Everyone on the Planet Should Have a Blog

That is an outrageous and absurd idea, right?

Yet, countless career related experts continue to suggest that to job seekers. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read and heard that exact piece of advice, but it is a prevalent theme amongst the rapidly reproducing “build your brand” and “brand yourself as an expert” contingent.

They may not be saying it quite like the title above, but essentially when they advise anyone who is looking for a job to start a blog, that IS what they are implying. At any given time, any and all of us could be considered job seekers. Often we find debates about the superiority of passive candidates versus active candidates, but of course that spontaneous change in status is a moving target prompted by assorted factors.

There is no such thing as job security and even if someone is an independent consultant, freelancer or business owner, they are constantly pursuing work as well. So, in essence that expands the job seeker pool to practically anyone - of working age - that has a need or desire to exchange labor, knowledge or expertise for payment.

That being the case, whether they realize it or not, the career experts are really pimping the blog idea to a much wider percentage of the workforce. Ironically, I don’t recall ever encountering anyone that said, “What the world needs is more blogs.” Frankly, based on the underwhelming quality of many blogs, the opposite is more likely to be expressed.

Here are the primary problems I see with the incessant insistence that job seekers produce a blog. The career experts conveniently gloss over the fact that there are plenty of people that are incapable of writing well. Another issue that doesn’t seem to be prioritized in their suggestion is the need for actual subject-matter expertise as opposed to wishfully promoting that method as a way to convey credibility.

From their superficial blogging advice, one might get the impression that having an interest in something and then writing about that topic guarantees and confirms abundant awareness. Of course, these career experts almost never include instruction to produce original, thought-provoking content with a unique point of view or different take on the material.

Nope. Details, schmetails! “Just start writing a blog to build your brand” is where they typically leave it…

Finally, the worst aspect of this trend is when the career experts promote the blogging concept as a way to attract attention from recruiters, hiring managers and others who might be trolling LinkedIn and other sites when they source talent. While I don’t doubt the impact of a high quality blog attracting a target audience, I don’t believe this to be a wide-spread situation warranting that level of participation by the bulk of the population.

Thoughts? Have you found and hired anyone based on their blog? How many people do you know that have been recruited specifically due to their blog?

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 5, 2012 at 4:13pm: Brian, To Whom?

Comment by Brian K. Johnston on April 5, 2012 at 4:23pm: Sandra, To The People Who Know, Like and Trust You, Me, Others, etc....

Comment by Kelly Blokdijk on April 5, 2012 at 6:33pm: Thanks, everyone for the terrific contributions so far... in a middle to some stuff right now, but will check back ASAP to reply to several of these posts. ~KB @TalentTalks

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 5, 2012 at 7:11pm: Lots or stories don't matter when they are the haiku about your cat. :)

Comment by Kelly Blokdijk on April 5, 2012 at 8:30pm: Oh! My bad... I didn't realize in addition to blogging, it is now recommended to kick it up a notch and write an eBook as well. So you can once again accomplish the following:

" With that many people reading your words, your stature as an expert in your field is established; you’ll carry that aura of wisdom forward. (It looks pretty darn good on a résumé, too.) Just like a great industry blog, an ebook can convince people who’ve never heard of you that you know what you’re talking about."

It pains me to post this link and potentially drive more traffic to this, but I don't think I can do justice capturing these spectacular ways to land a job... http://blog.brazencareerist.com/2012/04/04/how-writing-an-awesome-e...

Comment by Sandra McCartt on April 5, 2012 at 10:20pm: Oh my God, is all i can think of to say. The world of "Me" is getting totally out of control.

Comment by Alasdair Murray on April 6, 2012 at 3:13am: Exactly. Actually, the world is out of control. We're putting too much emphasis on social networking and bot enough on some people's actual needs. Every other ad on radio is visit us n Facebook, follow us on twitter blah blah blah like it's a matter of life or death. We're filling cyberspace with more and more needless content and actually talking less and less to each other in real life. I genuinely shudder to think what the world will be like in 50 years time sometimes. Here's a real problem... http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/poor-pupils-go-to-school-too-hun... Who would have thought in the 21st century in what is perceived to be one of the leading capital's of the world that such a thing was possible? Oh well, maybe I'll write a blog about it!

Comment by Alasdair Murray on April 6, 2012 at 3:20am: Here's an expanded story about the above. OK, there are far worse problems in the world. Try living in Syria or Afghanistan for instance, but, in a first world country that's spent £9bn putting on the Olympics this sort of thing is discgraceful http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/dispossessed/in-2012-thousands-o...

Comment by Suresh on April 8, 2012 at 3:05pm: I personally would read blogs on topics that are not HOT, blogs that are unique and not just following the crowd or the latest hot topic (numerous bloggers piling on the virtues of social media etc).

It can be used as a tool to stand out, not necassarily to find a job but more importantly to find out what your true interests are. So yes, create a blog, write (its a free world) but don't follow the crowd.

Oh by way, just because you build a blog, don't expect people will come and read it..

Comment by Paul Alfred on April 11, 2012 at 8:10am: I enjoy writing blogs as I love the effective use of words to create emotion or a reaction ... I have picked up a few clients because of some blogs I have written on RBC... I do think everyone has something to say - not everyone has the ability to put those thoughts on paper and make it interesting for users to read those 700 words from start to finish. I won't talk about the folks that want to write a blog and not want to respond to comments.