How to Send Employers A Solid Writing Sample

Adapted from Lily Garcia's twice-monthly online discussion.

Baltimore: Many of the job openings I'm interested in are asking for a writing sample. Can you give me a few standard guidelines, such as how long writing samples should be and what most employers are looking for?

First ask the employer to provide you with guidelines. If they don't, follow these:

· Keep it to no more than 500 words;

· Do not violate confidentiality (i.e., make client names anonymous);

· Make it relevant to the job (i.e, if you are applying for a legal job, submit a legal writing sample)

· Ensure that your work is typo-free;

· Try to pick a sample that demonstrates intelligence, personality and strong analytical skills.

Most employers that request a writing sample do so to assess your writing (and sometimes research) abilities, as well as your skills in the effective presentation of ideas in a professional context.

Re: Writing samples: I recently learned that with professional writing clips, you absolutely cannot edit the clip. Even if the editor wrote a stupid headline or made a grammatical error, you have to forward the sample as is. Does the same rule apply to writing samples sent to non-journalistic positions? Can you spruce up your sample to better reflect your skills? If the sample is a published clip, can you edit that because it's not a journalist position?

Whether you are applying for a job in journalism or some other field, once something has been published, you cannot edit it for use as a writing sample.