What You Blog Today Could Influence Your Job Search Tomorrow
SAHMs blog for many reasons: as a way to connect with other SAHMs; to have a creative outlet; and sometimes just to vent about the trials and tribulations of being home with little ones.
Many of us also entertain the notion of eventually returning to the work force.
Did you ever think that the all of that connecting, creating, and venting you do in your blog could potentially impact your future employment? Yep (gasp), it’s true.
More and more, employers are searching the internet to find whether a job candidate has a blog, and more importantly, what they’ve said in it. A study by the Society For Human Resource Management (January 2005) said 3 percent of the human resource professionals they polled will read a candidate’s blog prior to deciding whether to extend an offer to hire. The study is referenced in this article.
I know. Your mind is probably, right now, frantically sifting through every past blog entry, wondering whether you’ve ever written something incriminating. Mine sure did. But it might not be all bad.
In the journal New Scientist, Annalee Newitz wrote an article entitled “The Boss is Watching Your Every Click…Want Your Online Activity and Blogs Watched 24/7 by People Armed with Spying Software? Get a Job.” In it, Karen Wickre, the corporate blog editor at Google, is quoted saying she likes hiring bloggers since it’s “nice to know that they can put a couple of sentences together” and “We’re always looking for good people with talent. I’m not willing to make a blanket statement that blogs don’t matter.”
So theoretically, the content of your blog could be to your advantage once you decide to re-enter the job market. Not only a fun activity, blogging may just help you land the job of your dreams.
But, just in case, I think I’ll be clicking that spell check just a bit more often.
Many of us also entertain the notion of eventually returning to the work force.
Did you ever think that the all of that connecting, creating, and venting you do in your blog could potentially impact your future employment? Yep (gasp), it’s true.
More and more, employers are searching the internet to find whether a job candidate has a blog, and more importantly, what they’ve said in it. A study by the Society For Human Resource Management (January 2005) said 3 percent of the human resource professionals they polled will read a candidate’s blog prior to deciding whether to extend an offer to hire. The study is referenced in this article.
I know. Your mind is probably, right now, frantically sifting through every past blog entry, wondering whether you’ve ever written something incriminating. Mine sure did. But it might not be all bad.
In the journal New Scientist, Annalee Newitz wrote an article entitled “The Boss is Watching Your Every Click…Want Your Online Activity and Blogs Watched 24/7 by People Armed with Spying Software? Get a Job.” In it, Karen Wickre, the corporate blog editor at Google, is quoted saying she likes hiring bloggers since it’s “nice to know that they can put a couple of sentences together” and “We’re always looking for good people with talent. I’m not willing to make a blanket statement that blogs don’t matter.”
So theoretically, the content of your blog could be to your advantage once you decide to re-enter the job market. Not only a fun activity, blogging may just help you land the job of your dreams.
But, just in case, I think I’ll be clicking that spell check just a bit more often.
posted by Beth @ 10:03 PM
2 Comments:
At 5:07 AM,
Jeanna said…
Yes I have thought about it, especially after the story on one of the news shows about Facebook. Only three percent check? If you're trying to get a job writing a blog, you can count on it. I never thought about using the Blogger spellcheck, maybe I shud.
At 7:30 PM,
Beth said…
Three percent was the finding from that 2005 study. But, it was looking at hiring practices in 2004 and then reported in 2005. I would bet it's become an even more common practice by now (but I wouldn't want to guess at the percent increase).
If I'm writing a long post I'll often start it in Word and copy it over to Blogger. That way I can use Word's spellcheck. :)
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