How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job

April 10, 2007 10:30am by

Since we have been discussing Blogging so much lately, and today is positivity day, let’s briefly discuss this article in today’s WSJ: How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job:

"Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they are also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can’t get from résumés and interviews…

Job seekers who blog increase the odds that a potential employer will find information online that the candidate wants to be seen, says Debbie Weil, a corporate blogging consultant in Washington and the author of "The Corporate Blogging Book," which was published last summer. "Everybody has an online identity whether they know it or not, and a blog is the single best way to control it," she says. "You’re going to be Googled. No one hires anyone or buys anything these days without going online first and doing research."

Anyone looking for a job? Feel free to post a request in comments, and link back to your own blog; The Big Picture’s Google score will (slightly) increase the odds of your own blog coming up in a search.

Example: If I were to use this blog to seek employment, I would point interviewers to this post On Line Trading: A Business Plan for the future, and to the CV here. 

Now you go . . .

>

Source:
How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job
SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
WSJ April 10, 2007; Page B1 (free)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117616542652964558.html

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What's been said:

Discussions found on the web:
  1. GPS commented on Apr 10

    I’m all over it. Any ideas for a blog name?

  2. Jim Duncan commented on Apr 10

    That there are people that do not recognize that what they write on the web will probably be found by their future employers is amazing. The web never forgets.

  4. TrendWatcher commented on Apr 10

    Thanks, Barry. Sounds like it’s worth a shot.

    My new consulting specialty is applying Trend Analysis to previously uncharted territory. You can find my blog at http://timelineview.blogspot.com/

  5. Michael Schumacher commented on Apr 10

    An article on Valleywag, last week..week before took this a step further as from the perspective of the recruiter googling potential job hires and what they found when they typed in names.

    Utterly amazing that people think there “private” life is not there for all to see. Some guy had an S&M dungeon attached to his Myspace page in full public mode….I wonder if that kept any jobs from being offered to him…..LOL

    THe bigger part of this is that people need to made aware of this.

    Ciao
    MS

  7. KirkH commented on Apr 10

    About a month ago a venture capital firm left a message on my blog. I got in touch, pitched and idea, quit my job. Now I’m an entrepreneur. Plus I once dated a cute local reporter who was interviewing San Diego bloggers.

    I recommend starting a blog.

  8. Ironman commented on Apr 10

    Okay, but let’s make one thing perfectly clear: I’m an economic and business analyst who’s willing to work for money!

    Fill up your buckets and send them to me c/o Political Calculations

  10. cm commented on Apr 10

    It also can work the other way — say the wrong thing a few times in the wrong places, and it can ruin your “background check” … but fortunately that can’t happen here as we live in a free country …

  12. Stackelberg commented on Apr 10

    Please fix your RSS feed! For over a month now the messages are truncated with html tags all over!

    I really like your blog, keep it up please!

  13. me commented on Apr 10

    People are not any smarter whether e-mailing their elicit lover or using their cell phone. Their stupidity is overwhelming. Even Tony Soprano uses a pay phone.

  14. Ken commented on Apr 10

    What a nice gift for all of the unnamed bloggers out there.

    I started blogging last week, and am finding patience is a virtue. Indexing by the major search engines can take longer than a new blogger would like. And even though you think you are putting out some good stuff, at least in the bloggers opinion, it can test you stick-to-it-ivness when no one comes.

    Anyway, here is my blog. Feedback appreciated.

  15. James Bednar commented on Apr 10

    Yes, but can hanging out on Barry’s blog get *ME* a job.

    You hiring Barry?

  16. Chuck Ponzi commented on Apr 10

    Ken,

    I’ve been blogging for 2 years. Try that on for patience. If you’re hoping page rankings within a week, you might want to temper that enthusiasm. On the other hand, i’m #1 on Google for “Socal Bubble”. Gee, wonder why?

    Chuck Ponzi
    http://www.socalbubble.com

  17. Andrew Schmitt commented on Apr 10

    Sitting here in a coffee place (Grounded, on Jane St. in NYC) between meetings it seems everybody is hacking away at blogger or WordPress. Unclear that anyone is making any money, so I assume they must be looking for jobs.

    Barry – you are incorrect in encouraging people to post links. Your blog (as well as most blogs) use the nofollow attribute that prevents search engines from indexing and ranking content pointed to in the comments.

    What is most remarkable is this fact does nothing to keep the ‘Asshats’ from spaming blogs anyway.

    I don’t make money blogging. But blogging helps me make money. And I suppose it would also help me find a job.

  18. DavidB commented on Apr 10

    I’m just trying to figure out what company would hire a right-wing, anti-establishment, pseudo conspiracy theorist……and would I want to work for them. Oh, I mean besides Mcd’s and wally world…and no, I wouldn’t want to work for those clowns!

  19. REW commented on Apr 10

    Dear Corporate Recruiter:
    At the suggestion of Barry “Big Picture” Ritholtz, I am posting this comment to tell you why you should hire me as your next Chief Economist. In short, I move the markets. Forget those other applicants who only interpret what I say, and hire the real deal. My ability to predict how the Federal Reserve will act is second to none. Importantly, I am also have excellent personal grooming skills.
    My current work has become boring. I’ve deflated the housing market, so there isn’t much left to do. I could go after inflation, but that would only make Congress pay attention. I WOULD MUCH RATHER WORK FOR YOU.
    So check out my Humphries Hawkins testimony. I am sure you’ll agree, I should be your next Chief Economist.

    Very respectfully,
    Big Ben
    PS – please ignore that REW guy, his blog at http://www.rewtheday.blogspot.com has nothing nice to say about me.

  20. Barry Ritholtz commented on Apr 10

    Andrew,

    If you go to Technorati or Google Blog search, you can look at links by freshness or authority.

    I believe that the more “high authority” blogs that point to your blog, the higher the google score/rank goes. . .

    I noted The Big Picture’s Google score will “slightly” increase the odds of your own blog coming up in a search.

    If this is wildly wrong, please let me know.

  21. KirkH commented on Apr 10

    Get the search status toolbar for Firefox. It shows your Google pagerank and Alexa rank.

    Barry has a pagre rank of 6/10 and he’s ranked 28,590 among the bajillion or so blogs. Mine has a 5 and is ranked 300,000. There is a huge difference between a page rank of 5 and 6 as my meager blog traffic will attest.

  22. John Navin commented on Apr 10

    My blog’s over at Trader’s Talk — if you click on my name, I’ve linked to it.

    I’m looking for 12 to 18 months of an income-producing job while I set up a hedge fund, which I’m in the process of doing.

  25. SJ commented on Apr 10

    Barry, thanks for the opportunity. I’m planning to enter the hedge fund business at some point in the future. Investing Joy

  26. John Thompson commented on Apr 10

    You dogs don’t have a name like John Thompson or Steve Jones. We are too much trouble to be separated apart. Not worth it.

    But most investor types aren’t peasant working class descendents, having common names like those apparently.

  28. OkieLawyer commented on Apr 11

    I have been looking to get out of the bankruptcy law practice, and I have been putting my blog address on all of my resumes to quicken the search by potential employers.

    Satellite Sky Blog

    The only risk I see is that my political views, although based on the observations of a bankruptcy attorney, will potentially turn off potential employers in a very conservative areas such as here in Oklahoma.

  29. Andrew Schmitt commented on Apr 11

    Barry:

    You are correct, but only for links in your content that you write. Links in the comments have a attribute that tells the search engine to index the content, but not follow the link or use it for calculation purposes.

    Nofollow was intended to remove any incentive for blog comment spam. As you well know, that attempt failed.

  30. Morris Rosenthal commented on Apr 11

    Well, I don’t know about helping my Google score once all these comments are amortized over the rank of a single blog post, but here goes:-)

    Saving Money

    Morris

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