Blogging your job search

When I first decided I wanted to land a job at Microsoft, I decided that I would blog my job search.  I knew that I was interested in knowing a) how to get a job at Microsoft, and 2) what the interview process was like.  I figured there were other people like me that would also want to know this information. 

With this in mind, I started blogging.  There was one problem: I didn't want my current employer to know that I was looking.  Therefore, I started my blog on a Linux server running under Virtual PC on my laptop at my former company.  I created lots of great posts (if I do say so myself) reflecting the whole ebb and flow of the job hunt process: hurried calls to get interviews scheduled followed by long periods of radio silence, etc.

Anyway, I exported all these posts to a text file with the intention of importing them into my new blog once I arrived at MS.  Well, that didn't work out so well.  I did move some of the posts over, but it was a painful manual process.  In addition, I had now way of manipulating the posting dates to match the originals.  Therefore, I limited the number of posts that I moved over, and just started blogging from there.  The rest, as they say, is history.

I bring this all up because I have become aware of someone doing exactly what I did, except publicly.  Christian Buckley is blogging his job search at https://my-microsoft-diary.blogspot.com/ .  Perhaps job seekers can get some good information from Christian.

BTW: Christian, good luck in your upcoming interviews.  Let me know if there's anything I can do to help...