Ever thought about starting a blog? Keep reading! Today’s post is written by Mona Abdel-Halim, the co-founder of Resunate.com, the world’s only search engine optimizing resume builder. She is offering all Classy Career Girl readers a special one month premium upgrade here at her site. She recently gave me a demo of the site and it is pretty amazing how it can help you identify what your resume is missing against a job description. If you hate updating your resume, this site is definitely for you!
If you think that there isn’t a place for personal blogging in the business world, you might want to do a little more research. In today’s society, blogging is a phenomenon that reaches across all industries. You might not think you have much to blog about, but you would be surprised what you can come up with when you know your options and just start writing.
Listed below are three reasons why you should set up a personal blog today:
- Express your personal brand and become more than just a faceless resume. Unlike the majority of networking profiles, personal blogs let you have control of your own content, format, and design. With this kind of freedom, you have the opportunity to showcase your personal brand. Setting up a blog also provides you with the opportunity to set yourself apart from your competition. For business students, you might have a creative side that you don’t get to show off very often. Your resume might be very informative, but you cannot use it to display any kind of personality. Setting up a personal blog allows you to show your viewers aspects of your personality that don’t get to shine in class or during meetings.
- Store all of your profile links in one place. Not only can you use your blog to showcase your personality, but it can also serve as a platform to store all of your online links. If you have a personal blog, employers can visit this one site to find anything they would ever need to know about you. Provide links to your LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, and resume so that employers don’t have to spend any extra time searching for you on the Internet.
- Keep up with the latest industry news and publish your thoughts. If you are concerned that you won’t have anything to write about on your personal blog, write about what you already know. You should be keeping up on your industry’s latest news, so use your blog to post links to any articles that you find particularly interesting. Post any ideas you might have or your daily musings and you will be sure to impress your viewers.
How have you used your personal blog to set yourself apart from the competition?
(photo by: owenwbrown)
About Anna Runyan
I recently stopped blogging to take some time to regroup and figure out how I want my blog to function. I’ve moved around a lot since my first blog, and I need to figure out how I want my next one to work. I want to be committed to it, and to do that I need to have a sound idea of how I want and need to run it. My biggest issue at the moment is with design. I like the ease of working with Blogger, but I hear they’re not ideal for basing a website on later, and I really just cannot stand most of WordPress’s layouts, but I can’t really afford to get a custom design right now. That is, however, what I wish to attain in the future.
Hi Lauren, That is great that you took some time off to figure out what direction you wanted to head. There is nothing worse than not being passionate about what you are writing. I have started a couple of hours but I am just not passionate about the material so they just didn’t work. But, you never know if you are passionate about it unless you start!
I started my blog on blogger and it was totally free. I used the boring, ugly template until I realized that I loved my little blog. Then I paid someone to design my blogger website (around $100). Then, I paid someone again to transfer it from blogger to wordpress because I knew that would be the best for the future possibilities. Hope that helps! Best of luck with your blog!
Having a blog is a great idea for any career but especially creative kinds! I sometimes worry that what I’m writing will toss my resume into the trash but then I remember that I wouldn’t want to work for a boss that did that!
Good point Kim! I wouldn’t want to work for that company either that would rule you out just for your blog. Keep blogging!
Great post! One of my goals in starting my blog was to show people who might google me that I’m different from a lot of candidates in my industry. I wanted to find another way to demonstrate that I’m more than just a number-crunching, button-up-shirt-wearing engineer. Not only do I feel that I’m succeeding in doing this, but it gives me a fantastic creative outlet that I don’t really have at work.
Hi Erica, love your reasoning for blogging! I can imagine for an engineering that would be really smart! I don’t have much of a creative outlook at work so I totally know how you feel about having a creative outlet at night after work. Best of luck to you and your blog!!
I started a blog to enhance my online presence. As a Team Leader and Representative with Avon, I wanted a place through which I could communicate with my team, prospects and my customers. Share latest products, report on industry highlights and anything else that takes my fancy.
I love the sense of community that is unique to the blogosphere and I have made some wonderful friends. I wish someone had warned me how addictive blogging could become!
Hi Natalie! I know, blogging is really addictive! I love it and I could never stop now:) Thanks for commenting! Good luck with Avon!
So I know I need to start a blog for myself. My only problem (though I’m sure I’m not the only one) is that I don’t know what to write about! I suppose it’s for the same reason my facebook posts and tweets are few: “I don’t have anything to say that people will care about.” Aside from industry news, I just don’t know what to blog about.
I’m currently in the public relations field, so I know I’m pretty skilled at talking about other people and making them sound interesting! But when it comes to myself, I can’t seem to find anything I’d like to base a blog on, or even base a single post on. Any ideas or places I should start looking?
Hi Tanya, when I first started I got out an excel spreadsheet and just brainstormed all of the things that I was knowledgeable about and the advice I wanted to share with other people. It could be about your experiences or things you wish you would have known previously. The very first post is a good one to get your feet wet as well. The about me post will really help you figure out why you want to write and what you are passionate about. I would continue reading articles and you could even write posts about the things that you liked in the articles. When I started, I wrote a lot about what I was learning in business school. Hope this helped!