional “snail
mail,”it’s important that you only send documents that have already
been thoroughly explained, so that your interviewer understands the
context for the documents and knows why they are important.SHOULD YOU CREATE A WEB-BASED PORTFOLIO?
A digital alternative to e-mailing all or part of your portfolio as an at-
tachment is posting your portfolio at a Web site. As we will see in the
section below,“Technical Considerations,”the Hypertext Markup Lan-
guage (HTML) approach to transmitting your portfolio offers a number
of technical advantages over e-mail with regard to speed of transmis-
sion and ease of display. If you create a Web-based portfolio, you can
make your portfolio quickly available to as many people as you wish,
without imposing the burden of downloading a multimegabyte attach-
ment on anyone.
In addition to facilitating ease of transmission and display, a Web-
based portfolio can include buttons for learning more, as well as all of
the latest multimedia “bells and whistles,”including animations, film
clips of you in action, and voice-overs.
If a Web-based portfolio is done well, having one certainly conveys
the impression that you are technologically savvy.128 Part I: Building, Using, and Maintaining Your Career Portfolio