The Blog Is the New Resume

Tuesday, July 10th, 2007 at 9:10 AM | Category: Blogging, Business, Marketing, Meryl's Notes Blog, Writing 5 comments

Adam Darowski says that his blog helped him land his current job and Joshua Porter of Bokardo simulated a great discussion about blogs as a resume. From the beginning (June 1, 2000), I’ve posted my blog knowing that a future boss or client could read it. This blog was originally a personal blog since I didn’t have my own business yet — just a couple of writing assignments.

Of course, when I look back at those old posts — I wince. But I won’t delete them or change them. They’ve been on the Internet for too long. The only time I ever change a post is when I catch a typo or grammar error. Occasionally, I find broken links — but I don’t delete all of them because it would make the post confusing if I do.

What about kids who start blogging or MySpace-types of pages? Is it fair to use their page against them? Can’t kids be kids? Here’s a story of someone who didn’t get a degree due to a MySpace profile. My daughter uses MySpace and keeps it clean — thankfully. It has typical kid comments and photos (nothing suggestive). I’ve talked to her about how her personal pages reflect on her. What else can I do? She’s only in middle school and shouldn’t have to worry about college just yet.

Someone I know is anxious to find another job, but he doesn’t have a blog and isn’t interested in starting one. Should everyone have a blog? I don’t think so. The Web can still become the new resume as many of us have profiles on social networking sites like LinkedIn, Ryze, and MySpace.

Anyone in the Dallas area looking for an IT manager or project manager that has people skills — please contact me. I’ve got the person for you. Why is he anxious? Simply because the company promised he’d gain more responsibilities. Instead it moved his responsibilities to the mother ship, so he’s stuck doing tasks more for an entry-level tech. Furthermore, the manager won’t hired the much needed two staffers leaving him to do the job of three people. The data center desperately needs newer and additional hardware, but the company won’t spend the money leaving him to do a lot of reactive work instead of proactive.

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5 comments

  • Posted by Adam Darowski on July 10th, 2007, 10:18 AM

    I agree whole-heartedly that the blog is the resume. :)

    I like your explanations of why you don’t delete content. The only edits I have made to past posts is to add new categories I’ve created or add “Update” to the bottom with a link to a newer post on the topic. To start filtering OURSELVES really defeats the purpose. This is you. This is what you’re all about. This is not the pristine, bumpy-papered version of yourself.

    I love it. Good post.

  • Posted by Meryl on July 10th, 2007, 10:27 AM

    Thanks, Adam. You bring up another point — what if the hiring company sees typos or grammar errors? They need to be forgiving of such errors, I would hope. Blogging isn’t supposed to be a term paper that’s perfect. I would think that they can get a feel for your writing skills by reading a few posts.

    Blogging doesn’t give us the luxury to post, sit on it until our eyes are fresh for editing and edit the post before publishing. When I write a post, I write it, review it quickly and publish. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have much time for anything else. It’s a great challenge to perfectionists like me — but I learned to let go.

    Thanks for the reminder on the “Update” and categories. I do that, too. I’m STILL adding categories to older posts. It’s a big job.

  • Posted by Adam Darowski on July 10th, 2007, 2:19 PM

    Yes… I recently went back and re-categorized all my posts. Luckily, I’ve only been doing this for a year so there were only 150 posts or so (crap, do I really blog that much?).

    I mostly did it because I’ve kind of evolved from my original blog topic to include much more. For example, going back to my “Job Hunting” category will be fun to do some day. :)

  • Posted by whitney on August 28th, 2007, 12:26 AM

    I’m brand new to the public blogging scene. What kind of blog would an employer want to look at? May I view a sample entry of your blog?

  • Posted by Meryl on August 28th, 2007, 7:13 AM

    Whitney, it depends on your area of expertise. The key is to be professional and avoid posting anything that would be embarrassing.

    This is my blog (where you posted). Everything at http://meryl.net/blog/ is part of the blog.

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