Table of Contents Introduction Continual Self-Promotion Business Cards Résumé Portfolio Your Own Web Site Networking References and Referrals Interview Tips Summary: Be Prepared

Your Own Web Site

It is important for technical communicators to announce their existence and highlight their skills on their own Web site. If you don’t have time to build your own, find someone (with a good portfolio of Websites) to build it for you. Take the time to look at existing vendor and contractor Web sites to see what you like and what seems to work best for your type of work. Personal Web sites are great places for online resumes and online portfolios.

Domain Name

A business domain name shows that you are serious about your craft, that you are successful, and that you won’t skip town with the client’s money. If the .com or .net you want is already taken, then you could select .info instead, but that may not work in your favor. Old habits die hard and lots of users out there have a strong .com mindset. Remember that the Top Level Domains (.com, .org, and .net) get all the press.

Domain names can be 67 characters long. If the name you want is taken, and you don’t care for any of the obvious alternatives, consider making a domain name out of your slogan.

Flash and Splash

Forget the splash page. Really. I’ve read that only Web designers and art majors really like splash pages. Web surfers want content, not a picture of a forest that takes 30 seconds to load. Making visitors sit through a splash screen is a waste of time and could drive away customers.

Selected Online Resume Examples

After an afternoon of searching for online resumes, I narrowed this list of examples to five plus my own.

  1. Online Résumé—Interesting layout and use of color. The text should be wider for less scrolling. The writer’s personal references are included—which is not recommended.
  2. Independent Contractor site—Interesting Web site with some good information, but the layout requires lots of clicking.
  3. Independet Contractor site with Flash—Be careful with Flash presentations because they can be annoying…
  4. Another example of an Independent Contractor site—This one is attractive.
  5. Layout issues—Use tables or stylesheets to narrow, or tame, your text so that it doesn’t run from one side of the screen to the other. This is difficult to read—most people won’t even try past the first line or two.
  6. My online resume with some examples from my portfolio.