How to Make a Career Brochure

Promoting yourself in your career can take a lot of forms. A simple, effective and creative way to start is to make a brochure about you and your career expertise. Highlight what you have to offer that is unique. Tell your potential client why you would be the smart choice.

A brochure will answer questions the client never even knew he had. It also allows you to target the skills you get the most enjoyment from using. Show your clients your enthusiasm for your chosen career and that enthusiasm will become infectious. Give them the opportunity to decide that they have to hire you and no one else.

Things You Will Need

• Computer

• Mac OS X

• Microsoft Word

• Brochure paper

• Color printer

• Your resume

• Your references

• Photograph of you

• Photograph of your product

Pull together all the information you need to create your brochure, such as your resume, references, a photo of yourself or your product.

Turn on your computer and open up your Microsoft Word program. The program will open in a New Blank Document.

Change the Orientation to Landscape, which turns the page sideways so you are working with the full width of the page. To do this, Click on File, Page Setup, then Click on the center page icon with the arrow pointing up and the image of the person facing sideways. Click Okay.

Expand your page margins out as far as possible. Click on Format, Document. Change each of the Margins from the defaults to Top: 0.5; Bottom: 0.5; Left: 0.5; and Right: 0.6 (note the different margin for the right). Click Okay.

Insert a 3-column table by Clicking on Table, Insert Table, Number of Columns: 3, Number of Rows: 1, Click Okay. When the Table appears on your screen, the cursor will be blinking in the first column to the left.

Now comes the information part. This page will be the inside of your brochure, so here is where you spell out all the skills, talents and offers you are making.

In this far left column, fill in information about you in paragraph form. Pull this information from your resume. Include a brief history, illustrating your expertise in your career. An example would be: "For more than 10 years, John Doe has been working in the web-design field, creating websites for clients ranging from dog groomers to electrical engineers."

This would be a good column to include a photo of yourself or clip art (predesigned artwork available for free on your computer or through the Internet).

To add a photo, Click on Insert, Picture, From File. This will pull up your Finder screen. Click on Documents, and the Folder the picture is saved in. Once you get to the picture you desire, click on it, then hit Insert. The photo may appear very large. If it does, click on the picture and there will be little boxes that show up along the corners. Place your cursor over one of the corner boxes and a two-way arrow will appear. When you see the two-way arrow, click and drag the picture to a smaller size to fit the column you are working in.

Click on the center column to place information about your skills. This would be a good place to include bullet point items. To add bullet points, Click on Format, Bullets and Numbering, select a Bullet format from the choices on the screen, Click Okay. The bullet will appear and will have indented slightly. Type in your skills, such as: "Proficient in Mac OS X; Expert Typist," etc.

Place your cursor in the third column. This is where you will place details of your offer, such as: "Save 10 percent on our web-design services by using Promotion Code SAVE." Insert a piece of Clip Art here to draw more attention to the offer. To insert Clip Art, you will follow similar instructions as to insert a photo: Click Insert, Picture, Clip Art. A Clip Art screen will come up. To search for a specific design, type in something like "computer" and cartoon pictures will appear. Click on the one you like and Insert.

For the other side of your brochure, Click Insert, Break, Page Break. This will take you to a new page with the same Orientation and Margin settings. Follow Step 5 to add another 3-column table.

Column 1 will be your References and Contact Information. Type in your name in a larger font than the rest of the text, followed by quotes from current and former clients, such as: "John got my website designed and running efficiently and quickly. J.L. Frankfurter, Ph.D."

Separate your Contact Information from the references by a few lines and be sure to include your full name, business name, phone number, email address and website.

Leave Column 2 blank. This will allow you to add a mailing label to mail the brochure to potential clients.

Column 3 will be your front cover art. Be creative with your fonts and colors here. To increase font size, Click Format, Font. Select the font you want to use and increase the size to 24 or more depending on the name of your business. Use Clip Art or your company logo here as well to draw attention to your brochure.

You may print these yourself from a color printer, using glossy or matte brochure paper. Print a test copy first. To print double-sided, insert your blank brochure paper into your printer feeder and Click File, Print, Pages 1 to 1. This way you print only one side of the document first.

To print Side 2 of your brochure, insert the page you've already printed back into your printer, face down. You may have to experiment with your particular printer to make sure Side 1 and Side 2 print properly. You want them both to be oriented with the top of the text where you can flip left to right and read it without having to turn the paper over top to bottom.

Once you have printed your Side 2, fold your brochure with the Cover Column on top. You are now ready to print out your multiple copies and distribute by mail or in person.

Tip

Highlight the skills you really love doing, such as writing or customer service. If you don't like doing something, you really would not want to be hired in a job where that was your main focus.

Love what you do and people will want to have that energy around them.

If you want to print lots of copies of your brochure, you may choose to take the document to a professional printer.