“Your blog is your living resume. It shows how you think. It shows how you write. It shows what’s important to you. . . Mentor us through your blog. We employers love hiring mentors–they raise everyone’s performance.” Kevin Merritt as told to Linkedin Social Media Strategist Mario Sundar
Blogging and Web 2.0 social media tools, like Linkedin.com , are fast becoming the most effective strategies to actively deliver your message of value. If you are a jobseeker in today’s tough market, blogging is the most powerful tool as it allows the writer to deliver their expertise, knowledge, and value to strategic targets such as hiring managers, companies, and the global community on the internet.
One of the first challenges a new blogger faces is writing their first article for their employment campaign. The following is an outline, with the help of social media expert Mack Collier, and template a new job seeking blogger can utilize for the creation of their first blog article.
4 Question Format: Your first article should answer 4 questions
1. Who Are You?
2. Why Are You Blogging?
3. What Will You Be Blogging About?
4. How Can I Leave Feedback?
Example First Article Template:
Your Title
My name is _____ I have ___years experience in the ______industry culminating in a position as a _____ and _______. Today I am writing my first blog article on my new blog: yourname.wordpress.com. My blog is the centerpiece and delivery system, of my message of value, for my newly established employment campaign.
Why Am I Blogging?
I am writing this blog as a method to offer my expertise, experience, and knowledge to liked minded individuals. I am also seeking job, networking, and collaborating opportunities. Consequently, my blog will support my employment campaign which is a strategic, proactive plan to deliver my value to hiring managers and my industry.
What Is My Blog About?
I will write about. . . (your subject matter and topics here.) I will create helpful content, tips, how to guides, lists, and other material on. . . (your expertise, knowledge, and value message here.)
Dean’s Example: “I will write about social media tools and blogging. I will create helpful content, tips, how to guides, lists and other material based on my two years of blogging experience at deansguide and innerarchitect and my social media consulting background with Domus Consulting Group.
How Can I Leave Feedback?
I look forward to reader comments and participation as part of the learning process here on my blog. As I begin to learn more about Web 2.0, social media, and blogging, I hope to become a valuable resource to readers. If you have comments, please do not hesitate to voice your opinions. If you would like to further connect with me:
Your email address
Your Linkedin Address
Your Twitter Address
Your Facebook page-list all the place you wish to point your reader
2 Comments
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Hi Dean,
It’s great that you’re providing this guidance this specific! But I have a question: when you started blogging, did you know that you’d be creating tips, how to guides, lists and other material on the topic of blogging for employment? If your answer is “no,” then what would be a strategy for letting potential readers know that you’re re-focusing your blog as you go along?
Also, as a professional writer, I’d recommend that your clients and readers adapt this template to have a more personal “voice,” that indefinable quality arising from how you organize your ideas, use examples, choose words, and string them together to create metaphors that result in memorable reading. The voice I get from the template screams “cover letter”! Blogging is supposed to reveal a bit of your personality, and some level of informality is expected, even if you’re goal is to demonstrate professional expertise.
Ari,
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement-as usual your participation is greatly appreciated. One of the greatest aspects of blogging is the feedback from readers; feedback is the lifeblood of any blogger’s efforts to understand and solve via information.
With that said, let me take your concerns one at a time:
1. The idea behind the template was to solve what is often one of the ignored first steps in a blog launch: the mission. Blogging to Employment workshop attendees, leading up to the workshops, mentioned transparency as a major fear and barrier to entry. Simply put, most people are afraid to put themselves out their or provide a personal touch to their blogging online.
2. Strategy for Blogging to Employment where the blog is the delivery vehicle for your message of value has not changed. It is our opinion, that your message of value should take front and center in your blog.
3. Strategies for “refocusing your blog as you go along”? If you have your mission completely mapped, then you will not need to refocus anything. If a blogger decides to change direction, then it is up to that writer how they wish to address their readers.
4. Ari as a professional writer you are ahead of most people who are establishing their own blogs. I strongly suggest people use this template as it is a clean, succinct, method to bring forward all the information for each blogger’s mission.
5. Personal Voice: In my opinion this is where people get in trouble. You do not have to be a robot but if you decide to make your thoughts, opinions, and political stances part of your blog writing, prepare to suffer the consequences.
6. Blogging to Employment is a strategy that does NOT emphasize traffic to the blogger’s site. Instead the emphasis is on the job seeker’s ability to strategically target hiring managers and companies to send their message.
If a person is looking for work as a screenwriter or in an industry that is looking for “metaphors that result in memorable reading” then by all means they should write in a style appropriate to their target.
But in the vast majority of cases of people we speak with, both unemployed and hiring managers, the value is in the blogger’s ability to communicate their value, why they have value, and expertise.
The voice you get from the template that screams “cover letter” is your own feelings about style. If you wish to add your personality to your blog writing be aware of how this could work for you and work against you.
As always it is up to the individual blogger; but in my opinion Blogging to Employment bloggers should always stick to business and keep it on a business level.