Career

How Blogging Helps Your Career #1 – Presence

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I blog.  You kind of noticed that because you’re reading one.  Or you could go to NerdCaliber, or to my own site.  I’ve been doing it for years now, and it’s definitely helped my career.

Which of course is where I’m taking this all kind of meta and blogging about how blogging helped my career.  Which of course may also help my career.  We’re in deep, Inception-meme territory here, people.

So, when you ask is blogging for you and is it going to help your professional geek career, I wanted to share what it’s done for me – which is quite a bit.

First, blogging is a presence, a beacon that says “here I am, this is me.”

It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle in your career, because there’s so many people doing what you do.  it’s easy to be forgotten by recruiters because there’s a huge pile of resumes in front of them and their eyes are glazing over.  It’s easy to be looked over by a client or a boss or anyone else because you’re just not that distinct.

A good career, be it one inside a company, or your own business where you need to attract customers, is one founded on being visible.  People need to know you, people need to know who you are, people need to remember you.  Visibility and being memorable are just as important as anything else in your career, and in some ways (perhaps sadly) more important since no matter how great you are, it doesn’t help if people forget you two minutes after finding out about you.

A blog is one way to solve that.

Think of how memorable you are if you blog.  You may have a website you blog and at people will remember it for the URL, and the content, and perhaps the cute pictures of your Corgi dressed as Tyrion from Game of Thrones*.  You have, in short, become memorable by the act of establishing something, something people can recall and find again.

Even if you’re not up for your own blog, you can blog elsewhere to establish a presence, credibility, and to post those Corgi pictures**.   This helps you have most of the advantages of a blog, while sharing in camaraderie and/or helping out someone with their site.  You’re still there, visible, with a given location for people to visit.

There, visible, is a giant shout out “I am here, here are memorable things!”  Hopefully they’re good memorable things, but you are at least memorable and established.

For me, blogging has definitely had a benefit of making me more memorable.  People read my blog entries at various sites.  People remember me.  Recruiters comment on my recipe posts.  I am remembered.

So try blogging and announce yourself to the world.  Sure you may not be big or famous (who really will be), but you’ll shine a lot brighter than those who don’t.

Takeaways and To Dos:

  • If you’re not sure about blogging, give it a try at some other sites.
  • Your main personal site doesn’t have to be a blog, but be sure it links visible to places you do blog.
  • Decide when and how to share information on your blogging – it may not always appeal or help with your target audience.
  • Blogging has to be regular and relevant for people to pay attention.  I strongly recommend doing something you truly believe in.
  • It doesn’t have to be professional for you to be remembered, but again keep your overall self-image in mind.
  • If you want it to be a good establishment of your presence, a bright shining beacon, it has to be traceable back to you.  If you want to keep your blogging anonymous, then it won’t help.

Let me close with this: It’s a Corgi named Tyrion.  So close.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

 

* If you do this, PLEASE send me pictures.
** If someone had a website dedicated to fantasy costumes for Corgis, you’d go there, you know it.

Be Ready For An Irregular Job Search

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For those of you who hadn’t followed along, you all know I lost my job last month, which also led to me delaying my job search book, written during my last job search.  Once I swam to the shore of the irony sea, I got back onto it, did a job search, and got a new job.

I also had a valuable, painful lesson to share; the search for a job is not a regular thing, but we can miss just how many factors can influence when a job posts, when hiring is done, when interviews occur.  As I’d lost a job at early in a quarter, before a bunch of holidays, at the end of the year it was rather insightful.  As I talked to more people, I got a better picture of all the factors that make the job search and hiring so irregular.

There’s a lot more than I’d thought of.  Here’s my list of what to look out for that will make your job search chaotic, irregular, and a bit confusing.

Holidays: Sure, yes, we know this.  But remember that how holidays are handled varies by industry and by region.

Other Holidays: Diwali is a far bigger holiday out here than, say, in Chicago.  It affected many companies (and indeed, some people I knew directly).  You can miss holidays that aren’t part of your culture or how they affect.

Holiday-Related Efforts: Black Friday.  Duh.

Weather: Storms, snow, floods, etc. can be disruptive.  Think about that in Winter (heck, out here in Silicon Valley we get backfires set to avoid wildfires).

Cycles: Every city, megaregion, state, and country has its own cycles.  When I lived out east hiring was dead for Q4, but I found a job in Q4 in a few weeks in Silicon Valley.

Local Trends: This is one I became painfully aware of; titles are changing in my profession of Project Management.  This has been a relatively recent local trend, and it made my job search a little weirder (for instance, what’s the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Owner?).  Local trends that may not be reflected in the big picture can still affect your job search’s results.  This may be a one-time thing, but still . . .

Region Leaping: Sure a holiday, weather, or other factor may not affect where you live – but how many other offices around the country or world play a role in your hiring?  One holiday, one storm, one power outage can affect your hiring unexpectedly.

News Cycles: Publicity, news cycles, trade shows, really do reflect what people do in hiring.  Being aware of these trends – or one-time occurrences – can be very helpful.  I’m pretty sure one set of leads I had evaporated in the news cycle.

The job search is not regular, postings are not regular, results are not regular.  Keep those cycles in mind will make it a bit easier on you.

So, what cycles, trends, and other disruptors have you found?

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Opportunity At Perfect World Entertainment!

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(Steve here.  Beyond trying to bring attention to great projects, I’m trying to bring attention to great jobs.  The folks at Perfect World Entertainment need a Product Manager Platform position filled, so I’m helping out!)

PWE is building a new platform and we are hiring the team to build and manage the platform.

So we have a “Senior Product Manager Platform” position

The person will lead platform implementation efforts for the platform division and manage partnerships that offer strategic value to the group.   Shape and support strategies for ongoing growth of Platform content and drive the publisher and platform roadmap to ensure success.   Provide product management leadership throughout the products lifecycle (market/product requirement documents, pricing, forecasts, roadmaps, messaging, go-to-market plans, etc.).   Prepare and present strategic, competitive, and market analysis for the product.

Great role, great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new initiative.

Go here for more information!