"College Graduates with Public Relations Degrees: What Employers Expect from Portfolios"

To complete my senior thesis, which is titled "College Graduates with Public Relations Degrees: What Employers Expect from Portfolios," I contacted fellow PRSA members nationwide from all sectors in public relations to provide an in-depth view of what key components employers evaluate when viewing recent graduates resumes and portfolios.

The benefit of my thesis is to not only inform students, professors and advisers on how to prepare students regarding what professionals expect in a professional portfolio, but also provide myself and other students whom plan to graduate in May an edge in the job market, especially during an economic crisis.

I contact each PRSA member via e-mail and asked five questions:

1. What do you expect to see in a portfolio?
2. What is the most important items to have in a portfolio?
3. What sections do you suggest in a portfolio?
4. What are your thoughts on digital portfolios?
5. Would you like to see a portfolio before or after an interview? Or both?

Surveyed more than 50 PR professionals from all sectors of PR and received a response rate of 44 percent.

Here's are the answers to the questions I asked the PR professionals and believe or not, each response were almost identical.

1. A variety of quality writings samples (News releases, newspaper articles, newsletter writing, media advisories, fact sheets, PSAs and Web copy), graphic design samples, resume and PR-related or nationally recognized honors and awards.
2. Resume and a variety of quality writing samples, including clippings from different media outlets.
3. In this order: Resume, Writing Samples, Graphic Design, PR Campaigns and Internship Experience.
4. Great way to share work in the online space; however, online portfolios do not replace hard copies or face-to-face interaction.
5. Before, if possible.

As a future PR professionals these results were interesting. As we are moving toward the online world, the PR profession still wants the face-to-face interaction, which is key.

I hope this helps my fellow blog readers whom are current and future PR professionals.

Until next time,

Best,

GPaul