Blogging for career

As per definition on Wikipedia - A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.  

Recently blogging has suddenly started making news in India after celebrities like Amitabh Bacchan (http://bigb.bigadda.com/), Lalu Prasad Yadav (http://www.mypopkorn.com/blogs/celebrityhome.html?blog=MTAxNzE=) and Aamir Khan (http://www.aamirkhan.com/) to name a few started their blogs. More and more people are taking to blogging and reading blogs written by others. 

However people rarely realize that blogging can be a great help for job seekers if used wisely and responsibly. Here is how: 

1. Looks good on resume

As an employer I am always impressed if a candidates mentions his blog URL on his/her resume. I always check out his blog if there is one because a blog can tell you much more than a standard resume will. It can give employer insights into candidate’s personality, his interests, passions and other such things. If a candidate does a good job of maintaining a nicely written blog, he surely has got a few things working in his favor.  

2. Validates your experience/qualification

Since blogs contain date-wise entries of various posts, it sort of validates candidates claim regarding work experience and qualification. To give you an example if you have posted a blog entry some 6 months back and if its about some feature in the Visual Studio, it indicates that you have been playing with Visual Studio since atleast last 6 months. Any extra reference or validation helps, isn’t it? 

3. Blogs lead to networking and community building

You never know who will be reading your blog, he can be a potential employer, a potential business partner or a client and if he likes what you have to say on your blog, chances are he will get in touch with you and even if it does not immediately lead into a job offer or a business for you, it has got potential to eventually materialize into something concrete. 
 

 

4. Blogs are Search-Engine friendly

Search engines simply love blogs, they are indexed faster which lead to blogs appearing in search results often. This again has potential to connect you to an employer or a client. You may have written a blog entry about how you solved a tricky programming problem and chances are that somebody interested in a solution for a similar problem may find your blog and contact you to help him out for a fee or may consider you for a job as the case may be.  

How to start blogging? 

There are many websites where you can register for free and start writing your blog within a few minutes. Some prominent websites are – www.wordpress.com, www.blogger.com and www.typepad.com. I personally use blogger as it’s a google owned service, you can check out my blog at http://palewar.blogspot.com.  

Blogging @ Nagpur 

I keep searching on web for blogs written by Nagpur residents specially students. Haven’t come across many students who blog but was glad to find out about Parag Kalra who blogs at - http://paragkalra.blogspot.com/ and Abhinav Sonkar who blogs at - http://www.abhinavsonkar.com/. I will certainly like to see more and more students and job seekers to take up blogging, sensible and responsible blogging if I may add and what does that mean? May be I
will follow up with another article after this is published in Hitavada J 
 

By – Sachin Palewar 

Author is founder of Palewar Techno (www.palewar.com) and can be reached at sachin@palewar.com

Published in Hitavada's Future on 29 July 2008