Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Scheduling Your Posts

I see a lot of people that will blog for their career about something that's happened and worry about publishing everything all at once. You don't have to get your thoughts out there all at once, unless you're a journalist of some sort. Even then, it pays to built a following.

Why?

A couple of reasons. The first is that a steady set of blogging, or volunteering shows a bit of commitment and follow-through. It's more impressive to say that you've blogged every week for 6 months than to say you've written 30 posts.

It also keeps you in people's minds if they see you posting something regularly on your site or your entries appear in their blog reader. I know when I a post appear in my reader from someone that hasn't posted in a long time, I wonder what they've been doing.

The last reason, and this might be the biggest one, is that if you schedule things out, especially related items, it gives you a chance to respond to comments and revise them.

Don't get caught up in the idea that all your blogs need to publish right away. Schedule them out over time, at a pace that fits your life.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Networking

When looking to improve upon a simple resume, one of the best things that you can do is build a better network. It sounds cliche, and it is something that's out of many people's comfort zone, but networks really matter.

It's not what you know, but who you know.

I've heard that for most of my life, and it's proven true many times. Many of us get jobs, without knowing someone at the hiring company, but that's often because no one at the company has a candidate in mind already. If they did, you wouldn't get the job.

So why take the chance? Networking isn't that hard, and it should be something real that you build. Forget the image of the salesman that exchanges business cards with everyone or keeps a dossier on his contacts. Build a real network that you can use in your career.

It's possible, and it's not that hard. I'll detail some ideas in future posts on how to practically build a network.