Should Your Blog Play a Part in Your Interview?

These days, starting a blog is easy. Websites like BlogSpot and WordPress allow you to click a few buttons and start creating posts within a matter of minutes.

Blogs are a great way to write about a topic that truly interests you, and it is not uncommon for job applicants to find ways to integrate blogs into their job search process, whether it is by:

• Bringing up their blog in the interview.
• Incorporating their blog into a resume or cover letter.

This method of marketing yourself is interesting, and has some merit. There is a lot of potential behind the idea that you can show an interest and commitment to a product, company, service or field by directing someone to a website that you have created that is dedicated to that field. Still, are blogs a useful job application tool? Should your blog be integrated into your job application and job interview strategy?

Short answer: No

Long answer: There is some potential behind using one’s blog to show commitment to a field. Interested in marketing? Perhaps you have a blog that you have dedicated to marketing information. That’s not useless. That dedicated is important for the interviewer to know.

However – and this is a big however – the vast majority of all blogs have problems that make them inadequate for your job search. For a blog to be useful, it must:

• Contain Only Professional Posts – If swore, ranted, went off topic or wrote poorly anywhere in your blog, including back when your blog was first created, the blog is no longer suitable for your employer. If you direct your interviewer to the blog, you do not know how many posts they will read. Even if you have written extremely professional and well written posts for over a year, the employer may go back further and find one post that is unprofessional. That one post could lose you the job.
• Contain Only Related Content – The blog must only contain content related to the job field. If you go off on tangents throughout your blog, you may come off as disorganized or unprofessional, or you may touch upon a subject that the employer disagrees with (such as politics or religion).
• Contain Only Interesting Information – For your blog to matter, it must have interesting ideas. Preferably unique or well researched ideas. If all your blog does is rehash basic tips that relate to the field/industry, then your website does not offer anything that would help you stand out as a candidate.

The blog must also be well designed and completely free of ads. You should also have moderated your comments to remove any spam, angry comments and junk comments.

Almost no blogs qualify for all of the criteria listed above. As a result, though you may have some interesting posts or have a website that provides solid reasons for the company to hire you, there are simply too many risks involved with letting your employer know about your website. Only if your blog meets every single one of those criteria is it worth bringing up in your application conversation.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Blogs may be helpful, but there are too many risks.
• Only blogs with unique and interesting information that are completely professional and only about the field are worth sharing with your employer.

How to Prepare MySpace for a Job Interview

In our last post we discussed how to prepare your Facebook profile before your interview. Today we will discuss how to prepare your MySpace profile.

MySpace itself is not a user friendly site. It allows it users to alter their webpages with bug filled code, and the design of the website itself is not considered aesthetically pleasing. It is highly recommended that you take the time to overhaul your MySpace profile before a job interview, because the mere existence of a buggy MySpace profile may reflect poorly on your candidacy.

Preparing Your MySpace Profile

• Delete, Delete, Delete

Take time to go through every aspect of your profile, including page comments, and delete anything that may be viewed as unprofessional. This includes removing any music from your profile and any profile photo or album that contains unprofessional images. The privacy settings on MySpace have been buggy in the past, and it is too much of a risk to let them stay public.

• Change Profile Photo to Something Ambiguous

Own a dog? Make your profile photo a picture of your dog. It is not uncommon to have a MySpace profile image that is not of your face. Change the image to something that does not resemble you in order to give employers doubts that they have stumbled upon your page.

• Change Name, Location – Watch Out for Email Address

MySpace profiles allow you to show up in search by your name and location. All the company needs is a first name and location to bring up the possibility that they will find your profile. Change your name and location so that you do not show up in a search. Also, make sure that the email you used to send the resume is not the email associated with your MySpace account, since MySpace also has an email search feature.

• Make Everything Private

Finally, restrict privacy settings on your MySpace page so that you can only be viewed by friends. MySpace privacy settings are not perfect, but they are helpful in reducing your employer’s ability to visit your page.

Social Networks Kill Interviews

Employers are looking for any information on you they can find before your job interview. It is important that you keep all of these things blocked and edited before an interviewer comes across your page and creates their own negative first impression.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Clean up your MySpace account by deleting any identifying and unprofessional information.
• Restrict your privacy settings.
• Change the name, email and location associated with the account.
• Alter your profile picture to be something other than your face.

How to Prepare Facebook For Your Job Interview

In our last post, we discussed how social medial profiles are at risk for casting your job interview in a negative light before you have had a chance to make a proper first impression. Today we will discuss methods you can use to prepare your Facebook page for your interview.

Ways to Prepare Facebook

• Block Access

The first thing you will want to do is block anyone from seeing any aspect of your profile page unless they are on your friends list. This includes blocking your profile picture AND taking yourself off of search. If you have someone you would like to be on your friend’s list, you will need to add them yourself until you have found employment. You should also make sure that you have changed the setting so that you are not listed in search engines.

• Change Your Name

Facebook allows you to change your official, legal name. Change your name to something false and delete any “former names.” You can notify your friends that you are changing your name for a job interview. This ensures that even if Facebook changes its privacy settings and makes your profile public, the name associated with your profile will not be your own, and so you will not be found in a search for your full name.

• Clean Your Profile

Despite all of the above changes, it is still possible that a company can get access to your Facebook page. An example of this is if an employee of the company is on your friend’s list. That is why you will also want to clear your profile of anything that may seem unprofessional. Delete any inappropriate quotes or negative statements about your job. Delete any profile photos that may cast you in a negative light. Try your best to clean your profile as best you can, so that if an employer does get access, they will not see anything too damning. If you do not want to delete a profile photo, there are ways to make specific profile photos hidden in the privacy settings, though this is not as safe an option.

Changes are Not Permanent

With the exception of deleting profile images, every change you make for your interview is reversible. It is highly recommended that you prepare your Facebook profile before you even send in resumes so that you can be absolutely sure that the first impression you make at the interview is your best one.

Take Away Interview Tips:

• Adjust security settings to ensure employers cannot access or see any part of your Facebook profile.
• Change your “name” on the profile so that you do not show up in search.
• Clear your profile of any information and photos that will make you appear unprofessional.

Should Candidates Have Social Media Profiles?

Employers review hundreds of resumes before they decide to call you in for a job interview. Something about your resume stood out from the pack, and the company decided that you were someone that earned a shot at winning the position. Once they have made that decision, the company calls you and schedules an interview.

It is between now and then that you are most in danger of making a bad first impression. How? By providing access to a social media profile that does not give employers a positive reaction.

Most Graduate Social Media Profiles

Social media websites like Facebook and MySpace are designed to be places for you to connect with your friends and share your personal experiences. That is why many younger men and women post photos of themselves having fun with their friends – going out drinking, showing off their newest bathing suit, or simply making awkward faces at the camera.

Despite the basic privacy settings on these websites, your profiles are made public. Between now and your job interview, the employer is going to be preparing questions and trying to learn more about you as a candidate. One of the first things they are going to do is search for your name and see what comes up. What they will see is a profile of you complete with misspellings, unprofessional photos, and status updates/blog posts that rant about your personal life. These are going to immediately cast you in a negative light, and though they will likely not cancel your interview, they are going to be judging you with increased skepticism.

What Can You Do?

There are ways for you to manage your social media profiles in order to make them less accessible to employers and prying eyes. You should enact these changes long in advance of your interview to ensure that they go into effect right away. You do not need to delete your social media accounts, but you will need to make some massive changes in order to ensure that your profiles are not going to harm your interview. We will discuss how to prepare your social media profiles in the next two blog posts.

Take Away Interview Tips:

• Prepare your social media profiles long before the interview.

Using Twitter to Find a Job

Social media is changing the way that people work. Working professionals across the country are using Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in order to communicate not only with their friends and family, but also with their coworkers and other working professionals. Through these profiles it is possible to create a large network of men and women from all over the country.

If you lose your job, this network represents an interesting opportunity. This network that you have built may be a great resource to find a new job. LinkedIn and Facebook are far more personal; if you want to see if there is an open job available, you can email the friend directly. Twitter, however, is a completely different story.

What Makes Twitter Unique

With both LinkedIn and Facebook, you know the individuals in your network. One of you added the other individual and the two of you started your online network together. Twitter, however, allows nearly everyone to follow your tweets. You can have members of your network that you have never met, and these individuals are all potential networking partners for finding yourself a new job.

One simple Tweet: “Looking for a new job. Any open positions available in the _______ Niche?” may get you a few responses from individuals that have been following your Twitter account. It’s certainly worth a try.

Making Your Twitter Work For You

Still, it is important to realize that your connections are going to largely be based on your content. If you have a Twitter account that does nothing about rant and rave about the crazy things you saw during the day, you are probably not going to create a network of business professionals with connections in the corporate field.

On the other hand, if you use your Twitter account to Tweet mostly great ideas and experiences related to your field of employment, you are bound to find followers that have connections geared towards your career path.

Expert Tips

Several experts recommend that you “prepare” your Twitter account before you start tweeting for employment opportunities. It is a good idea to clean up your recent Tweets so that they are more professional. You should change your bio information as well to read like a quick plug for your services. You should also provide a link to an online resume that potential members of your network can view.

Twitter is changing the way people find work. It is not the most effective method of finding new employment, but it is a useful way to tap into a social network and see if any employment opportunities arise.

Take Away Tips

• Maintain a professional Twitter account to expand your network.
• Prepare your Twitter account for recruiters.

To Learn More

• Forbes Article on Twitter to Find Jobs
• Time Magazine Article on Twitter to Find Jobs
• The Talent Buzz Blog Article