Your blog is your CV

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We call it a CV in the UK but it’s a good start to Robert Scoble’s 18+ tips in If you are laid off, here’s how to socially network.

1. Your blog is your resume. You need one and it needs to have 100 posts on it about what you want to be known for.

It’s good advice to anyone looking for a job, not only casualties of the looming (or actual, depending on how you see things) recession as the results produced when someone Googles your name is more likely than not to have an influence on what happens next in your job search.

And I don’t necessarily mean only some of the negative stuff that might come up, as Scoble focuses on in his post: all those LOLCats, for instance, or those embarrassing events so nicely recorded for posterity on Facebook (and here’s some great tips on avoiding such embarrassment).

It’s also to do with things you’ve done and achieved and helping ensure you’re actually discovered when someone does a Google search on your name.

But what if you haven’t started a blog? Suddenly signing up on WordPress.com for a free blog account isn’t going to help you much as you’ll have no history.

Actually, you do have history, just not on a blog of your own.

If you’ve left comments on blogs, started chatting on Twitter, posted content to Tumblr or photos to a sharing site like Flickr, or participated anywhere openly online (so forums and Facebook generally don’t count), you’ll very likely be discoverable, ie, show up in a Google search.

What do you want people to find out about you? Time to think about that. And if there’s anything you’ve posted about yourself that you’d rather clean up, let’s say, read Scoble’s post as it has some good advice on what to do to sort that out.

Hmm, let’s change the title of this post. This works better: Google is your CV.

Neville Hobson

Social Strategist, Communicator, Writer, and Podcaster with a curiosity for tech and how people use it. Believer in an Internet for everyone. Early adopter (and leaver) and experimenter with social media. Occasional test pilot of shiny new objects. Avid tea drinker.

  6. Dave Briggs

    I’ve built my career on my blog. I’d recommend that anyone who is serious about moving their career forward should start ASAP!

    Since going freelance in September last year, I have been permanently busy – yet I haven’t had to apply for a single contract or project. Instead people phone me up, saying ‘Dave, I’ve been reading your blog for a while and wondered if you could help us…’

    It’s the best PR you could ask for – and all it costs is a little time.

  8. Matthew Gain

    Great post Neville – really good advice to anybody. Fortunately for me there aren’t too many other Matthew Gains out there, so even though I am not a prolific blogger I come up – I pity the Craig Smiths and how difficult it must be for them to stand out in the old Google search test.

  10. Jaz Cummins

    Great post, I totally agree with you and Dave and Matthew. I’m lucky enough to have an unusual name, but my blog (and twitter) have changed my career.

    I’m always ranting on that personal/professional blogs are less about having thousands of readers and more about there being something of substance there when people do come to find you. And that they can find you! This is obviously most important in terms of potential employers – I know my new employers were impressed by my online presence.

    Like you say it can even just be a place to draw in content you’re proud of from elsewhere.

    Makes me think I probably need to post more about PR/SEO and less about grafitti and pop videos though!

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