Using Blogs/Community for Career Advancement

I read the following WSJ.com article on "How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job" and decided it would be a good reference for some of the young professionals and business associates that I interact with to review or see in writing somewhere validation for what I try to have them do for their own business or professional career.

Utilizing Blogs such as this the one you are reading now is of value and a good start to getting your name out there for people to find you and learn more about you.

However, more powerful than that is to grow an active Blog for an association, charity or other community related organization that is bigger than yourself alone. The power of many is just as important in on the Internet as it is in the real world.

I have personally worked to put this to the test with the Blog projects started for Ad 2 Tampa Bay and the National Ad 2 organization. These two blogs, although currently new and maybe a bit anemic on content should prove to be a huge resource to the current and future board members who decide to fully utilize the voice that we have created for them as young professional leaders.

Article Summary & Link: WSJ.com - How Blogging Can Help You Get a New Job
Corporate recruiters have long surfed the Web to vet potential hires, but now they are also surfing blogs to unearth job candidates, expanding their talent pool and gaining insights they say they can't get from résumés and interviews.

Ryan Loken, a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. recruitment manager, says he spends one to two hours a week searching through blogs for new talent or additional information about the candidates he has interviewed. "Blogs are a tool in the tool kit," he says. Since he joined the Bentonville, Ark., retail giant three years ago, Mr. Logen estimates that Web journals have helped him ...

Here's a link to the entire article if you are a WSJ subscriber.