Stand Out In Your Job Search With An Online Portfolio

One way that autistic job-seekers can help “sell” themselves as professionals as well as their skills and experience is to have a professional-looking online portfolio.

Having a website to showcase your professional skills and experience benefits your job search in several ways:

1. With a portfolio website you can work and re-work your words and images to put your best foot forward.  You’re not “on-the-spot” trying to answer questions about your skills like in a job interview.  In a way, an online portfolio website helps you “pre-sell” yourself before any interview, which is an advantage for autistic job-seekers.  Simply by having a professional online portfolio you’ll be putting yourself at an advantage over those who do not have such a site.
   
   
2. A portfolio website is portable and the site’s web address is easily email-able.  If a job recruiter sees something of interested in your LinkedIn profile, it’s great to allow them to learn more about you and your skills/experience by having them follow a link from your LinkedIn profile to your expanded portfolio website.  Or, if you freelance any of your skills it’s a great marketing tool to help you showcase your abilities to others seeking your services.
   
   
3. Because your online portfolio is a website, if optimized well, it can come up in Google searches for specific keywords related to your skills, your experience and certainly your name.  All of which, helps you to be found online easier as job recruiters search online for candidates and names they receive of potential candidates from their network of contacts.
   

Building your online portfolio website has never been more accessible than now. Online drag-and-drop Content Management Systems (CMS - the backend editing area of a website) makes it easy to build and update your site quickly and whenever needed.  Many such website-creation tools are free, or you can pay and use your own customized “.com” domain name.  

The following are free website CMS resources you can use to build your own online portfolio website:

• Weebly
• WordPress
• Wix
• Webs

The one I really like and think is super easy to use is Weebly. I’ve been personally using Weebly for many years. It was one of the first user-friendly online drag-and-drop CMS editors on the scene years ago and I believe they’ve done a nice job improving it in iterations.

I’ve also used WordPress and Webs, which are great for different reasons, and I know many who swear by Wix, though I have not used it.

Do your own research to figure out what will work best for your needs, but here’s a YouTube tutorial to build your Weebly site, if you’re interested:

Posted by Nick Venturella

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