Keep on bloggin'

Whatever your career aspirations, whatever you choose to do, and whatever job you interview for, whether it's your first job or your last job, you can be absolutely certain of one thing: By the time you are seated in that interview chair, the person who is about to interview you will have Googled your name. If you don't know exactly what he or she found, you are a fool. If what they found is your cutsie MySpace site, or your Livejournal diary where you've been writing about how mean your boyfriend has been to you lately... well, think about the impression they have of you. Or if what they found is your blog, but it's clear you've abandoned it, or it's full of broken links, it looks messy, and the last visible post (which they will read, you can bet on it) is full of vague ramblings and spelling mistakes, well, you might as well borrow a gun and shoot yourself in the foot. It'll be less embarassing.

Now, imagine that what they find when they Google your name is your blog. They read it. They notice that you write regularly, and intelligently, about your field of interest — whether that is music, or journalism, or biology, or aviation, or nutritional science. That you have an interesting set of links in your blogroll to relevant websites. That you proudly state your name, and display a tasteful photo of yourself. That your blog posts are well written and carefully edited, and that each one makes a point about something. They're going to think, this is an interesting person. This is a bright person. This is a person who knows what's happening in their field, and who thinks about the issues. This is a person I want to hire!

If you are a science, or history, or psychology major, and you don't see the value of blogging, and you don't wish to continue blogging, there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to keep on blogging, and write about what you had for breakfast, and use your blogs as a way to communicate with friends and family, there's nothing wrong with that, either. But on the other hand, if you continue writing critical commentary about science, or history, or psychology, you'll have an edge over your competitors in the job market who don't.

If you are an advertising major, as many of you are, remember the mantra of David Ogilvy: if you work in advertising, your hobby should be advertising. When the time comes for you to apply for a job, and you can say on your resumé, I have a blog about advertising, I guarantee you, you will get noticed. And when your prospective employeer Googles your name, and looks at your blog, and sees that you've been writing interesting, relevant commentary on advertising; that you're up on the latest ads; that you know which agencies handles which accounts; that you care about the business — you will get hired.

Finally, to the journalism majors: if you haven't enjoyed blogging; if you hated having to write your opinion twice a week; if you don't enjoy reading about what's going on in the world and in the media and commenting on it; if you felt this blog assignment was a dreaded chore, and you're glad it's over; if you abandon your blog — you should think seriously about changing your major.

If you aspire to be a journalist, and you don't have a blog that you can proudly show to your prospective employer at a job interview, that job will go to the person who can.

In my opinion, not as a professor but as a reader, a consumer of media, these are the best blogs that this class has produced. If you want to work on developing your blog into something to be proud of; something that will help get you hired one day, you would do well to learn from these examples. I hope that these students keep on bloggin', because I want to keep on readin':

Faith Chihil
Lauren Gruenstein
Nicole Lieurance
Jeff Macias
Amir Masood
Tomoyo Ohashi
Billy Passerino
Loan Vu
Brittany Welby
Evie Smith

Actually, I hope that all 73 of you keep on bloggin'!