PSU students are encouraged to supplement resume efforts with a website.  Glenn Johnson (photo below) is instructional designer in the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute where he serves as project manager for Penn State’s e-Portfolio Initiative.  In this role, Glenn gathers examples of student sites into galleries to provide design and content ideas. 

To get started, create a plan for your site by reviewing the student sites in the galleries.  Look for examples of evidence (academic or co-curricular) that students have made part of their site.  As you do this, consider your personal evidence that you might use.  What is it that makes you unique?  What is it that would make you “attractive” to a recruiter (i.e. communication skills, team experience, problem solving, etc.)?  

Next, consider how you will “present” your strengths.   This is where students can get very creative on websites.  Words are good, but so are images and other multi-media content.  Lastly, look for opportunities to “reflect” on your evidence.   Reflection is a powerful way to add value to your experiences.    Reflection goes beyond describing “what” you did – this is where you explain the “why” and share what you have learned.

After creating the plan and gathering content, putting the site together is pretty straightforward.  Microsoft Office products (such as Word) allow you to save files as HTML.  Specific web-authoring packages are also available, such as Dreamweaver and Microsoft Frontpage (or Sharepoint and Publisher).  Some (for Linux, PC and Mac) can be downloaded for free, such as NVU.    The Mac also  comes with iWeb, for example.  Currently, PSU hosted websites can be used for six months after graduating from Penn State.

Last is finding a place to host your site.  Other free site besides PSU include Google Pages and Weebly.com (note that Weebly was founded by PSU alumni!).  However, there is a benefit to using the branded site provided by PSU to students.  Penn State provides photos and PSU logos for students to use when configuring a web-page. 

Note that general copyright free images can be found at office.microsoft.com/clipart/.