I often talk with people about building their brands and finding a way to ensure they are a highly desirable employee. One of the ways that I think people can do this is with a technical blog about their career. Having a technical blog allows someone to show off their skills in a particular area. The blog doesn't have to be ground breaking work or extremely innovative solutions to complex problems. While employers need those people, they also need people that do solid work every day on regular problems.

An interview isn't a great way to find good employees. Many of us have had experience with either (or both) sides of the interview table and realize that interviews aren't necessarily that helpful. If we bothered to track the impressions we make of candidates and compare that to the actual work they accomplish over the first year or two, I suspect we'd find that we have no evidence that were making great decisions. The success of employees seems to be a bit hit and miss.

A blog, however, provides the employer with a bit more confidence that a person can handle the job they are hired for. A blog takes time, and across months (or years), it can show quite a bit about a person's knowledge and skills. It allows hiring managers, and co-workers that may interview a person, the ability to perform a bit more due diligence and investigation into someone's skills than an interview provides. It's much more of a representative look at a person than what they say or write on a resume.

I know that it isn't a perfect solution. People plagiarize posts and copy from Books Online and more, but the Internet helps here. Search a few of their paragraphs and you might catch plagiarizers easily. After all, someone that wants to copy posts to avoid work, probably has a few other tricks in their bag to avoid doing other work for you.

Think about starting a blog today and giving potential employers a way to learn more about you.