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Blogging is becoming an essential tool for career development and success, highlighting you as a leading expert in your field and setting you aside from the competition.  Unemployment rates are rising, competition for jobs is getting tougher and you need to prove you’re at the top of your game.  Increasingly employers are searching online to find out more about candidates, so having an online presence that projects the right image for your industry is crucial.

If you are looking for a new job or want to advance your career it’s time to take your blogging efforts seriously and use WordPress to launch yourself online.  Here’s everything you need to know about how to use WordPress to get a job and blog your way to a highly successful career.

Promoting Yourself Online

Creating a WordPress blog where you can demonstrate your expertise is like a public relations campaign.  It’s a way of letting potential employers know your views about your industry and hopefully show them you’re at the cutting edge of development.

It’s easy to create a website resume and blog using WordPress.  First choose your domain name, which should probably be your name or name of your company, then download WordPress and your free website builder program Next you’ll need to choose a theme to suit you, your resume and your blog.  There are hundreds to choose from but it’s best to go for simplicity and elegance.  Calligraphy Document and Work Mail Delivery are ideal, projecting a professional image that’s easy to navigate.  Both are available for free on our WordPress themes page.

You can also buy various resume templates from $10 which you give a resume that can dramatically improve the impact of your skills, experience and information.  You can choose from a whole host of templates, depending on your line of work and image you need to project.

Top Plug Ins for Your Online Resume

• Contact Form 7: make it easy for employers to contact you, ask questions and find out your rates.  This plug in is a really simple one to use.  Just create a new page, use the title “contact” and paste in the code.
• WP Resume Park: you can embed your Resume Park hosted resume on your blog using this plug in.
• NextGEN Gallery: your online resume would be pretty boring if you didn’t have any images.  Create a portfolio of your previous work, clients and anything that sells who you are and what you can do using this brilliant plug in.
• Resume Extended: this plug in gives you the tools to create a resume to view on your blog.  You can save it as a separate page, with a template nicely divided into categories.  You can also import a pre existing resume into the template and export it to PDF and Microsoft Word.
• LinkedIn Resume:  displays your resume on your blog from your LinkedIn public information page.

Projecting a Professional Image

If you want your blog to form part of your resume you need to come across as professional and make your posts engaging and focused.  Once you’ve installed your website builder and chosen your theme and resume template, you’re ready to start promoting yourself with blog content.  Here are 10 top tips for writing a professional blog to entice employers to headhunt directly:

1. Write your blog with focus and a purpose.  Don’t just put together a collection of random thoughts.  Stay on topic.
2. Highlight your expertise, outstanding achievements, training and experience through your blog.
3. Tell everyone you’re available to hire.  Don’t be afraid to state the obvious.
4. Quality writing is essential with impeccable grammar and spelling.
5. Add your blog URL to all your business cards, resume and correspondence.
6. Write about leading experts and companies you might like to work for to get their attention.
7. Interview leading experts and put excerpts of their interview in your blogs.  This is a great way to network.
8. Give your posts a purpose. Think of each as a story with a beginning, middle and end and don’t just shove your expertise into people’s faces.
9. Include your contact details, a biography and your resume beautifully presented and easy to find.
10. Use images to add weight to what you’re saying and make your blog more interesting.