How to Use Blogging as a Job Search Tool

This guest post is by Lior Levin.

Blogging is not just writing your personal notebook these days: it’s a truly open platform where people share their ideas, passion, goals, and thoughts on subjects they care about. Gone are the days when people would consider blogs “a personal affair.” The scene has long since changed.

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As a job seeker, you can use the power of blogs to reach potential recruiters and make them aware of your existence. Googling for potential employees is slowly becoming a trend among recruiters, and you should definitely use the power of blogging to elevate your job profile and establish yourself as an expert in your industry.

Of course you’ll face challenges, and there is no guarantee that you will get hired as a result of your blog. But it never hurts to give this idea a decent try, and see the feedback and response you get from employers who stumble upon your blog.

If you’re seeking a dream job and want to use the Internet to drive potential employers to your online resume, here are a few tips you should keep in mind:

The very first thing you should do is set up your LinkedIn profile and connect with like minded people, who share common interests and professional backgrounds. LinkedIn is the social hub of career professionals, and employers are always scanning this social site to find enthusiastic candidates who love their work, and are considered leaders in their fields.

By engaging with like-minded people, you’ll understand what they want from you.

Keep your blog focused and up to date on specific topics. It would be better if you leave aside personal rants and ramblings. Instead, blog about your career goals, past projects, lessons, assignments, and so on. The more you blog about your career assignments and skill set, the more people will consider you an “authority” and a “focused person” who knows what they’re talking about.

If your last blog post was published couple of years back, potential recruiters will think you’ve lost interest. Write often—at least twice a week. Blog about your latest project, blog about the work culture, and remember a golden rule: “Never criticize any of your past employers.”

This is really important. Write about your interests, but at the same time, engage with the most important asset in any organisation: “People.” Visit their blogs and comment on a post you loved reading. Reply to their tweets, start a conversation with them, and maintain healthy relationships with your peers. Sooner or later, people will notice your online behavior, and they might shoot off an email expecting to hear more from you.

Never lose patience. It takes time to grow a tree, but once it’s there, the shade lasts forever. Just because you don’t see anything on the surface doesn’t mean the plant isn’t growing beneath it. Give your blog some time and keep writing about things you love. That’s what matters most if you want potential recruiters to notice you.

This post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing enthusiast who works for a start-up company that offers a to-do list app for businesses and individuals. Lior also advises for a web hosting company that offers consumers a list of the top 10 website hosting companies available online.

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Quixey – The Ultimate App Search Engine

 

If you’re someone like me who is always searching for apps on all types of devices and systems, then you’ll Quixey. It’s a search engine that lets you find apps across all platforms based on what you want to do. How does it find these apps? Well it scrapes blogs, review sites, forums, and social media to learn about new apps, find out what they do, and how people can use them. What types of apps are displayed? You’ll be able to find apps for smartphones, browsers, desktops, and the Web.

Just like any ordinary search engine, Quixey has a search bar where you type in the answer the the question, “What do you want to do?” Obviously, the more specific you are with your search query, the better results you’ll get. On the home page you can also see the most recent searches right under the search bar.

So if I were to type in “share m blog posts” as my query, I get 200+ apps available for Android, BlackBerry, Chrome, Facebook, Firefox, IE, iPad, iPhone, LinkedIn, Mac, Symbian, Web, WebOS, Windows, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone. You can see how many apps are available for each platform and click on whichever platform you’re most interested in to see just those types of apps.

You can also specify whether you want to see just free apps or all. There is a section for advanced search, which lets you filter your results based on the source of the app. Lastly, you can see related searches, which might help you find more specific apps or other related types of apps that you might be interested in trying out.

Quixey also lets you register for an account. I’m sure you’re wondering why this might be necessary and it’s really not unless you want to use the API or create a developer’s account, so that you can publish your own apps to the site.

I think Quixey is one that will stay on my “most visited” list in Chrome because there are so many apps that I’d like to find and try out! I’m always looking for new apps to do one thing or another and this tool really makes it easier to find the perfect tool to suit my needs

I also like how there is a short description next to each that tells you how the app can be used. No long descriptions or pages of text, just the important information and a link to the actual app.

I definitely see Quixey as a keeper, how about you?

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