Professional Portfolio Evaluation
I am currently in college at Missouri Western State University and am majoring in Strategic Communication with a double minor in Political Science and Peace & Conflict Studies.
As I am looking to graduate in the winter of 2021 I have created a website designed for future employers to read through. This website has information about me as well as things that I have already done in hopes that it will help me land a job in the future.
For an assignment in one of my classes I had to reach out to two professionals working in a similar career field as the one that I could get with my major, in order for them to look through my website and give me some feedback on it.
One of the men I reached out to was Maxim Bode, the Athletic Communications Graduate Assistant at Missouri Western State University. He was able to give me some great feedback in order to help me work on my web page.
One of the first things that Bode encouraged me to do was to change my homepage picture. He felt that it was a bit too blurry and maybe a more professional picture would look better to potential employers.
Next, Bode recommended that on the tab bar at the top of my homepage, that I move the “contact” tab all the way over to the far right since my experience and education are both things that are more important to display first.
Bode mentioned that he loved my photography work and was wondering if I could move all of the very best work to the top. While scrolling down he wanted to be able to see the very best pictures first so he didn't accidentally pass them up.
Another specific thing that Bode pointed out was in my education tab. He suggested that instead of saying “ my schooling” I just simply put the name of the school that I attended to make it sound less repetitive and more to the point.
Overall, Bode said that he liked my web page and that besides the specific things he mentioned, his main bit of advice was to make sure that I didn't get too repetitive.
The second professional that I got to review my web page was Ryan Heldenbrand. Heldenbrand is a web content designer for Mosaic Life Care and is therefor in the strategic communication field as well.
Heldenbrand suggested that I gather some testimonials from some of my past clients in order to help show future employers how I work with superiors in the workforce. He enjoyed me showing some of my past employers in one of the videos that I had made and posted on my page for the small business “Simply Creations.”
All of my selected work can be found in the link below, but the video I referenced above is towards the bottom and titled “Simply Creations.”
Something else that Heldenbrand pointed out to me was to make sure that my web page still had the same format when viewed on a smartphone as well. This way the pictures and text that I have posted on my web page wont get skewed and become impossible to read on other devices.
Something else that really stuck out too me was when Heldenbrand suggested that I work on doing search engine optimization research. This way I can go through and select key words that will pop up on the internet when people search things an then hopefully lead them to my page.
When it comes to the exact career position that I am looking for in the future, I am honestly still unsure. I decided to major in Strategic Communication because it is a pretty open ended major that would leave multiple different career opportunities open for me in the future.
I have always been pretty interested in social and environmental justice, so I would enjoy working for a company or organization that would allow me to focus on creating content for them.
As for now my plan is to simply work on finishing college and finding a good internship, what comes after is still unknown. Hopefully whatever it is will be rooted in the things I love.
