I’ll let you in on a secret… Well, a lack thereof. This blog is no secret. It’s attached to my LinkedIn, it’s in my resume, and it generally ranks pretty high when you put my name in a search engine (I’ve looked myself up on Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go, and a few other engines that have gone in and out of vogue over the years).
But, regardless, I have my doubts that it gets much traction at all in my professional life. My resume is already pretty verbose, and a lot of the compositions here and elsewhere with my byline attached don’t always have much to do with positions I apply for. Nonetheless, I was in an interview today and the man I spoke with mentioned he had viewed some of my work. Granted, he didn’t say if it was here, or Medium, LinkedIn, Rooster Global News Network, Patriot Ledger, or wherever. But it’s good to know people actually read my resume and the links I provide. I often presume they go ignored. Well, if a company is overly reliant on ATS, they probably are.
This blog is kind of helter-skelter collection of thoughts, not quite a formal portfolio. I worry it’s dismissed as a trivial vanity project. And maybe it is, but those can sometimes be entertaining I guess. I know most of my stuff is pro bono and/or hosted on a platform that’s part of the user-generated content (UGC) space, but it’s good to know that despite the fact that a lot of my words are present on the web as a lay-user rather than a paid/hired worker, they still have an impact.
Anyway, if you got here after looking at my resume somewhere out there, likely on the internet, thanks for reading my blog. I’m sorry for being a scatter-brained hostess, moving from Stardew Valley, to SpongeBob SquarePants, to holiday stress, to going to church, to The Bell Jar, to taking public transportation, to the importance of pediatric vaccinations, to my trouble with friends, my yearning for self-actualization, to my quest for glory… Thanks. Thanks for noticing.
Sheila DeBonis: Marketer, Essayist, and Journalist 