Blog As Resume Helper
I sat for another interview today. Very interesting people (four of them at once this time) and very intense and engaging conversations. Throughout the two-hour discussion they referenced things I have written on my blog (the Director, in fact, commented that she had recognized me in the hall because of the photo on my blog). I do, of course, provide a link to my blog on my resume, but I never interviewed with people who had read it much less asked about things I had written. It was truly eye-opening and made clear to me that blogs are, if not the new resume, a powerful addition to one. Imagine that in addition to the hard facts found within one’s CV (dates, responsibilities, accomplishments), potential employers also can learn more about you and your thoughts by reading them over a long period of time. Even the things you link to can be revealing. Granted my blog also includes a lot of personal and perhaps silly things, but these posts also provide a view into my personality, which is equally important when judging a potential employee.
Here again is a link to Steve Borsch’s blog entry about why he blogs and why blogging is important for personal and professional reasons.
August 17th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Never underestimate the ability of your written words to follow you around. I still have people reminding me of things I wrote over 10 years ago.
Also, remember that even if you delete things, they may stick around…have a little fun with the web wayback machine on archive.org sometime (then go to the live music archive and download some killer stuff for your IPod!
Here’s one of my posts from 1997
http://web.archive.org/web/19980610113427/www.reel-time.com/fishwire/boston/update-bos.html
August 18th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
One of my students posted this on his blog:
http://agblog.com/entry/1599
I like his summary and the Chronicle article. They speak nicely to how blogging influences things one might not even think about.
August 20th, 2006 at 10:46 am
David, I agree that if you follow the examples given in the article you will only create problems for yourself. So
you have to ask yourself before advertising it why you blog and who might be your audience. I also heed the warnings
in the article not to talk of current or even former work situations, engage in off-color humour, or otherwise write
things that may be offensive or antagonistic.
The writers in the blogsphere whom I read are leaders in theirs fields (David Churbuck, Steve Borsch, Om Malik) and
many are known and accomplished writers as well. These are the writers I respect and emulate when writing my own blog. Like them, I try to write about things I am learning and finding, but also try to build a community around those topics. I do believe that my blog is a useful vehicle for illustrating to potential employers my thoughts on a variety of relevent topics as well as some of the things that interest me outside of the workplace.
I very much appreciate the post and also am curious to know whether you personally find my blog an asset or a liability in my search for work, and why you think one way or the other. This is a genuine question and I hope to hear your response.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
After I wrote my post, Newsweek had a large cover story on education in the Internet world. One poignant article covered the mySpace community and how it impacts students’ futures, apparently unbeknownst to them. A career councilor received a phone call from an employer, saying they had decided to cancel a student applicant’s internship. It seems the student posted photos of himself downing vodka from a 1.75L bottle, something which according to the company representative ‘was not only illegal, but represented the poor judgement of the individual in posting it to the world to see’.
The key aspect that too many users forget is that www stands for WORLD WIDE web, and anything that is posted is as transparent as glass for anyone and everyone to see. With web archives and off-line caches, backups and disk-dumps, something said once can persist for time immemorial. Does a forum that is so personal in nature belong in such a medium? I’m no soothsayer, but I am comfortable in saying that society’s understanding of how individual representation is impacted by the web will certainly become much wiser in the next few years.
All that said, I do believe that blogs have benefits and are not by nature detrimental. Used properly they are a very good forum for developing ideas, and collaboration betwixt blogs can produce some excellent results. Besides, reading them can be quite entertaining.