Blog to a job : Blogs hot tool for new opportunities
Mary Gooderham, reporting for Toronto’s The Globe and Mail, has the latest on how blogs are used by job and opportunity seekers.
One example of success, among others, reported by Gooderham:
As a high-tech marketing executive, Darryl Praill learned the value of blogs for establishing a Web presence and branding companies and their products.
So, when he lost his job last year, he turned the value of blog branding on himself.
The online journal he began as part of his job hunt offered his candid views on marketing, leaving no doubt about his expertise in his field. Syndicated to subscribers, high in the search-engine rankings and sent by direct mail to potential employers, it acted as an online résumé that showed he was up on the current techniques and technologies – and not afraid to use them……And it worked. Mr. Praill, 39, of Ottawa, is now vice-president of sales and marketing for Organization Metrics Inc., a Toronto-based software company, largely as a result of his blog.
“I had to market myself,” Praill told Gooderham, “I needed to create my own brand, my own thought leadership … to establish my credibility with prospective clients and employers.”
On the flip side, employers look to bloggers to find the cream of the crop:
Recruiter Jim Stroud, a self-styled ‘searchologist’ for Microsoft Corp., who is based in Atlanta, sifts through mountains of information on the Internet looking for people to place in jobs. Mr. Stroud says that a blog provides an ‘infinite amount of leads,’ singling out not only the blogger, but also highlighting those who leave comments related to the postings and linking to additional blogs that might yield recruits……’Blogs are about authenticity,’ he says, adding that most employers are especially keen to recruit people currently in jobs, on the theory that they are more qualified than those out of work.
Blogs are all about networking. Networking a fun, easy, and non time-consuming way. Heck, for introverts and for others who hate building a network through hand shaking, blogs are a perfect fit.
As Harvey Mackay says, you dig your well before you’re thirsty. Legal professionals should be always be digging whether for new business, for a move to a new firm, or for starting their own law firm.
A portable book of business or, at a minimum, a strong reputation as a trusted and reliable authority in your niche is one the keys to happiness in the practice of law.