Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Communication Skills Employment Trends Internships on July 26, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Check out this post on Chris Russell’s “Secrets of the Job Hunt” blog, about how he asked internship applicants to write a blog instead of submitting a resume.
Chris writes:
So I needed an intern for the summer to help with some small projects for my blogs and other sites.
Did I post the ad on a job board? No.
Did I place an ad in the paper? No.
Did I tap my network for referrals? No.
I did what any self respecting blogger would do. I posted it on my blog … I asked they create their own blog and answer 3 simple questions on it. Who they are, what motivates them and why I should hire them?
Makes sense to me. If you want to work for a blogger, show that you can blog.
Starting a blog also good advice for aspiring writers — especially those wanting online writing jobs. If you want to show potential employers that you can write (and you don’t have any published clips), start a blog or guest blog for someone else’s site.
If you’d like to submit a guest blog article to my site, let me know!
This is a great blog,this website provides very useful tips.we are going to add this story to our blog via our IT guy at http://www.universityloveconnection.com/collegeinternships/?username=collegeinternships,as we have a audience in las vegas that will read your article. Thanks Jeff blog internships .
Hi Andy – When I interviewed recruiters for my book, 100% of them said that Facebook is used in some way. Sometimes it’s formal (companies like Ernst & Young use Facebook for recruiting) or informal (HR people have their own Facebook profiles and can’t help being curious about candidates). Either way, job applicants need to be really, really, REALLY careful about what they post online. Remember that it’s the WORLD WIDE WEB, so even if you think your profile is private, you never know who might come across it. Hope that helps!
I like using blogging as a recruitment tool because it is transparent. It communicates much more than a simple resume.
But what are your thoughts on companies using social networking sites as part of the job search? I am giving a presentation to our HR department next week about ways to leverage Facebook/MySpace/YouTube.
I know of students losing internships/job offers simply because of their Facebook profile.
Any thoughts?