The last few posts concentrated on the challenge of new to old media. This quote comes from John Robinson, the editor of a regional paper in North Carolina, the Greensboro News-Record, about his hiring policy (spotted on Reportr.net).
"I ask job applicants if they have a blog. Most of them don’t. Then I ask them if they read my blog. About half of them haven’t.
“The two questions tell me a lot about the candidates.
"First, if they have a blog, it gives me an indication of their passion for writing and communicating. It also allows me to see how their unedited writing reads. I rarely pay attention to submitted clips; I know how good editing can make a mediocre writer appear positively Halberstamian.
"Finally, in answering the question, they usually let on what they think of blogging and digital. Believe it, some trash blogs.
"Second, if they haven’t read my blog, it tells me they haven’t done their homework. That makes the candidate a non-starter.
"Actually, it helps winnow down the candidates pretty quickly."
Online journalism lecturer Mindy McAdams picks up the theme:"There are 112.8 million blogs listed at Technorati, so what excuse can a young journalist give for NOT having a professional blog? “I don’t have time for that”? What, you don’t have time to write 100 words or so a few times a week?
"You don’t have the imagination? You don’t know how to manage your time? Don’t know how to make a link, upload an image, write a headline for SEO? I surely do not want to hire you!"
A sensible filter in theory....though I can't help thinking that if we applied this test in marketing communications agencies (do you blog? do you read our blog?) where we're meant to be up on new media, we'd have very few successful applicants coming through our door.
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7 comments:
great post - I only started my blogging and tweeting in around June this year and the thing I love the most about it is the people who I have met along the way. I like the ideas in your post about it being a "calling card" - showing how you put your ideas together, your writing style, and I guess that you are interested in stuff. What I am LOVING about this whole thing are the ideas I see that I get to "steal with pride", swapping wild notions and getting to see the very nice things and the very smart things people are doing - much more quickly and more "personally" in the way I would have before...
Your test for marketing agencies is very interesting...I had an starnge chat with a guy who develops on-line community sites for companies and I asked if he was on twitter and he replied "Nah, I'm not really into that whole web 2.0 thing"...my opinion of his product and his capabilities fell through the floor. All could think was I'm a bloody market researcher and I have a blog, like to share ideas via twitter, read other folks blogs regularly, and he's telling me that he's not quite into the very thing he makes his LIVING ON! It was a very weird meeting...
Thanks for the nod. These days, I would add to that post:
http://blog.news-record.com/staff/jrblog/2008/09/over_the_past_f.shtml
Absolutely Kelly, completely agree and thank you for the kind words.
Personally I use this site as kind of a mental sketch book, where I write down stuff I can use at a later date for my job...but the truth is that most of it is informed by what I read via the various feeds I subscribe to.
Thanks John, that link didn't come through properly so here it is again for anyone wanting to read his follow-up.
http://tinyurl.com/6y9leb
I agree that obviously it has to be more about maintaining a blog, and about an overall digital persona...I still think most applicants would fail that particular test though
advergirl sent her readers on a few rides today, and two of them landed me here. (hooked instantly)
great read. thanks for collecting these thoughts.
it used to be a university axiom, now it's pervasive: Publish or perish.
What do you think about placing a blog on a resume?
I don't want to be dismissed so early on in the game if my subjective opinions do not match up with the employer? Although I would hope that most people would appreciate diverse points of view.
www.yaybia.com
Thanks for the comment J9, I guess the answer is what kind of blog and what kind of job.
A job in the media or marketing, absolutely. I'd be even more impressed if in addition to writing some interesting posts, you'd made an effort to link / market the thing.
In terms of content, yes you'd hope that the kind of employer you'd ideally want to work for would appreciate the fact that you have opinions.
Obviously - and I am not telling you anything you don't already know - anything overtly personal should be kept as such, through a closed twitter feed, facebook page with search features turned off etc
BTW, great blog! Have added it to my links
I work for a technology company, a web tech company actually. Four months ago I went to the CTO and said, "we need a tech team blog, all the cool kids are doing it." He agreed and immediately approved it. We decided that the product manager would manage it. She didn't have a feed reader, know why you'd want one, had never read a blog or even knew what a blog was. Her first post started out, "Dear [product] user".
I fully expect any company that I'll work for/with with have some sort of corporate blogging in place. Embrace social media. It, like the Internet, are not a passing fad.
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