Blogging is good for recruiters

Here's an interesting article I found on ComputerWorld about blogging for jobs.

January 07, 2008 Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they're also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can't get from resumes and interviews. Most blog-related recruits are professionals in technology and media because jobs in these fields often require knowledge of the blogosphere, says Kirsten Dixson, a founding partner at Brandego LLC, a career management firm in Exeter, N.H., that specializes in personal branding.In addition to blogs that focus on their industry or field of interest, recruiters say they check candidates' blogs about noncareer-related topics for evidence of writing skills and clues to how well rounded they are.

In June, Brian Balfour's blog, SocialDegree.com, inspired an unsolicited offer for a product manager job from an executive at Zoom Information Inc. "I was impressed by the points Brian was making and the way he was making them," says Russell Glass, vice president of products and marketing at the Waltham, Mass.-based technology company. The blog also offered details about Balfour's work history and education. "It was a no-brainer to give him a call and see if he'd be interested," Glass says.

Continues at CW >>

A blog creates career stability

Penelope Trunk's last column at Yahoo brings blogging to the forefront. I love what she has to say.

Today, that's not true. I've been blogging for almost two years, and while each week there are about 400 commenters on Yahoo! who say how stupid I am, there are also a bunch of people who make their way to my blog and become regular participants in the conversation there.

The blog is my own, and so is the community -- which is now about 150,000 people strong. The blog stays with me wherever I go, and that's important in a job market where people switch jobs every two or three years. A blog creates a network, and the network is yours. The conversation you create about your professional life is one that continues no matter what happens with your employer.

The workforce is extremely unstable today. There are layoffs, downsizings, de-equitizations, and bankruptcies. No one is guaranteed to have a job a month from now. Generations X and Y watched their parents' lives come undone when they depended on the workplace to provide stability in their lives. Today, people do that less and less.

We create our own stability in our lives by taking responsibility for ourselves. A blog is a great way to do this -- it's a professional platform that you have total control over, and you can use it to provide a home base when your work life feels like a game of dodge ball.

QuintCareers article on blogs as resumes

FEATURE ARTICLE: USE YOUR BLOG AS A RESUME?
PART I: PROS AND CONS

by Katharine Hansen, Ph.D.

Editor’s note: This article is the first of two parts.
Part II provides tips and examples for using a blog as a resume.

Through the use of a variety of online tools -- blogs, wikis,
social-networking sites, portfolios, podcasts, Youtube videos,
and more -- individuals, especially younger people, are socially
constructing their identities in ways unimagined a dozen or so years
ago.

Where a dedicated careerist of old constructed a job-seeking
identity through a resume and a few other printed materials
disseminated to audiences that seem puny by today’s standards,
postmillennial upwardly mobile types are establishing their career
identities to vast global audiences using the tools of the so-called
Web 2.0, defined in part by Web guru Tim O’Reilly as comprising
an "architecture of participation." The concept of Web 2.0 “suggests
that everyone ... can and should use digital media to express and
realize themselves,” writes Andrew Keen in The Daily Standard.

Our full article at
http://www.quintcareers.com/job-seeker_blog_resume.html
considers the pros an cons of the blog as resume.

Top 100 HR blogs

Blog for Jobs recently made it onto the "Top 100 HR Bloggers " list.

http://www.businesscreditcards.com/bootstrapper/top-100-hr-bloggers/

Article: Guidance on blogging for jobs

How Blogs are changing the recruiting landscape

By Sarah E. Needleman, Career Journal

Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they're also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can't get from resumes and interviews.

Ryan Loken, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recruitment manager, says he spends one to two hours a week searching through blogs for new talent or additional information about the candidates he has interviewed. "Blogs are a tool in the tool kit," he says. Since he joined the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant three years ago, Mr. Logen estimates that Web journals have helped him fill 125 corporate jobs. Most of the recruits were referred to him by bloggers and blog contributors, and some were the writers themselves.

In addition to blogs that focus on their industry or field of interest, recruiters say they check candidates' blogs about noncareer-related topics for evidence of writing skills and clues to how well rounded they are.

Most blog-related recruits are professionals in technology and media because jobs in these fields often require knowledge of the blogosphere, says Kirsten Dixson, a founding partner at Brandego LLC, a career-management firm in Exeter, N.H., that specializes in personal branding.

Continue reading on Career Journal

Experts: More Job Seekers Using Blogs As Resumes

Job seekers have a new way to stand out from the pack of prospects.There is now no need to knock on any doors, call recruiters or even send a resume.Forget online job boards or even old-fashioned networking.The hottest way to land a dream job is to write a blog, a Web journal of sorts."There's definitely a trend to using blogs both for looking for a job and a recruiter looking for a prospect or a new employee,” said Debbie Weil, author of “The Corporate Blogging Book.”

Experts said blogs can give employers insight into a person’s writing ability and how one thinks. Blogs also provide a more in-depth look at qualifications than a standard resume.“There's so much more you can put on a blog. You can put video, you can put pictures, you can write in a much more expansive way about who you are and what you know about,” said Weil.With more than 75 million blogs on the Web right now, recruiters and employers ranging from national superstores to Internet companies are using these online journals to search for talent.

“Blogs are a great way to find employees," said Russell Glass of ZoomInfo.com.Glass selected Brian Balfour to work for his Internet search engine company because of his blogs on social networking.“The most impressive thing about Brian's blog was how each post was succinct yet on target,” said Glass.Balfour said the unsolicited job offer surprised him at first since his blog was relatively new. But it couldn’t have come at a better time.“I had just come off of selling a previous company that I owned, and I was looking for new opportunities,” said Balfour.

Experts said it’s critical to focus your topics on your industry and highlight what you know.“It's pretty easy to show you're on top of industry issues by referring to an article in the Wall Street Journal or a trade magazine related to what you do,” said Weil.Balfour added, “You want to try and be creative, be yourself, show your personality.”Pay close attention to your writing style, spelling and grammar, experts recommended. Also, avoid anything too controversial or personal.“Basically, if you wouldn't want an employer to see it or read it, I wouldn't post it on your blog,” said Glass.

Balfour is happy in his new position but is amused he is still getting job offers.“I have been contacted quite a few times from my blog to be hired,” said Balfour.Some companies are now creating their own blogs as a recruiting tool. They often include information about the company, personal stories from employees and details on how to apply for a job.

If you are writing a blog and want to get noticed, experts said it is important to increase your readership.One way to do that is to post comments on popular blogs that are similar to yours and to leave a link to your blog.That way, experts said, readers will click through to get to your Web site

Article: More Workers Blogging for New Jobs

The reasons why people publish an online blog can vary, but career experts say a blog can be an effective addition to a job hunt. Workers who have found new jobs through the blogosphere say job-hunting bloggers should take a professional approach and focus their blogs around their areas of expertise.

Read the article from the Globe and Mail

If you blog, they have to hire you

Steven Rothberg of CollegeRecruiter.com has a great interview with Peter Clayton about young job seekers and blogging for jobs. In this podcast he says if you blog about the company you want to work for "they have to hire you". Its a good listen, check it out.

The Blog is the New Resume

Great post here about the blog as the new resume.

Blogging for jobs article

The Wall Street Journal published an article today about blogging for jobs which they list some examples and tips for aspiring blogger/job seekers.

Sarah Needleman, the author, details 7 steps to successful blogging for jobs.

1. Clearly identify your specialty.
2. Show you're current on hot topics.
3. Provide more information.
4. Exercise common sense.
5. Omit personal information.
6. Keep it polished and current.
7. Contribute to other blogs.

Full article >>

Jim Durbin's 5 tips on blogging for jobs

My fellow blogger Jim Durbin has a great post on how you can blog for jobs. Definitely worth a read.

Blogging for dollars

Wall Street Journal article about some bloggers who earn money.

Can You Blog Your Way To Big Bucks? Some Do

How to Launch a Career With Your Blog

Your blog can get you the career of your dreams. According to the following article from Fast Company magazine...

Silicon Valley start-ups and media behemoths aren't the only ones realizing the rewards of the rebounding Web economy. Already, many A-list bloggers have generated significant income from running advertisements on their blogs. Though with an estimated 53.4 million blogs expected to launch by year-end, according to Perseus Development Corporation, it's safe to assume that not everyone is going to get rich from blogging. So what's in it for the up-and-coming blogger, beyond creative self-expression?

Blogging can be transformative –- placing you on a new career path, earning you a book deal, or catapulting you into the field of your dreams. Just ask some of the folks we spoke with.

"My blog has led me to change my life," says Jeff Jarvis, author of the media and news blog, Buzz Machine. "I left my corporate job to take the consulting gigs, speaking gigs, and writing gigs that have come my way as a result of the reputation I built up through my blog."

Jarvis, a former critic for People and TV Guide and a founding editor of Entertainment Weekly, gained blog popularity while criticizing mainstream media and lauding citizen media. He eventually said good-bye to his full time gig to consult for The New York Times Company and the Guardian, among other media companies. He's also associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism. "All of that came about from the blog," says Jarvis.

Read the rest

Article: Show you’re a thought leader in your industry with a thlog

I was recently quoted in this article on Small Business Review about blogging.

Beyond the Blog - the Thlog

by Gary Stern

In 2001 and 2002, ancient history in Internet time, savvy business owners who were looking to tap into current trends and build rapport with customers and prospects began to launch blogs. The world of blogging has since exploded—Blogcount recently reported that 547,157 blogs were updated in one month—and in that sea of navel-gazing, silly link swapping and armchair punditry it’s not easy to build brand awareness.

For 2007, marketing experts advise, it pays to rethink your approach. You’ll get a payback on the time and effort that goes into writing and updating a blog, they say, if it shows you off as a thought leader in your industry. There’s even a new term for it—the thlog--coined by Vicki Kunkel, CEO of Leader Brand Strategies, an executive brand management company based in Chicago, though many people still refer to them as thought leader blogs.

Thlogs work because they offer “more value-added information for busy business people or consumers,” Kunkel says. Think of them like the op-ed page in newspapers, where experts offer insight and explanations of recent developments. “It positions you as a leader,” says Kunkel. “You’re on top of trends and the market. You have an ability to analyze your market and come up with important conclusions,”

continued >>

Employers increasingly turn to blogs to learn about prospective employees, whose efforts offer on-line portfolios showcasing their talents

RANDY RAY - Special to the Globe and Mail
Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Computer programmer Joey deVilla blogged his way to a job.

Mr. deVilla is among 30,000 Canadians who write on-line diaries known as web logs, or blogs, where they regularly share their thoughts over the Net.

For Mr. deVilla and an increasing number of other bloggers, their pages are becoming more than a soap box for personal views on issues ranging from the U.S. election to music: They're also playing a growing role in helping bloggers land jobs.

Employers are increasingly turning to blogs during their recruitment process to learn more about prospective employees -- and for the growing number of bloggers, their efforts have become an on-line portfolio to showcase their talents, says Jim Elve, publisher of BlogsCanada.ca, a guide to blogs.

"If I am an HR director and I receive an application that says a person has a blog, I am going to take a look at it . . . I am going to see that this person is not hiding himself because he is saying 'go ahead and read my diary.' It gives me a pretty good glimpse into the personality of a person and shows how well he can put words onto paper," Mr. Elve says.

That certainly worked for Mr. deVilla, 37, who found his way to Toronto-based Internet company Tucows Inc. in July, 2003, through a chance encounter with company executives at a meeting of bloggers in Toronto, which he had heard about through his own popular blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.

At the meeting, he chatted with the Tucows' executives; he learned that they were looking for a programmer and they learned he was a blogger ready to be recruited.

The company's human resources staff surfed over to Mr. deVilla's blog, liked what they saw and, after the usual round of interviews and background checks, offered him a job as technical community development co-ordinator.

Full article

Peter Weddle's Rules for Blogging

The latest edition of Weddle's newsletter has some thoughts on how to blog correctly.

Rules for Success

If you decide to write a blog, follow these rules to ensure that it actually helps your career:

1. Don't rant. A career blog is not the place to vent your spleen about the cost of prescription drugs or how unfair your speeding ticket was. It is a platform for showcasing your skills and knowledge in your field of work, so confine yourself to topics that will do that.

2. Communicate like a professional. It may be all yours and it may be personal, but if you want to impress a recruiter, make sure you edit your entries and proofread them carefully. You only get one chance to make a good first impression, so take the time to be at your best.

3. Say something worthwhile. A blog is not a place to rehash your resume. Recruiters are looking for distinctive performers, so use your commentary to excel in your field, to offer your ideas about how best to address a particular challenge or to accomplish a task that is often done poorly.

Shakespeare said 'all the world's a stage,' and he was right in his time and in ours. Thanks to the Internet, we can now offer performances that recruiters in our hometown and around the world can see. Done well, they can be the opening act for what's next in our career.

Article: Blogging Good For Your Career

Silicon Valley start-ups and media behemoths aren't the only ones realizing the rewards of the rebounding Web economy. Already, many A-list bloggers have generated significant income from running advertisements on their blogs. Though with an estimated 53.4 million blogs expected to launch by year-end, according to Perseus Development Corporation, it's safe to assume that not everyone is going to get rich from blogging. So what's in it for the up-and-coming blogger, beyond creative self-expression?

Blogging can be transformative –- placing you on a new career path, earning you a book deal, or catapulting you into the field of your dreams. Just ask some of the folks we spoke with.

Full article