what is one thing you would try if you knew you couldn’t fail?

I wrote a few months ago about getting my new job because of skills I learned from blogging.  That’s still true, and incidentally, I still love my job (yay!).  But in that post I also made a note that I’d been at my company for three years and earned their respect prior to landing this job-that-I-love.  Penelope Trunk (an author and entrepreneur who writes great stuff on career and life) wrote a post today on respect and said, look at what you do well. Now. That’s what earns you respect, whether you like it or not.

Penelope writes really raw, honest things, and I respect her for that: she does it well.  And her post made me think about what I do well, and how exactly I earned my own workplace respect.

I (initially) earned respect by asking questions.  And no, they weren’t job-related questions.  Here’s the story: I was given a dark corner cubicle where I could have hidden away and never learned anyone’s names and eventually faded from existence.  That might be an exaggeration… *might*  The one redeeming characteristic of this cubicle was a whiteboard (I didn’t need a whiteboard).  So I wiped it clean and put up a silly question, probably something like “What is your favorite color?”

My secret: I have nice handwriting, and I’m vain about it.  THAT is why I wrote a question.  The good news is that people came by, noticed my question, and responded.  Soon, I was writing up a new question every day.  I was also okay at my job, but that question-a-day routine was what helped me connect with my coworkers and learn more about my office and eventually transition to another role (and from that to this one!).

We moved to a new office, and the whiteboard moved to the kitchen.  I still write up the question every day.  When new hires go on a tour, I’m introduced as ‘the person who writes the questions on the board.’  I’ve earned respect at work for being good at asking questions.

Another secret: I rarely answer my own questions. I may be good at asking (or finding sources to use when I can’t think of a question), but I don’t have a quick processor upstairs.  I mull, I weigh, and often the entire day goes by without an answer popping into my mind.  Related: It takes me forever to write book reviews.

Anyway, all that to say that I put today’s question up at 9am, and I still haven’t thought of an answer.  It may be just that I am a slow thinker, but it may also be that I am scared of more than just failure.  I may be scared of responsibility, or expectations.

But hey, it’s not all about me (and my possible fear).  I love today’s question, and I love the different answers.  I wanted to figure out a way to ask it on my blog.  So here you go (and I’m sorry you had to ramble through bits on respect and the history of my job/questions to get there):

What is one thing you would try if you knew you couldn’t fail?

how blogging helped me get a job

That title feels a little bit like link bait, but it has the virtue of being true.  Blogging DID help me get a job.  I can now say that five years of blogging has been worth it, career-wise.  Of course, I’ve always known that reading and writing about reading was worth it for my sanity, if nothing else (sanity is underrated).  And the books!  Books are glorious.  Discovering and attending book events like BEA feels like visiting a strange world where everyone is at least as nerdy as I am.  It’s sweet and unnerving and perfect.

Anyway, back to the job bit. 

Background: I’ve been at the same nonprofit in DC for three and a half years.  I started working for them after grad school didn’t pan out and that one disastrous entry-to-the-office-world job.  I was content if not perfectly happy doing what I did: it involved a lot of staring at spreadsheets, but it paid enough to eat well and travel to Ireland, and I had other things going on in life to get my ‘fulfillment’ quota.

Then a job opened up in another department for a Web Content Manager.  I looked at the description out of curiosity, and then I did a double take.  I could see the path to my dream career, and I had the skills to do it – I’d learned them from blogging.  When they offered it to me (after all of the usual HR type things), I took it without hesitation.  I may be the happiest I’ve ever been in a work environment – and that’s counting the first time I cashed a paycheck, when I began lifeguarding at age fifteen.

Below I’ve copy/pasted some of the exact requirements from my job description, and how my blogging experience helped me land the job.

Minimum of 3-5 years’ relevant online website development and management experience.

I’ve been running Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia on my own for over five years (at times more successfully than others…) – and I have slowly and surely built a following by connecting with fellow bloggers and engaging in social media.  I listed my blog on my resume under ‘Relevant non-work skills and experience,’ and I made sure to talk about it in my cover letter and during the interview process.  I also included my Twitter handle so that the hiring manager could see that I post consistent content with a targeted focus, and that I had a sizeable audience.

Knowledge of HTML and experience with popular content management systems and analytics programs.

If you have tried your hand at blogging, you’ve probably gotten really familiar with Googling for help.  I’ve done my fair share of this, but I can also point to Bloggiesta as one of the events that helped me develop my web skills.  Through Bloggiesta mini-challenges I learned basic HTML, I began to track my blog with Google Analytics, and I played around with RSS feeds and services.  All of these skills are directly transferable to my new position.

Excellent SEO/social media/web editing skills.

I dabbled with Klout for a while before I got a little skeeved out by how much information and access they had to my online life. How did I learn about Klout?  Bloggers.  And of course my Twitter presence is almost entirely book-related, though I tend to listen more often than participate.  Still, I could point to those things, plus knowledge of Google Analytics, Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Web editing?  I do that nearly every day on Blogger.  And SEO was another one of those things I learned about via Bloggiesta. 

Even though blogging taught me the skill set for this job, it’s important to acknowledge that I’d already built trust and community in the company through my 3+ years of previous employment.  I was/am lucky, but I also paid my dues.  I’d like to think that anyone who forms key relationships and proves themselves hard-working could do the same.

I hope this is useful: for those who question if there’s any benefit to blogging aside from engagement with the community and free books, and for anyone who wonders if blogging counts as professional development if you’re not interested in going into publishing.  Even if you think your real world job isn’t remotely related to blogging, you could be developing the skills that will lead you to the perfect job.  I’m living proof.