Portfolio Help! New to marketing and just lost my job, need guidance on first time portfolio for job hunt

Hi everyone,

I have just been made redundant and I am now searching for a new marketing role. The job market is dire, as everyone knows, and I am panicking. My last role was at an e-commerce start up, so I have experience in a lot of different areas in marketing - SMM, Email Marketing, Affiliate / Influencer Marketing, Canva Graphics, Copywriting for packaging, scripts, campaigns, paid ads, socials, emails, blogs, you name it - and other marketing stuff.

I am struggling to find a new job, because the ones in my area require me to do all of the above roles, plus areas I have no experience in (PPC, Web Dev, Video / Adobe Graphic Design, SEO). The roles want years of experience of all tasks, which although I am willing to learn, I cannot currently show for.

I'd love to specialise in copywriting or communications, as I enjoy writing and community engagement/content planning but hate graphics/video editing side of SMM.

All of the specialist jobs I am seeing in copywriting or even just generalist marketing or communications are requiring a portfolio, however I don't have one. I retrained into marketing after redundancy 5 years ago and have been with the same company since day one, I didn't even consider that I needed a portfolio and have no idea where to start.

I am so overwhelmed with creating CVs, cover letters and now the idea of creating a portfolio without any evidence to back up my work - all of my company access has been revoked so I cannot get any data for my portfolio, not that I think they'd let me share it anyway. I can pull anything that is public facing e.g. on packaging, socials or website, so I can still evidence my work but I cannot back it up with figures to show success. Obviously I have learned a valuable lesson from this and will document as I go in my next role.

What should I be putting into my portfolio, and how can I make it informative without giving any data to support, surely nobody will buy it if I just put a caption saying that my blog increased time spent on page by two minutes without proof etc even if I can remember the stats roughly.

Should I be categorising my portfolio by speciality eg. Copywriting, Email Marketing, Social Media, Graphic Design, or should I go by campaign and pull everything together? I feel as though the first option is easier for recruiters to find specific samples rather than trawling through a campaign, however the campaign obviously is more cohesive. I have looked at so many portfolio templates on Wix, Squarespace, Canva etc but none of them show the page layouts except "project 1, 2, 3 etc".

And finally, should it be a website or a slide show? Different job listings require different things and I really don't want to make it twice, I also don't really want to have to pay for an expensive domain just yet as like I said, I have no income source right now. I don't know how to use Wordpress and although I am willing to learn, I need to be applying for jobs now, not in 2 months once I have mastered WP. I am currently looking at Wix but it is expensive to maintain, and Canva just feels less professional. Do I need different portfolios for each skill? This seems so expensive and time consuming?

I feel so lost and overwhelmed right now, please help! 🙏

Thank you so much!

TLDR - made redundant and have no portfolio to apply for new jobs with, where to start? How can I make a portfolio quickly, low budget, what should I put in it and how should I structure it? Generalist marketer looking for a copywriting heavy role but will be sending portfolio to a range of marketing roles - surely I don't need more than one portfolio, like tailored CVs??