If you’re not applying to a job straight out of college though, you shouldn’t be using clips from your days on the undergrad newspaper. If you have a few (or many) years of experience in the work force -- even if you’re a career-changer -- you need to have non-collegiate work.
How Clips Should Be Presented
Many job listings will require that applicants email a resume, cover letter and clips. Some people will accept clips as pdf files -- you should not send something that’s been published as a Word doc -- but most employers will prefer URLs to your work. Then, when you go for your face-to-face interview, you should be prepared to present your clips in person. Most writers maintain a clip book -- just as people in other creative fields hold on to books displaying their work in a visual and presentable way.
If you don’t already have a clip book, look into getting a nice binder and filling it with clear 8.5x11 sleeves. You will probably need to cut and paste your work onto a piece of paper -- I recommend using black construction paper -- presenting the piece in as logical a manner as possible. Make sure to include the publication title, the run date, your byline and the entire piece. (If you notice the way restaurants and stores often present positive press mentions -- often framed on the wall -- you get a sense of how awkwardly-laid out pieces, which may have appeared in a column or a long newspaper edition, can be tailored to fit on the traditional 8.5x11 page.)
A word of caution: If you only have one copy of a clip, don’t go chopping it up hastily. If you cut something up before you know how to lay it out, you may not get a second chance, as Tim Gunn might say, to "make it work." And, while making a clip book can be a bit of an arts and crafts project, you don’t want the book to look sloppy as that will reflect poorly on you.
What If I Don’t Have Any Clips?
If you don’t have any clips, and you want a writing job, you need to get some. It’s nearly impossible to get an editorial job in magazines or newspapers without clips. To get clips, you’ll have to start pounding the pavement and trying to get assignments from newspapers or magazines.