WRITING ARTICLES

Writing an article is a great way to raise your profile in your industry and/or profession. Published authors are perceived as experts and more knowledgeable than others in profession. If you've discovered an interesting way of doing something at work that you think others would like to know about, that could be a great topic for an article. Of course if it's something unique to your company, you need to make sure your employer wouldn't consider it a proprietary trade secret. Another potential topic is discussing what you foresee happening in your industry or profession in future.

Once you have a topic, your article can simply discuss your experiences with it. Or, you may want to interview other professionals who have experience with topic to get their input. Being able to quote other people in article can make it even more interesting.

Unless you're dealing with an exceptional interviewer, which you can usually determine rather quickly, you should take it upon yourself to insure you find out what employer is looking for and convey how you can do job. There are two important things you need to accomplish in interviews: one is providing interviewer with factual information supporting idea that you are a good fit for job; other is for interviewer to connect with that logic on an emotional level. Trial attorneys face a similar challenge when presenting their case to a jury. They need to provide them with both factual information and with an emotional connection to their version of story.

The most powerful way of creating an emotional connection is through visualization. Just as a jury needs to visualize an attorney's version of a story for them to have an emotional connection with it, an interviewer needs to be able to visualize you in role they're hiring for, doing tasks of job. The interviewer needs to see you doing those things and needs to be able to visualize outcomes. Helping someone visualize your story can be done by using detailed descriptions of actions and through appropriate use of hand gestures and body language.

To illustrate, instead of saying person burglarized house, which is an abstract idea, a trial attorney would describe actions: John walked up brick walkway at 8:00 pm on a moonlit evening, shattered side window and climbed into house. The first way of explaining what happened just gives an abstract idea which creates either no image in listener's mind, or just a vague image that they won't remember. The second way provides a vivid image they can easily recall and connect to. The attorney might even use some gestures and body language when talking about walking up steps or shattering window, which further reinforces visual imagery.