Get Noticed by Potential Recruiters or Clients
Are you a job seeker wanting to get noticed by recruiters or potential employers? Or are you a small business owner looking for new clients or customers? A resume or a company web site are necessary elements of your marketing efforts, but you need more to stand out among your competition. You need to show just how knowledgeable you are about your industry. You need to get published!
How do you do this? There are a number of ways, including writing your own blog, guest blogging on others’ blogs, commenting on others’ blogs, etc. However, one of my favorite and most effective ways I’ve recently discovered is through Quora.
Get Published Through Quora
Quora is a site where people can ask any question about anything, and you can respond with your own knowledge and point of view. You get noticed when you provide quality answers to your industry’s questions.
For example, I started doing this only a couple of months ago. I focus on answering job search and career-related questions (my area of expertise). Typically, I choose questions with a larger audience (at least 500 followers). This allows more people to see my answers.
In just a few months with answers to only a handful of questions, I’ve generated:
- Over 128,000 views (just one of my answers has nearly 65,000 views)
- 950 upvotes (Quora’s version of “Likes”)
- Over 225 shares
- A dozen new subscribers to my newsletter
- 3 potential clients
- “Top Writer” status for the categories of Job Searches, Job Search Advice, Interviewing, and Job Interviews
- A published article on Inc.com
I haven’t generated nearly as many results in a year of writing and promoting my own blog. I’ll always have my blog as one method of reaching my audience, but I know blogs take a little longer to grow organically because of the lack of a captive audience, unlike Quora.
Quora is organic. The people who are seeing your information are the ones who want that information. Also, it’s great because interest in the answers you posted months or even years ago can continue to grow in readership long after you’ve posted them.
Get Credibility
So what does this mean for you? If you’re a job seeker, you can showcase your knowledge of your industry and even your problem-solving skills. You can answer questions that show how you would solve (or have solved) common problems in your field. Employers are always looking for good problem-solvers and good communicators. You’re able to exhibit both of these top skills in your answers on Quora.
Include a link to your Quora profile in the contact info section of your resume. If Quora publishes one of your answers on another site (i.e. Inc.com, Huffington Post, Apple News, etc.), you can link to that as well. Include it on your resume and your LinkedIn profile, and talk about it in your interview!
If you’re a small business owner, you can share information your potential clients would be interested in. Your answers must include useful and relevant information. They can’t be just a sales pitch. Quora’s readers will “black-ball” you for that. You can include a one to two line pitch at the end of your answer, as long as your answer is helpful to the reader.
I’ve found the longer the answer, the more interest the readers show, resulting in more views, upvotes, and shares. If your answers get published, you can include the publication’s logo on your web site and other company collateral.
Sharing your knowledge on Quora is great because it:
- Builds your credibility.
- Establishes you as an expert in your field.
- Creates opportunities for you to get published on mainstream sites.
- And grows your audience (potential employers or clients).
I encourage you to give it a try (and a few weeks; BE PATIENT!). The more you write in response to questions, the better your writing will become. Click here to read my answers on Quora.
