Blogging for Candidates 101: Nuts and Bolts

A "blog" is simply an internet (web) log. Blogs are created for personal or professional use. They may promote a product or service, or merely serve as a personal online journal. There are currently just over four million blogs today, with a new blog born every seven seconds.

The problem of cocooning candidates

Today, we work and live in an era of heightened cynicism and secrecy. Isn't it much harder than it used to be to call into a company and attempt to speak with a candidate by telephone? Central voice mail systems have grown more sophisticated and guarded. And even when recruiters are able to finally speak with an actual live person, it's often a reluctant administrative assistant or receptionist. Finally, if you are fortunate enough to be transferred to your candidate, more often than not you are greeted with that person's individual voice mail recording. It has become de facto practice by many professionals today to simply leave their "do not disturb" function turned on for most of the work day. Later, they will screen and return external calls at their discretion.

To address these changes, in recent years legitimate e-mail and web site marketing was considered a non-threatening (and somewhat successful) way to reach these "cocooning candidates." These are in fact still viable tools, but there costly learning curves associated with them. Some recruiters have gone back to launching traditional direct mail campaigns. However, this can be an expensive and time consuming proposition to undertake with regularity. Success may be mixed until you find just the right combination of style and timing.

Moreover, most outreach marketing attempts essentially are competing for a candidate's attention today. Consider this:

? Only 29% of eligible job seekers visit the "Big Three" (Monster.com, Hotjobs.com, CareerBuilder.com)
? The average consumer is exposed to about 3,000 marketing messages per day.)
? 85% of people conducting research are using the internet.)

What can blogging do for you?

Recruiters (or researchers) who seek candidates for open positions, or to profile candidate requirements for the purpose of building a network pipeline, there are two ways we can use blogs:

(1) The first way is to start your own blog and attract top talent to your blog site. This is not an overnight marketing cure-all, and it will require some patience. But cultivating a readership of professionals in your niche field is a highly effective means of reaching candidates who would have never otherwise learned about your career openings. The key to making this work is to learn to attract a specialized readership to your blog, just like a beacon in the night. You don't need millions of readers?Just hundreds of the right readers.

(2) The second approach is to search other existing blogs and develop contacts and relationships. This is a perfectly legitimate means of networking, as any internet page is essentially public domain information. Based on posting activity and interactions you initiate, you can easily develop in-roads and find more candidates in less time. Let's talk about both approaches.

You want to start your own blog. Now what?

How much time do I need to spend on my blog? What do I write about? By their very nature of being near real-time, dynamic logs about life, blogs are frequently published mediums. I publish my blog at least three times per week (sometimes more often if I have more to say). If you are going to take the time to create an effective blog, and develop a regular reading audience, I suggest blogging at least twice every week.

How do I decide what to blog about?

Who is your audience? What message are you trying to convey? Are you recruiting for new business clients? Looking for joint venture relationships? In need of candidates who are in short supply in your market place? Are you selling products or services, or promoting your company brand?

The first step you should take is to decide on what your intended focus will be. If you write about what's wrong with our political system one week, then the following week write about outsourcing IT services to India, then in week three prattle on about how beautiful your home town is in the fall, your readership will not feel a sense of community or predictability about you. This completely defeats the purpose of building trust and credibility! You would be better off making cold calls if you continue on this path.

One of my blogs (The Hiring Insider, www.hiringinsider.com) shares tips and tools to help line managers, corporate recruiters, human resource professionals, etc. learn to make better hires faster (or so I hope). Week in and week out, I try to maintain a specific, consistent thread of helpful information that builds upon previous week's blog entries. However, a new reader should be able to jump in without any trouble at any time, so remember this as you plan your writing agenda. My other blog (http://jobsblog.blogspot.com) provides tips to job seekers in the life sciences field who are confused about who to trust in the pharmaceutical job market, and what practices to engage in and avoid in order to land the best possible job for their skill set. As you craft your blog entries, constantly think about who, what, why, where and how. Be sure to ask yourself where you are headed over time with your blog topics. Try to stay theme-related.

How do I choose a service to blog on?

There are many services available. For beginners, I recommend using blogger.com (Pyra labs). Google acquired blogger.com in February of 2004 (http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/000802.shtml) and is really enhancing its features. It's also FREE. Yep, you can register for an account in less than ten minutes and be up and blogging. Other great tools include Typepad (http://www.typepad.com/) and Movable Type (http://www.movabletype.org/).

Again, the most important ingredients are publishing good content, and establishing and maintaining a base audience.

However, you aren't done yet. Now that you've come this far, you need to promote your blog and get yourself out of the starting gate. Begin by submitting your blog to the blog search engines. There are several hundred of these, and they are growing by the day. It is somewhat arbitrary which ones you choose to register with. However, at a minimum, I recommend that you register your site with at least the following:

www.technorati.com
www.daypop.com
www.blogarama.com
www.blogtree.com
www.bloglines.com

What if I don't want my own blog?

If you decide instead that you want to search other blogs to source candidates, you can do any or all of these three steps: First, search for blogs based on what skill sets you are seeking (Oracle blogs, copywriting blogs, programmer blogs). Secondly, read the blog entries and see who is posting comments. Third, most bloggers have "blog-rolls" on either the left or ride side of the page. These cite other blogs that they like, and are usually related to the subject matter on their own blog. Resourceful recruiters will take advantage of these links and research them as well. You will also find blogs they may like or recommend which are unrelated.

While I generally post relevant blogs, I also try to have a little fun. After all, recruiting is challenging work?Why not take a break and see what Dave Barry is up to? http://weblog.herald.com/column/davebarry/

Visit our blog at http://www.hiringinsider.com

RELATED ARTICLES

Ten Questions For Entrepreneurs To Ask Themselves
Ten Questions For Entrepreneurs To Ask Themselves

Find Free Resumes Online
Have you been spending money on countless job boards, only to find that they don't offer the types of candidates you need? If the answer is yes, don't fret any longer, you're about to learn crafty techniques to help you find free resumes on the net. There are numerous free resources online that offer resumes. These include: Free Resume Databases; Free Member Resumes on Association websites; Free College and Alumni resumes on University websites; Free Resume Newsgroups; Free Resume Blaster sites and active and passive resumes hosted on individual candidate websites. All of these resources can be found by using simple search techniques.

Hair Dressing as a Career
Since the world started hair has been a very important aspect of individual personality and with the change in time hair has emerged as a big form of self expression for both men and women.

What is Workers Compensation Fraud
What is Fraud

When Your Job Goes Away: Seven Tips
Q. "What do I do after a job goes away?"

Making The Best Of Yourself At Interview
You are just about to leave university You are just setting out in the job market You have a number of hurdles to get over before you have the job you have been dreaming of. You find the thought of an interview daunting. You want to make a good impression and succeed!

Moving Without A Job: Should You Move to the Location of Your Dreams and THEN Look for a Job?
Moving without a job will challenge your identity -- but for some people, it's the best way to go.

Success at Work : People Skills : Networking
Getting along with your co-workers is critical to yourhappiness and success at work. You may find yourselfspending more time with your co-workers than with yourspouse and family. Each individual in an organization isjust a small cog in a big wheel. Without the assistance ofco-workers, you will find your assignments much moredifficult.

CV Writing ? How to Write a CV
A winning CV has 2 objectives: To illustrate your strengths and maximise your chances of getting through to interview and to put factual information, such as dates, places, names together in a presentable and readable form. Focal Point It is claimed that the human eyes are naturally drawn to a focal point one third down from the top of the page. Therefore, put your most useful information in this area. It might be your Profile, Key Skills, Professional Qualifications or details of your most recent employment. You can choose whichever you think is most important and relevant to your application. Always get a second opinion when you have put your CV together. It is difficult to be objective about oneself. Presentation It is often thought that a CV should be fitted on to one side of A4. This can be difficult if you are a mature applicant with a long employment history. If you need to go on to a second page make sure that the CV is spread out over 2 whole pages, not one and a half pages as this looks messy. As a 'rule of thumb' there should be more white than black on a page to make it easier to read. Always write a rough draft first. It can be as long as you like as you will edit it later. Always start with your Career History as this will highlight your Key Skills and help you write your Profile. Once you have compiled your draft copy you must edit it. 1. Take out anything that will not help you get where you want to be. 2. Write in the 'third' person as much as possible keeping 'I' to a minimum 3. Never use the past tense e.g. use "supporting senior management" rather than "supported senior management". 4. Use short sharp sentences cutting out any waffle and jargon. Headings Name Print your name in bold type at the centre top of your CV. If there is any doubt as to which is your surname, e.g. James Martin, indicate by using capitals or underlining. Address Top left of CV. Full address including post code. Telephone Top Right of CV. Full dialing code and daytime and evening numbers if possible. Date of birth Put in full such as 13th December 1962. Do not put your age. Bearing in mind that you will be close to the Focal Point now, this might need to go at the end of the CV under 'Personal' along with other details such as marital status and children. Marital status You do not have to include this at all. If you choose to, make sure you use only "married" or "single". Do not use divorced or co-habiting. Put at the end of the CV under 'Personal'. Children Its up to you whether you include this information or not but if you include it put it at the end of the CV under 'Personal' Profile This is an introductory statement about who you are and what you have to offer. You should complete this last although it is positioned prominently in the CV, possibly in the Focal Point. It should be no more than two sentences and include the most important facts about yourself. You can include skills, achievements, responsibility or personal qualities. e.g. Highly motivated Account Manager with successful direct and telesales experience in hardware and software industries. Key Skills Several Key skills should be highlighted after you have analysed and edited your employment history. Pick out no more than six. Make sure they are relevant. Do not include dates. A key skill can come from an earlier job or an outside interest. If you are short on direct experience and qualifications you may have skills arising from your personality, i.e. Interpersonal skills, e.g. "the ability to relate and communicate with others". Some examples of descriptive words to use in key skills are: Administering Implementing Budgeting Leading Reorganising Forecasting Advising Employment History Always start with your most recent employment. Break down your job functions as much as possible. The job description on your contract might provide a starting point or, consider how your employer might advertise your job. You should have more to say about your most recent, and therefore most relevant, employment. Include successes and achievements especially if it saved the company money. Don't have any employment gaps. If these occur explain them briefly. Qualifications If you are a mature applicant you can leave these out as career history is more important. Put the highest qualification first with year achieved. If you have a degree you can leave out the lower qualifications altogether or include the basic information. Do not include poor grades or failures. Professional qualifications Only include those that are still current. Training Only include training that is relevant to the position for which you are applying. Interests Only include interests that are unusual or which indicate transferable skills, achievements or responsibilities. Reasons For Applying This finishes the CV off with a concluding statement and puts the application into context. Don't imply you are out to gain advantage to yourself such as "I would like to join the company to gain additional experience". Instead, concentrate on what you have to offer, "my experience at??would be useful to the company because????." Finally Your CV should be available soft copy or on good quality plain white A4 paper. Do not use double sides. Only fold once and enclose an SAE Copyright 2005 CVwriting.net

Successful Job Search: 10 Steps To Quickly Acquire Your Dream Job And Put More Money In Your Pocket
Do you want to continue your costly, time-consuming and exhausting struggle in a frustrating job search using weak, ineffective tools that are getting you nowhere? The job market today is fiercely competitive with few high-paying or desirable jobs available. With repeated downsizings, companies have learned to survive with less.

Job Interviews: How to Answer the How Do You Handle Stressful Situations? Question
When answering the "How do you handle stressful situations?" question during an interview, the best strategy is to give some examples of stressful situations you've dealt successfully with in the past.

Working Abroad - Employment Advice In Spain
Jobs and employment on the Costa Blanca

Job or Career
At this present time I have a job. It pays some of my bills, and again I have a job. I don't think of my job as a career because I don't have a passion for it. I dread going to work at times, so I know this isn't a career for me. I'm working at a clinic at the present time, and it's a stressful job, and not really my cup of tea.

How to Be Prepared for a Layoff
If you are concerned that your company might be planning a layoff, your best course of action is to be prepared. Employees often see warning signs that their jobs may be at risk. Such signs could include poor company performance, earlier rounds of layoffs, conflicts with their manager, increased manager intervention and involvement, and poor performance reviews. Employees see the signs, but aren't as proactive as they should be in looking out for their future. Here are steps you can take to be prepared for a layoff.

Are You Winning the Talent Wars?
How many times have you heard or read, "Our employees are our greatest asset"?

Blogging for Candidates 101: Nuts and Bolts
A "blog" is simply an internet (web) log. Blogs are created for personal or professional use. They may promote a product or service, or merely serve as a personal online journal. There are currently just over four million blogs today, with a new blog born every seven seconds.

Dont Quit Your Day Job! Convincing Your Boss To Let You Telecommute (Part 2 of 2)
Ok, so you've determined that you have the right skills and qualities to do your job effectively from home. You're sure that your job is well suited to telecommuting. Now you just need your boss to agree that this is a great idea, but how?

Seven Myths You Must Challenge Now To Begin Your Second Career Today
* Has it been awhile since you explored career options?

It is Still Possible to be Upwardly Mobile in America!
Yes, it's still possible to be upwardly mobile in America: it's called a career in sales.

How to Give Job-Winning Answers at Interviews
Human Resources personnel, professional recruiters and various other career experts all agree: one of the best ways to prepare yourself for a job interview is to anticipate questions, develop your answers, and practice, practice, practice.