Creating a Blog to Get a Job: Smart, or a Waste of Time?

If you're in between roles, most likely someone's suggested to you that you start writing a blog.

Here's a CNN Money success story (with a quote from yours truly) of a woman who helped leverage her industry related blog into a new job:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/21/news/economy/hired_branding/?postversion=2009082510

I've seen clients refer to their blog entries successfully when they're missing a skillset on their resume, but can speak to the topic in general. When you understand a specific topic well enough to write about it, you'll gain "street cred" in the eyes of your future employer.

If you're thinking of writing a blog as a job seeker, here are some pointers:

1) Find the top 10 blogs for your industry, and read them for 2 weeks first without creating your own blog.

2) Start making a list of topics that interest you about your profession; these could be recent developments in the field, random musings or questions about how something could be improved, or an article, book, or blog you read that you'd like to respond to.

3) Make it a habit to post 1-3 times per week. Less, it looks like you're not engaged in the topic. More, you're probably taking time from your job search and networking efforts.

4) Make sure you include your industry's hot topics in one or more of your blog posts. Scan job postings to see what the employers are looking for, and if you're missing one or more of the qualifications, research it and write a blog post about it.

5) Don't post personal things on a work-related blog. You can mention them in passing, as in, "I was out to dinner with friends and cloud computing came up," but don't spend valuable "real estate" on your blog with personal items.

6) After you've gotten the vibe of various other bloggers' sites, start posting appropriate comments in their comment section, with links back to your own blog.

Also, if you're commenting within your blog on someone else's blog post, use the other people's blog addresses (http://careercounselingblog.turningpointboston.com/) or blog title in your blog when you're writing a blog commentary; they'll most likely then come read your blog at some point and may start to follow you.

Any other tips from bloggers, or questions? Comment below.

Kathy Robinson
Career Coach
www.turningpointboston.com