As a job seeker, the age of not improving and gaining skills to make you stand out is over. Today, blogging has become the single most powerful platform on the internet for the individuals, the professional, and the thought-leader.
I remember the early 2000s, there were no blogs. As a teenager, I just started hearing about emails. I could count how many people I knew then who even had emails. But even at then, the principles that make blogging so relevant still applies today.
I remembered a graduation keynote I saw online that pretty much told the tale. The university was Brown university and when I researched Brown University, I discovered its open curriculum. This meant for four years, you didn’t have to take science or math classes.
Brown’s university’s approach was that as long as you fulfilled your concentration requirements, you could take any course you wanted. This approach was based on the assumption that every student would choose the classes they truly were interested in and therefore will work harder to succeed.
As you can imagine, this approach/method is still quite controversial in academic circles. Imagine after graduating from Brown, sitting in your graduation gown, wondering if the university failed you by not forcing you to take math classes. Well, I read a quote somewhere…
“There are only two skills you need to have to be successful in life,”. “The ability to think critically. And the ability and willingness to communicate your thoughts through effective writing.”
As I grew older as a job seeker, I now believe that these skills are all anyone needs to win and be successful in this life. Furthermore, after having interviews with a lot of hiring managers, I believe that these two skills are what companies look for above and beyond anything else.
Owning a blog demonstrates your ability to think and your ability to write, and these abilities are important to your future boss. And if you’re competing with other job candidates, your blog can position you into the office chair of your choosing.
Starting a blog these days is easier than it ever was.
For setting up a WordPress blog, I think Laura Roeder’s training Zero to Blogging is the best out there.
If you want something simpler, there is Tumblr. The platform that takes less than 5 minutes to set up.
In Seth Godin’s Linchpin, he talks about being indispensable to an organization. It’s so easy these days for companies to off-shore or automates jobs. If you aren’t investing real emotional energy and expressing your full self in the job, your position could be removed. But when someone is a thought leader, puts their heart into the results of the job, and otherwise shows that they are irreplaceable, that person wins in the end.
Your blog makes you irreplaceable. It shows you have something to say and the confidence to say it.
I don’t care if only your mother reads it for the first few months. Your blog is going to become your biggest career asset. Trust me!