Use Guest Blog Posts To Get Jobs: A Step-by-Step Guide | JobMob

Guest blog posts are a great way to share your expertise and earn attention from the right people.

A guest blog post is simply a blog post authored by you, that you’ve submitted to be published on someone else’s blog.

The idea here is to create a self-marketing campaign by quickly growing a small portfolio of 3-5 guest posts on well-known blogs in your industry that you can then use to show current value to potential employers.

Even if you’re not a great writer, you too can benefit from guest blog posting.

5 benefits of guest blog posts

1. New achievements – Being published on major websites will give you some recent achievements to mention on your job search. Particularly effective if you’re on a long job search and haven’t had any professional successes since your last job.
2. Proof of value – Your guest blog posts will show that your knowledge is valuable now and that your skills are still up-to-date.
3. Publicity – After all, your work will appear in public on some of the most popular blogs in your industry.
4. Personal branding – as your guest posts introduce you to the blog audiences, people will associate the topic of expertise with you.
5. Long-term impact – blog posts usually stay available in a blog’s archives forever, giving you the opportunity of creating something now that will continue engaging people for years to come.

Most importantly: you might attract job inquiries on the strength of your guest posts alone, whether from readers you impressed or even from the websites you submitted content to.

5 steps to use guest blog posts

Step 1: Have a professional web presence

This is easier than it sounds.

You will need the url of a website that you can send people to for professional reasons. If you blog about your profession, use your blog. You might also consider one of your social media profiles such as Twitter or Facebook, if you’re using those networks for work purposes.

At minimum, complete your LinkedIn profile so you can use that.

Step 2: Find the top 5 blogs in your industry

You’re now looking for blogs to submit guest posts to.

If you aren’t following your industry’s blogosphere, try:

• Searching on Google for “top blogs [your industry]“
• Asking colleagues for recommendations
• Going on on Twitter to ask industry experts for their favorites
• Browsing through categories of popular blog directories such as Technorati or PostRank
• Using LinkedIn Answers to see what others in your industry think

Step 3: Get blog post ideas that are likely to be popular

Once you’ve found the top blogs in your industry, research which articles were most popular on each of them.

Why?

A blog is more likely to accept your guest blog post if they think it will be popular. The easiest way to figure out what will be popular on that blog is to be inspired by what already was popular on that blog. Not to copy past ideas, but to see what kinds of articles their audience appreciates.

Find blogs’ most popular articles by-

• Checking the blog itself for a section titled ‘Popular’ or ‘Best Of’ or similar, and then look to see which ideas are featured there.
• Searching through popular bookmarking sites like del.icio.us or digg for the name or domain name of the blog in question.

(Note: you can also use these bookmarking sites to see what kinds of articles are currently popular in general.)

Based on your research, come up with an idea for a guest blog post that could be popular on as many of the top 5 blogs as possible.

Step 4: Write the guest blog post

Based on your research, estimate which of the top blogs you are most likely to impress with your guest blog post. If that blog has specific guest posting guidelines, follow them carefully. They may want you to contact them before you spend time writing anything! Otherwise, get started on creating the content.

If you like to write, this might now be the easiest step- take your guest blog post idea and write it up.

If you don’t like to write, make a list of ideas that need to be explained in your blog post, and then use a freelance marketplace to find a writer who can turn your list into a guest blog post.

Either way, the guest post needs to include a byline with the following information:

• Who you are and what you do (1-2 lines maximum)
• Where to find out more about you i.e., a link to the professional web presence of yours mentioned in Step 1 here above
• A call to action how to contact you for more information because – important! – you are “currently available for new opportunities.”

Here’s a byline template you can copy & adapt:

[Your Name] is a [last/current job title] from [where you live], specializing in [your 1-3 best skills]. [He/She] recently [mention your best, relevant professional achievement from the past 12 months]. Find out more about [Firstname] from [his/her] [the name of your web presence]. Contact [Firstname] now at [where to contact you] as [he/she] is currently available for new opportunities.

Use the free Kompozer software to write your blog post and save it as an HTML file, which will make it easier for the blogger to publish. If that sounds too complicated, a Microsoft Word doc file is usually good enough.

Step 5: Submit the guest blog post

Websites are always looking for good content, and to them, the best content is free, original, targeted and ready to be published. Now it’s up to you to deliver.

Unless the blog’s guest posting guidelines say differently, look for a contact form or an email address on the blog that you can use to contact the blogger or site owner.

Send a short email briefly introducing yourself and offering the attached, already-written, never-published-anywhere, guest blog post for their publication. In the next sentence – summing up your research – explain why you think the article will be popular with the blog’s audience.

Here’s an email template you can copy & adapt:

Hi [contact name],

My name is [Your Name], and I’m a [last/current job title] from [where you live].

I have a guest post for you.

I’ve attached an article titled “[your guest blog post's title]” that I recently put together after studying your blog, it’s 100% original and has never been published anywhere else. I think that your audience will like it because [what your research showed]. You may publish it immediately.

If I don’t hear from you by [3 business days from now], I’ll assume you’re not interested.

Thanks in advance,

[your professional email signature]

If they say yes, great! Then repeat steps 3-5 with a different top blog.

If they say no, that’s fine, but try to find out the reason for the rejection even if they might not tell you the truth or anything at all. Ask them if there’s another topic you could contribute on. In the meantime, repeat Step 5 with other top blogs until you get a positive answer.

Once your guest blog post is published, go back to Step 3 and dream up another idea. Don’t ignore the published blog post though; watch how people react to it and respond to their comments.

Keep going until you reach your goal of 3-5 guest blog posts. If you need to contact more than the 5 top blogs that you found initially, go back to Step 2 and look for more top blogs.

If you liked this article, maybe you should consider guest posting here on JobMob?

Subscribe to JobMob via RSS or email and follow me on Twitter for more tips about how to use blogging for job search.

--Jacob Share

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How to Handle an Unprepared Interviewer

Abby Locke | Executive Career Insights

I recently spoke to client who was very frustrated by her last interview. She had done everything she could on her part – researched the company, learned about its business challenges and prepared career success stories to support her strengths.

However, her interview did not go smoothly because the person she met was not properly prepared and subjected her to a myriad of generic, “career-book” interview questions that only merited the usual scripted responses.

I can certainly understand her frustration. How do you handle those situations effectively, turn around the interview and still leave a strong impression in the employer’s eyes?

1. Provide a targeted 30-second pitch

Make sure your “tell me about yourself” response is tailored for the position. An executive in the non-profit world could start off by saying, “Well, as my resume shows, I have bring a solid background and wealth of experience in non-profit management. Throughout my career, I have been successful in helping non-profit organizations overcome fund development challenges and increase their fundraising efforts by more than 50%”

2. Focus on your career success stories

If you are asked a question like “What is the greatest strength that you bring to the position?” Use the opportunity to show that you understand the company’s challenges and the solutions required for the situation.

Pull out one of your career success stories that directly address an issue that the company is facing – and of course, you would know that because you did your research, right?

3. Gently encourage the interviewer to examine your resume

Certainly I don’t expect you to push pause in the interview and wait for the person to read your resume, however, as you respond to questions, why not say “As my resume shows”; “As you can see from my resume”; As I have outlined or listed in the first page of my resume"; As you would notice on page two of my resume"

If he/she is completely unprepared, there are still key pieces of information he/she can get from quick glances at your resume – after all, professional resumes are read in less than 30 seconds.

4. Ask direct questions around a recent press release or media piece

Now, I have to emphasize that you should try your best to bring up a positive event in the company’s history – if the CEO got recently let go for embezzling, well, that might be awkward to discuss in an interview:)

This strategy allows you to show that you are interested and that you closely follow the company’s progress and new developments. Again, I would recommend linking one of your career success stories to a recent event.

5. Help the interviewer to get to know more about you

Ask questions like:

“Is there anything else that I can tell you about my background and experience that would be helpful?”

“What skills and strengths are need to be present in this position?” (then follow up a career success story that demonstrates those strengths)

“Based on what I have told you so far, is there anything else I could do to improve my candidacy?”

Featured Author: Abby Locke
Abby M. Locke is an executive career strategist and job search specialist who has been interviewed, quoted and featured in Essence Magazine, the Washington Post, Washington Post Express, Wall Street Journal, CEO Update, Monster.com, Kiss 105.9, Black Enterprise, ABCnews.com and the Society for Human Resource Management. Abby partners with senior-level executives and women MBA professionals to help them discover brand distinction overcome job search obstacles and achieve career mastery in highly competitive, crowded marketplaces. She serves as a Résumé Consultant for Women-for-Hire career fairs, contributes thought-provoking advice articles to The Ladders.com and ExecutiveAgent.com, DCjobs.com, Localcareers.com, and Careerealism and is the Seattle Resumes Examiner for Examiner.com. For more of Abby’s professional insights, check out her blog.

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How I Use LinkedIn for In-Person Networking

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Finding a Culture for Success | Career Rocketeer - Career Search and Personal Branding Blog

If you’ve ever found yourself in a company that doesn’t value your skills, then you’ll appreciate the discussion on finding the right corporate culture for the skills and talents you bring to an organization. In this post, we’ll take a quick look at how you can overcome a very common barrier for moving your career to the next level.

A big issue for many working professionals is in finding a good fit for success within a company. Fit is usually broken up into two factors: job and organization. Job fit is fairly easy for the company and the individual to figure out; that is, you have the skills for the job or either the company feels they can teach you what you need to know. Organization or culture fit is much more difficult. It is essentially the alignment of beliefs and values of you and the company. Yes, the company has their own set of values. Why? Because companies are usually run by people and these people have values.

When companies interview candidates for hire, one would hope that they are asking questions that will assess both fits. Unfortunately, many companies don’t know what their values are. It’s fairly safe to say that many people that get involved in the interview process don’t fully understand their own company’s culture. Assessing whether you will fit or not is too difficult for most interviewers and usually doesn’t happen. The problem is that the interviewer will assess you with their own values. If there is a gross mismatch, they won’t recommend you. Even if there is a match, the interviewer’s values may not be the same as those in higher levels of the organization. This is important if you want to move up in an organization.

Defining your values. It is useful for you to have a good understanding of why you work. Sure, we all work for the money. But do you work for increasing technical challenge, higher levels of authority, or high visibility? One thing most highly educated professionals value is graduate degrees. I know you are saying to yourself, of course they do. They’ve spent a lot of time and effort into obtaining the degrees so they want to get a good return on it. The advanced degree is a tool for supporting the desire to do higher level tasks.

Other values that professionals seek are affiliation, autonomy, intellectual challenge, managing people, power, influence, prestige, recognition, security, variety and so on. If you want to achieve higher levels of success within someone else’s organization, you have to know your values and how you will use them. For example, I have a highly technical background. No matter what position you put me in, I will use analytical methods to resolve issues and perform my work. Now, consider putting me in a management position. Will my analytical skills be necessary? Maybe, but I will use them anyhow because it’s who I am. I can’t turn that off.

To know what type of environment that you would thrive in, you must first understand what you value. If your values are not present in your environment, you won’t be happy. You’ll become restless and will make a change. Sometimes this change is a conscious move to another company or it can be a subtle transformation to self-defeating behavior that drives a wedge between you and the company, forcing them to remove you.

Aligning your values. As mentioned earlier, ascertaining the values of a company from an interview is a big challenge. So maybe it isn’t the best place to look. You should consider your career goals to define the location for a values assessment. Let’s say you just completed your MBA and are looking to leave your current company to find a middle management position in another company. How do you determine if management will value your MBA? The best way is to evaluate their backgrounds. If management doesn’t have graduate degrees but possess many years of work experience, they most likely won’t see much value in your advanced degree.

At all levels of management, values are different, but most managers strive to be similar to the managers at the highest levels of the organization. Henry Mintzberg defined the Ten Managerial Roles in 1973, outlining the typical behavior for CEOs. Later on, Pavett and Lau (1983) performed similar studies of lower and middle level managers and found that they emulated the higher level managers. One might think that managers desiring to be part of the executive groups will mimic their behavior so that they resonate with them and will increase their chances of being accepted into the group.

One of my clients struggled with achieving even the smallest levels of success in his organization because of a misalignment of values. My client held three advanced degrees, mostly because he wanted to differentiate himself from his competition. Unfortunately, with such high levels of education, he differentiated himself from his management. He appeared more as a threat to them. Management is about competitive advantage, to some extent. Those that sit at or near the top won’t value things that they don’t have. No one would intentionally rule themselves out of the competition. Therefore, to align your strengths and skills with an organization, you need to align them with the values of higher level management. If they value what you have, you will be more successful. If they don’t value it, you’ll have a difficult time becoming extremely successful. After all, people don’t like to change, especially if they value security.

Reaching your career goals in someone else’s organization is a difficult task. We often find ourselves in groups that don’t appreciate our unique skills and abilities. Of course, we don’t know what kind of culture we are in until we are neck deep in it. At that point, it can be painful and waste a lot of time trying to get out of the company and into a new one. You are better off taking the time to align your values with those that will be promoting you to higher levels. You can do that by aligning your values with their values.
Author:

Todd Rhoad, MSEE, MBA is Director at BT Consulting, a career consulting firm in Altanta, and author of “Blitz The Ladder” and the soon to be released “MBA Owner’s Manual.” Todd can be reached at todd.rhoad@blitzteamconsulting.com.

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5 Universal Laws To Finding Work You Love

Posted by Bill in Employment News

The fear, doubt and uncertainty that accompanies the desire to change pace is understandable. In my work I attract people who crave freedom and creative expression in their work. They regret their career choice and really would prefer a complete change of scenery. By this time they have brainwashed themselves into thinking, “I can’t make money doing what I love.” But their desire to escape wears on them like a heavy anchor around their necks.

Whether the decision is made to transition to work you love because you want a slower pace, shorter commute, less stress or just plain fed up, there is a right way to find profitable work you love. Yes you could profit from your passions, there are people doing it everyday. Why not you? Follow these Laws and you’ll be doing work you love, faster than you can say I hate my JOB!

1. Law of Vision. What is your new life going to look like? If you’re going to leave your job-job to pursue your interests begin with identifying what your life looks like 5 years in the future. Where are you living? Who are you helping? What are you doing? What do you most enjoy about your new life? It is the beginning and an essential part of your journey. The power of vision to bring clarity to your process and direction to your path should not be underestimated. In fact the clearer you see your vision, the more likely you are to achieve it.

2. Law of Exploration. It is impossible to start this journey and be successful without exploring what your real interests, talents and skills are. There has to be internal soul-searching work if your idea is going to prosper. Even more work needs to be done when exploring the possibilities of merging these skills and interests with income opportunities. Remember there are several ways to spot an opportunity to combine your passions and profits. The easiest way is to solve a problem that large numbers of people will pay to be solved. But pay attention to trends, demographic needs and complaints as well.

3. Law of Action. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It is impossible to begin your journey by doing research, gathering information, taking the extra classes, making the calls, organizing workshops or whatever it takes to get started and not enjoy success. For you to be successful you have to take action. Let me say this again: Action is the foundational key to all success-Pablo Picasso.

4. Law of Forgiveness. Forgive yourself quickly for making mistakes. When you’re venturing on this road you are likely to make some mistakes. Get used to it. Make it your friend, become accustomed to it but most importantly remember this “there are no failures, just experiences and your reactions to them.” Tom Krause.

5. Law of Secrecy. Protect your dream or vision. Don’t allow naysayers to deter you from doing what’s best for you. Often when you express an idea that goes against the status quo, you show up the mediocrity in their thinking. They’re not going to be thrilled so they’re not going to support you. I’m not saying go it alone on this journey. In fact to succeed you should probably surround yourself with like-minded individuals who share your enthusiasm, will provide expert advice and will encourage you when you slip up. Just be selective when sharing your dream. When you’re successful you could let them know of your plans, but by then you probably wouldn’t care about their opinions.

If you enjoyed this article, I would like to invite you to grab a  copy of my e-book:Dull to Fiery Career in 5 Steps when you visit http://www.naturalcareer.com. With these steps you identify which career path best suits your career and life goals. As a career change expert I am devoted to helping you find income generating opportunities so you can balance doing what you love and getting paid to do it. You could always learn more about me by visiting my blog: www.naturalcareer.com/blog.

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Cover Letters – Does Anybody Read Those Anymore?

Posted by Bill in Cover Letters, Employment News

In a world where many job applications seem to disappear into a “black hole”, job seekers often wonder if there is any point in sending a cover letter with their application. The answer is absolutely yes! An effective one communicates to an employer why you’re specifically interested in the open position. With so many job seekers indiscriminately applying for hundreds of jobs, your application will automatically stand out if you can demonstrate that you truly have a personal interest in a particular position.

Effectively explaining to an employer why you want the job requires you to cite those qualities and skills that personally make you a good candidate. Generally, the likelihood that you would be a good fit for the position is directly related to your relevant experience and education; for example, a CPA could perform accounting duties for any number of companies. But, telling a hospital that you’ve considered obtaining a master’s degree in health administration makes your interest in the job personal.

In an attempt to personalize their cover letters, job seekers often research a company by examining its Web site. While it’s good to know things such as what a manufacturing company makes or the volume of business a store does every year, including facts like these in a cover letter is ineffective. Hiring managers already know all about their own company; what they don’t know is why you’d be an asset to them.

Your willingness to write one confirms for the employer that you have a serious interest in a specific position. However, to be effective it should demonstrate your knowledge of the company by relating your personal achievements and qualities to that specific business. The people reading your application don’t know anything about you. Your cover letter needs to sell you as a candidate, while your resume supports your assertions with details.

By:  Jessica Holbrook. To receive a free resume analysis send your resume to info@greatresumesfast.com or visit us online at http://www.greatresumesfast.com

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Like a Speeding Train, a Resume That Pops Cannot Be Stopped – (3) Fantastic Tips!

Posted by Bill in Employment News, Resumes

(P) ROVE your value to the hiring manager. Start by taking an inventory of all of your life’s accomplishments. This is the “let me show you what I can do” phase. Include all relevant topics, for example:

- Education (degrees earned or classes taken) - Work Experience - Volunteer Experience - Foreign Languages - Hobbies (if they relate to the job) - Computer Skills - Specialized Equipment - Overseas Experiences - Honors / Achievements / Awards / Scholarships

(O) RGANIZE the proof so that your resume is easy on the eyes. I don’t know about you, but when I visit a website and encounter all kinds of links, photos, text and flash, I’m not sure what to focus on first. Usually I get confused, then I lose interest. As Jerry Maguire told Rod Tidwell, “Rod, help me help you!” Make discovering your value as easy as possible on the hiring manager. Decide which resume format best suits your background and then organize your information accordingly.

(P) OLISH both the content and layout. Sentences should be short, sweet and filled with descriptive words. Make sure you’ve sprinkled “key words” (words that appear in the job posting) throughout. Proofread your resume by using automated spell & grammar checks. Additionally, print out a few hard copies and give to trusted friends for their review. Quantify your accomplishments using numbers. Qualify your experience using examples. Brighten the resume’s presentation using bold, italics, underline, borders and shading for headings and key words. And always, always print your resume on professional resume paper.

The truth of the matter is, you can spend hours upon hours sending out resumes to various companies, but if your resume is poorly written and poorly formatted, all of your time will have been wasted. Your resume must POP in order to capture the attention of a hiring manager.

Okay job seekers, let’s board that train to the job of our dreams. We can do this!

Author - Mandy Marchitello is an Atlanta-based writer and the owner of Make It POP Resume. With a career firmly routed in helping others succeed, she loves what she does and is eager to assist in your job search. Need help making your resume “POP”? For a FREE resume analysis & consultation, please visit our website at http://www.makeitpopresume.com or call (858) 768-9926. Our areas of expertise include: Resumes, Cover Letters, Personal Branding, Interview Preparation & Coaching

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