How to put Blogging on your Resume
The mass media has often associated the term “blogging” with emo myspace kiddies spilling their guts online, or liberal 40 somethings trashing politicians or companies. While this portrayal may be a bit over exaggerated, it’s safe to say that most of the “regular” business world, especially corporate America, does not take blogging as a business too serious.
This poses a challenge to us legitimate money making bloggers when tacking it on to your resume. As I have recently been trying to leverage my blogging success on my resume to get a high paying part time job, I’ve searched out several pretty good tips that can help legitimize the blogging (or online, ad driven content based website business as I refer to it as) portion on your resume.
First, it’s important to use strong keywords and verbs to make concise matter of fact statements. Begin your description with action verbs: Increased, administered, advanced, built, executed,implemented, developed, devised, etc.
After you got the flashy action verbs chosen, ideas for the actual subject of key phrases are social media promotion, advertising sales, search engine marketing/optimization, custom html/css designs, bookeeping, managing contract writers, and content development. Don’t include all of these, because being concise is key. Choose maybe 3 phrases to emphasize on your resume in about 4 lines of space.
While brainstorming and figuring out powerful, catchy phrases you’re probably feeling peachy. But there’s one last tip and it’s probably the most important: Quantify your accomplishments and phrases! Don’t just say “increased advertising sales every year” - Quantify it it. “Increased advertising sales 23% quarter over quarter” OR “Grew site traffic 143% annually.” Numbers, especially when they pertain to money, speak volumes, and are undeniable when you’re trying to sell yourself and your experiences.
There are bunches of other resume tips that can make a slight difference when applying for positions or internships elsewhere. Just remember, you have value and your blogging/online business experience contributes to your value, so butter it up and sell yourself.
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“Increased, administered, advanced, built, executed,implemented, developed, devised, etc.”
I disagree with that kind of terminology. I used to manage a call center of 30 employees. I can’t tell you how many times I received resumes with that kind of language. You know what happened to most of them? In the trash or in my ever-increasing “To Look At Later” pile.
Why would you use words in a resume that you wouldn’t use in your blog? How could stuffing a description of your blogging activities into bloated words like that help your efforts at finding a job? I’m assuming that the types of jobs you’d look for where it’d be okay to have blogging on your resume are ones that involve the internet, new media, publishing, or things like that. Wouldn’t it be better to address companies that operate in those mediums in the same fashion as the style that made your blog successful in the first place?
I would avoid those words at all costs, and instead just write something simple and explanatory. Say that you write for “X” blog, about “X” subject, and that your blogging efforts have resulted in “x” amount of hits. Make it like a little story that emphasizes your creativity.
Otherwise, if you’re just applying to be some admin asst. or something, forget it. Nobody cares about your creativity level for a job like that.