He is considering launching a website/blog of his own and has a few concerns about whether to do it because of the potential impact on his full-time recruiting efforts in the future. As my long-time readers know, I have a LOT of experience in balancing these worries. Check out the text below for our exchange.
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WH wrote:
Hey Marquis!
I am looking into making my own website and was hoping that I might be able to pick your brain if you have the time. This is by no means an urgent question, so get back to me whenever you can because I know you get crazy busy!
I’ve been focusing on three things this winter break:
My main question is whether or not I should go ahead with one at this time. My purpose for establishing one is two fold 1) for learning purposes and 2) for creating another way to differentiate myself from my peers and having that experience. But I wonder if at this time I have enough experience to be considered a reputable source of information for blogging or to even post information up online as I am only a junior and have but three internship experiences under my belt. In short I worry whether or not I might be damaging my image if I go online now versus waiting until later as I might come off as over confident and too brash to recruiters. Granted I may just be over-thinking things, but I would like to hear your thoughts on this if possible.
Thank you Marquis!
WH
I have been feeling through my experiences that I should know the basics of leadership, market analysis and research, and how to develop and maintain an online site as there is a greater push for future grads to have some technological know-how.
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My response:
Hey WH,
I’m sorry that it took me so long to respond to your email. I’ve been sort of all over the place with work travel. Sometimes, it can be such a pain to be in such high demand. hahaha.
You’ve picked a solid set of topics to focus on, especially given that you’re only in your third year of college. Training your mind to think along the lines of these topics (particular the first one of building general business knowledge) should give you a lot of run in the earlier part of your career. The name of the game at this point is to distinguish yourself from the pack and these topics are a good way to do just that.
I like the idea of you launching your own website and blog because you have a lot to say and I know that you genuinely want to help people. I’ve had my site up for years now and, while it has been a labor of love with lots of ups and downs, it has been a great use of my time. In my view, some of the benefits of having a personal website include:
- Great way to build your personal brand in places where you can’t go in person
- Mechanism for you to get feedback on your ideas from people who may not know you
- Easy way for you to help people by sharing what you’ve learned with others
- Opportunity to demonstrate your ability to think through issues in a structured/effective manner
As someone who has had my own website for 10+ years now, I have a few “gotchas” that you should think about when launching your own:
- Use the website to establish your brand, but make sure that you’re creating the “right” brand. Nobody likes a know-it-all, so try not to take a preachy tone. Instead, I’d recommend that you position yourself as a passionate young guy who just wants to share information to help people. That’s how I positioned myself when I started my site in 2003 and it served me well in building a large following.
- Don’t let yourself get too upset if people send you negative/hateful messages or post bad comments in response to your site. That kind of crap happens and there’s nothing that you can do about it. Some people will just hate on you for the sake of hating and folks will get even more intense with it when they’re able to be anonymous. By definition, you’re opening yourself up for attacks by putting yourself out there to share your thoughts, so be ready. Don’t let yourself crumble because someone decides to get at you in a way that you don’t like.
- As you mentioned in your email, you’re too young to be considered an expert in anything, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t share information. My recommendation is that you reference a single source or set of sources when sharing some kind of insight or information. Further, if you find a way to synthesize information from multiple sources, be sure to mention that too. This approach will provide validation for what you’re saying and should keep people from thinking that you’re just some kid making stuff up. Eventually, you’ll have enough work, educational, and life experiences not to have to reference sources for what you write, but, until then, it’s just easier to let people know where you pulled things from.
- A big question that you’ll have to figure out is whether you want to let the world know who you are on your site or be anonymous. Of course, if you’re trying to use the site as a way to build your brand, then you wouldn’t want to go the anonymous route. But, if you want to use the site as a way to share your thoughts freely without any concerns for repercussions, then you’d pretty much have to be anonymous at this stage in your education/career to protect yourself from the possible downside.
- Your concern about recruiters seeing it is understandable, but I wouldn’t be too worried about that. As long as you don’t write anything negative, inflammatory, or just plain crooked, you should be OK. Also, whatever you do, don’t write anything about your experiences with individual companies, even if they treated you like dirt…this is something that I had to learn the hard way through an experience of my own.
- Most importantly, don’t forget that the internet is forever and, as such, don’t post anything that you’ll regret later. Of course, you can always delete a post that could turn out to be a bad move, but, nowadays, people will take a screenshot with the quickness and, once that happens, there’s no way to control what may come next. I’ve posted some pretty controversial things in my blog over the years that didn’t seem like a big deal at the time but came back later to bite me. Take my advice on this one and be much more thoughtful on the front end when developing your content to keep from getting egg on your face like I have at times.
OK, that’s about all I’ve got for you for now. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.
Marquis