If you have recently graduated and is looking for a job, having a well maintained and professional looking blog definitely put you at a distinct advantage especially if you are looking to careers related to content management, PR, social media, sales and marketing.
The same goes if you wish to move towards a career to do what you love. If you have no prior experience, a good way to talk your way through is to show your boss or potential boss that you have what it takes. And what could be a better way to do it that to show it off in your blog?
If you wish to use your blog as a showcase of your talents and capabilities, you may want to consider the following:
1. Consider blogging using your real name.
OK, you may set up some anonymous blogs to rant but keep things professional when you are blogging. Consider using your real name because it makes it more credible.
2. Invest in a good blog design and structure
If you are interested to manage PR, corporate communication and social media channels of your company, it would be your best interest to make your blog look as professional as possible. Ensure your blog is mobile friendly and responsive, ie it will display properly with any device.
If you have the time to learn, you can get recommendations from various sites and learn through a lot of free tutorials before buying paid themes. Else, you would probably need to invest some money to have your site professionally designed.
3. Have your photo professionally taken and also feature high quality images in your blog post
If you are into photography, having the ability to take photos that tells a story is a real art. Else you can also source for stock photos, either free or paid ones. Your profile photo on your social profiles such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook should be professionally taken.
4. Do not write or post anything that you do not want your boss, CEO or potential clients to read
Maybe when you first started your blog it is to rant and to display your ‘wild’ and partying side. Or videos of you speaking on controversial topics that may not go down well with the company image- these not only may not land you in the job you want but may cause you to lose the job that you have.
So becareful of what you post or have posted in the past. If you post a YouTube video or write a blog posts in the past condemning a previous job or company or declarations like “I left my high paying job to go full time blogging/ YouTube” which somehow had gone viral…. think of how this is going to impact you when you want to go back to look for a job (with the recent YouTube implementation, many small publishers are no longer able to monetize their content).
5. Design your own personal name card with your contact details, blog and social media channels in it
Usually when you are going for interview, it is the interviewer who handles you his/ her name card. You would definitely leave a strong impression in the mind of the interviewer if you also hand out your very own personal name card.
Conclusion:
When I first came out to the workforce, websites and blogs were unheard off. But I negotiated myself a job with one of the top companies in my industry because the interviewer felt my passion and dedication in providing service. As well as the job experiences I got from working as PA, clerk and telemarketeer during my semester breaks.
While my friends were enjoying their holidays, I came out to work (fortunately the economy was good and I had no problem landing in temporary jobs) to earn experience and credibility.
Today, you can earn credibility from the comfort of your own home blogging about what you like. So long as you keep things decent, and restrain from the profanities and any overly negative rants – the passion and interest of your writing would be felt by your potential employers. They would also see that your squeaky clean image would help in their company branding.
My web presence has helped me to discover my work passion. Initially just through a simple site that I had set up using Geocities, I was able to convince my bosses to let me move from phone service to email servicing.
The daily practice of composing email replies helped me to improve my writing skills and speed. Eventually I progressed to managing intranets and eventually handling communication as well. I would never had been able to do a good job of managing intranets had it not been for my hands on experience in managing my blogs- through managing hosting, design, navigation and content.
