Exploring Design Strategies for Student Career Portfolios.

This study examines how technical and professional communication (TPC) students design multimodal career portfolios, including resumes, video resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, and audio job analyses, to meet evolving workplace and technological demands. Analyzing 155 artifacts from 31 diverse students at a Midwestern U.S. university, the research highlights students' strategic use of rhetorical awareness, personal branding, and multimodal integration tailored to specific job advertisements and company cultures. The findings emphasize the importance of incorporating multimodal approaches and intercultural perspectives into TPC curricula to prepare students for AI-influenced recruitment processes and globalized job markets. The study recommends pedagogical strategies that foster research skills, audience awareness, and cultural adaptability, while acknowledging limitations due to its context-specific sample and calling for broader future research.