Article Marketing and Your Job Search
Looking for a job is largely about self-marketing, even if "marketing" has nothing to do with your job description. So, here's a "guerilla marketing" tactic you can use in your job search. Internet marketers have known for quite some time that articles can be a great way to drive traffic to their websites and to establish and build credibility.
Whether you're aware of this or not, hiring companies are increasingly using Google and other search engines and Internet resources to screen and research candidates.
Here's an example: Let's say you're about to graduate college and have no relevant work experience. When a prospective employer does a search on you, what will they find? Your FaceBook profile with those embarrassing party pics you thought were cool but would turn off a hiring manager before the page even finished loading? Well, you can do better than that. In fact, I'll show you one way now.
So what exactly can you do, aside from removing those incriminating pictures? Well, how about repurposing something you've already written by turning some of your research papers into articles?
Keep in mind, the more relevant to your target position or industry, the better. Just because you're proud of the insightful report you wrote on Beowulf doesn't mean it will add any value to your job search (unless, of course, you're becoming an English teacher). If it relates to a hot topic in the news, that's even better. Again, this must be at least somewhat relevant to the position you're seeking. I'm betting that your musings on Paris Hilton's latest tabloid appearance probably won't help further your career much. But your insights on how she's leveraged notoriety in the press to market herself, and how companies can use some of those tactics might.
So take your relevant paper and convert it into a one to two page article (or several of them) and include a tag line at the bottom. This is where you'll list your name and website (what, you don't have one yet?) and some brief profile information.
OK, if you don't have your own website, either get one or perhaps at least get a domain name and at least have it temporarily redirect to your LinkedIn profile. Your hosting company (such as GoDaddy) can help you do this.
So what do you do next? Post your article on several of the article repository sites out there that collect articles and make them available to people who want to use those articles on their sites, in blogs, etc. The basic "rules" are that they can use your article as long as they use it in its entirety, including the tag line at the bottom with the link to your site.
A few such article sites you can send your article to are:
GoArticles http://www.goarticles.com
Ezine Articles http://ezinearticles.com/submit/
Article City http://www.articlecity.com/article_submission.shtml
A1 articles http://www.a1articles.com
Idea Marketers http://www.ideamarketers.com
Search Warp http://www.searchwarp.com
Isnare http://www.isnare.com/
amazines http://www.amazines.com
article depot http://www.articledepot.co.uk
article dashboard http://www.articledashboard.com
There are literally hundreds of these types of sites out there, and most of them will accept your article for free.
Some are more targeted to specific niches or at least broad categories such as business: B Pubs is one.
Once your article is posted, you'll start getting more links to your site, and more results will show up when someone searches for you.
Oh, and here's an added bonus! You can also list these published articles on your resume, particularly if they get picked up by a major publication.
You can probably write an article in about 30 minutes to an hour once you get the hang of it. I'd post each article to no more than 5-10 different sites. Search engines these days are penalizing "duplicate content" so you don't want the same article everywhere.
You can then post the article on your blog, too.
And one more tip for now: go to Google Alerts and set up alerts for your name (if it's an uncommon one), website, and perhaps the title of each article. That way, Google will email you automatically whenever it finds you on the web.
To your success,
David B. Wright
Author, Get A Job! Your Guide to Making Successful Career Moves
Article posted by Jim Stroud, "The Job Search Strategist" providing strategies, tips and tutorials on how to find work and advance your career.
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