Jelle Druyts

I had my niece over for dinner this week, and she was telling me it's pretty hard finding the right person for a specific job. She's in the ol' headhunting game you see ("Hardest game in the world, done it meself you see..." - aah gotta love Archie ) and part of her job is screening cv's to match them against positions her clients want to see filled up.

One of her biggest challenges is actually finding people; people who have experience in the field she's recruiting for, and who are passionate about what they do. That sounded very familiar. So I told her about blogging (she hadn't heard about it yet)...

She was immediately sold on the idea, and asked me if there were directories of people and ways to search for them. I pointed her at some sites like weblogs.com and feedster, and we quickly ran a few searches on a vacancy she was currently trying to fill. Unfortunately, that didn't really pop up anything interesting. I'm guessing it's because it was in the medical field, and blogging is still fairly biased towards IT professionals (although other fields are rapidly picking up as well).

So there's a hint for all you non-IT'ers: blogging can get you hired too!

And I'm speaking from very recent personal experience when I agree with Robert on that

When it comes to recruiting, I see a blog as a way to establish a base line. It says a lot about what you do, how you think about things, what you're passionate about, how your communication skills are, possibly a little bit about what you're like in real life, ... and that can save you and your recruiter time in the matchmaking process. It can even make technical interviews redundant to a certain extent, as I've noticed myself.

But in the end, it shouldn't be the goal of the blog. If you're using it solely as a promotional campaign, you'll lose traction and credibility. Although my posting rate has slowed down, I'm still doing this for me. All the rest is just an added bonus.