Guess what? Yesterday I opened up my inbox and had no less than four new requests to guest post on my blog.
And I had two invitations to get better at LinkedIn… you know, in case I was frustrated not knowing how to use LinkedIn. In case I haven’t been writing about LinkedIn for years… and even authoring the book (now in the fourth edition) I’m on LinkedIn – Now What???
I’m not bragging… but I want to re-emphasize my post from Wednesday, titled Competition in the Job Search. From that post you should have walked away with the thought that you need to be more purposeful, intentional and strategic in your job search. Sit around and be one of the crowd, and your job search will probably go on longer than you wish.
But do things differently, think about what you are doing, bring in the right help, etc. and you can stand above your peers.
Let’s build on that idea.
The people who are asking to write on my blog as guest bloggers, and the people who are pitching me for LinkedIn training, do not understand who they are pitching to. Their messages look like spam (because they are).
Do the people you send messages to think that your messages look like unsolicited, untargeted, irrelevant spam?
I regularly get emails from job seekers with a resume attached that says “hey, I want to work for your company.” The last email I got was about a page long… of copy and paste. There was nothing personal about it. It was boiler-plate. And I’m not even talking about the resume! This was throwing mud on the wall to see what sticks.
I’m sorry to say that what I’m suggesting is that instead of blasting out emails, you take time to understand who you are approaching, and how you can become relevant to them.
There is a lot of noise in our inboxes. If you don’t customize, or don’t even understand who you are pitching to, you could be doing more harm than good.
Oh yeah, to answer your question “do you want to write on my blog”… if you look through my posts, you’ll see very few guest posts. I write most of my own stuff. There are some exceptions, but not many. Usually the answer is no. Unless you have something really compelling (starting at around $500).