Comments on: Applying for a Blogger Job? Treat it Seriously

By: Articles

Articles — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:54:17 +0000

This new year the web will come of age. Quality will prevail as the cream rises to the surface

By: PiccoloSocrate

PiccoloSocrate — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:22:57 +0000

I do not agree with him! Why it’s necessary to a have ..@domain.com email?

By: Terry

Terry — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:47:24 +0000

I subscribe to about 10 Blogs on Affiliate Marketing and Blogging, and this is the only one I can think of that uses correct grammer, and does not contain any spelling mistakes.
It blows me away how few people pay attention to these details, as poor spelling and grammar drive people like me crazy because I am a fast reader, and my concentration gets broken frequently.
I congratulate you on that, and also a very good post.

By: Deb Ng

Deb Ng — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:40:00 +0000

Great post. We often post feedback from clients who advertise jobs at FWJ and while the bulk of the feedback is positive, the biggest pet peeve is when the applicants don’t follow directions.

Applicant’s should always take their time with their cover letters and resumes. Proofread several times and also check the ad several times to make sure no stone is left unturned.

If I can offer one more recommendation – Take a little time to know your potential client. Check out his website, learn about his product, follow him on Twitter (that last item is what moved my resume to the top of the heap for my BlogTalkRadio gig, by the way) and let him know you’ve been doing your homework. Employers like to know you’ll go that extra mile.

By: Stella

Stella — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 03:34:12 +0000

Great post, Darren! But I have to agree with the other comments re: the obscenely low rate of pay for some of these blogging “jobs.” If they want professionalism and quality, they are going to have to start paying for it!

By: Joseph

Joseph — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 22:18:18 +0000

Most of the writing jobs I see are paying absurdly low wages for the work required. $5 per 600 word article is absolutely inadequate for a professional writer. I charge $60 for such an article, and would never apply to any posting that pays less than that rate.

Lowell’s comment above is absolutely correct — you get what you pay for…

By: Kim Kinrade

Kim Kinrade — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:28:39 +0000

Darren makes some good points. However, companies like B5Media always advertise but in12 attempts I’ve never been able to connect and I make most of my living from blogging.

The other guys are offering below crap for writing. It’s okay if want to work for $5 a post.

By: Roberta

Roberta — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 23:52:30 +0000

I really love the job boards here and I take a lot of pride in my responses to potential employers. I’ve found a really good and reliable job through this site already and look forward to more.

Thanks for everything you do, Darren.

By: Mario

Mario — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:32:50 +0000

As for the email address, I’d say that although the professional email address is a must thing to have, there are some situations when the yahoo or hotmail email address will be needed.
If you run a large email list you may find out not all of your messages sent to your prospects end up in their email boxes. Don’t know about others but as I’ve done some research about the delivery rate of my messages I established some of my messages were never delivered to their destination. It turned out that my professional email address has been rejected due to strict and too many times “wrongfully” strict spam regulations. I discovered that competition may have had something to do with my professional address being deemed a spam. Moreover I learned how to defame the reputation of a certain email address myself. This in order to learn what exactly could be happening when your email is rejected for no valid reason.
Anyway, I wanted my email messages to be delivered to my subscribers. After some more research I found out that the hotmail address I created for this purpose was getting through the obstacles and was received by my subscribers. Isn’t that the most important thing? To deliver what you’ve promised! What I want to say here, gmail, yahoo, hotmail etc. addresses don’t have to mean that the business using those is not credible. It may just be that the specific situation require those in order to reach all of your online friends.

By: Little Breakaway

Little Breakaway — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:52:43 +0000

After seeing a flashy real estate agent card and reading the email address as bigtaym@popularmailplace_dot_com, you have wonder if the person couldn’t get clean gmail address. Yahoo and hotmail simply don’t convey the professionalism anymore.

The email point does rate high in terms of impression. JMHO.

By: Michael Fowke

Michael Fowke — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:19:35 +0000

I ain’t working for the man!

By: newmediaMike

newmediaMike — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:16:19 +0000

Darren

All of these are great pointers and to me they all share the same trait – they are good common sense pointers. I agree with several of the comments here regarding the professional email. Nothing turns me off a prospect faster than a yahoo, GMail or worse hotmail address used for business.

It is all about first impressions people, make them count.

By: Mario

Mario — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:40:18 +0000

I’d say that people should think the whole idea of becoming a blogger through much more seriously. From my experience a lot of people are just not ready to really do what the serious blogging requires (although they think they are when just starting). Therefore the application for a blogging job and the the whole blogging later on can’t be but lame. Perhaps it would be a good idea to restate several times what quality blogging really requires when searching for a blogger to employ so we could have much more quality blogs.

By: Jennine

Jennine — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:21:23 +0000

A lot of these postings require freelance rates and salary requirements…. how would you deal with that? Different kinds of posts require different levels of work, and I feel uncomfortable talking numbers without really getting a good idea of what the client wants.

By: Keral Patel

Keral Patel — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:09:11 +0000

Very nice suggestions here. Spell check is nowadays becoming so easy with Firefox already shipping the built in spell checker with it. But yet many people do forget about it.

Good one on that email address too :D

By: Bonie

Bonie — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:41:45 +0000

I must learn how to applying a Blogger Job…

By: Laura Christianson

Laura Christianson — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 03:58:02 +0000

One of the ways we evaluate blogger applications is to check whether they follow our specific instructions about how to name the file they e-mail to us. Over 60 percent of the applicants ignore the instructions. Think those would-be bloggers rise to the top of our “must hire” list? Nope.

But we can hardly wait to hire one applicant, who kindly informed of us of a typo he’d found on OUR site. He did it with grace and humor. He’ll be the next person we hire when we have an opening that fits his skills and interests.

Laura Christianson
co-founder, HeBlogsSheBlogs.com

By: Lowell Cremorne

Lowell Cremorne — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:01:33 +0000

To play Devil’s advocate for a second – surely some of these advertisers seeking ‘professionals’ aren’t surprised at the quality of applicants when they’re paying $5 per 600-1000 word post?

If you want professionals you need to pay for them. All that said, your points apply to all jobs – if you don’t look the goods you haven’t a chance.

By: jhay

jhay — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:12:37 +0000

A blogger job is still A job, so it must always be taken seriously. It escapes me as to why most of my college friends still use their “cutesy” email addresses on their resumes despite the many warnings and explanations in technical writing classes.

By: Sid Savara

Sid Savara — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:02:07 +0000

Darren -

Couldn’t agree more. I have hired people for other small one off jobs, and even at that level, I can’t believe how unprofessional some people are. Sometimes I get an application with no cover letter, no resume – just a few words such as “I can do this. What’s the pay rate?” etc etc

Now, if I was advertising for a problogger, and I recognized the NAME (such as say a Darren Rowse applying) then I might write back – but it’s always somebody who is just scanning the boards, sees an opportunity and is applying to everything. Cover letter, resume, some indication that you read my job posting and took it seriously, or you aren’t getting contacted.