First and foremost, starting a blog is about giving yourself a voice. Blogging empowers you and will enable you to express yourself and your ideas to others in a public way. It means you can share what you’re passionate about with others and build a community around it.
All this is true for if you start a blog at any time in your life. As a student, however, it is a particularly good idea from an employability point of view as a blog can be your portfolio to potential future employers and recruiters. You can put the link on your CV and LinkedIn and can talk about it in application forms, cover letters and at interviews as it will make you stand out hugely. When an employer sees your blog, it will say so much more than the rest of your CV. That D in A-Level Chemistry? Pah! You have an awesome blog that demonstrates a vast range of far more important relevant skills.
Creating your own blog shows a flair of creativity and innovation and then the determination and commitment to follow through on your ideas. Of course, it perfectly demonstrates your ability to write well, as well as your knowledge on building your own website, marketing, using social media, search engine optimisation (SEO), branding, analytics and potentially even coding. It shows that you can constantly come up with new ideas and are able to accurately articulate them in an articulate and convincing way, all the while you are juggling your academic work and all the other extra-curricular things you are involved in. You are a time management guru and yes you can adopt and adapt this paragraph for job applications. I won’t tell.
Almost as importantly, having a blog helps you to build a professional reputation before you get to the workplace. The first thing an employer will do after reading your cover letter and CV is Google you. Through your blog, you are in control of what comes up through that search – you can control your SEO. Instead of potentially seeing those photos of you drunk last Wednesday night (it was a sports night social, what choice did you have!?), they will now immediately click on your blog link and nod, impressed. They will be able to see that you are an interesting and well-rounded person who knows their own might and isn’t afraid to say so.
Your blog doesn’t have to be about the career you want to move into (though of course, that is handy). It’s far more important that you write about what you are passionate about and what you enjoy doing, whether that’s fashion, food or fitness. Being able to consistently write well about something and build social media profiles around it means you have to actually like it. It will show very quickly if you’re just doing it for job application extra brownie points.
Author: Emma Rosen
Emma Rosen spent a year working in 25 different jobs before her 25th birthday. The project aims to promote portfolio careers, highlight the importance of work experience for all ages and advocate for more diverse careers education for young people. Emma's book, The Radical Sabbatical, about her experiences is coming out in October 2018. Since completing 25before25 in August 2017, Emma now has five jobs, one of which is as the Careers Section Edition if Student Pages - get in touch for any and all career advice questions!
