I talked to a group of journalism students last week, and they had a professional question: Do students need their own business cards?
The short answer: I don’t think business cards help much with the job search. Every journalism student’s business card looks pretty much the same: Your name, your contact information, and a line somewhere that says “Reporter/Editor/Journalist.” When you’ve got three inches of space to work with, you can’t say much.
If I were in J-school, I’d focus instead on the space where you can say a lot more: Your own domain. I’ve given this advice before, and I’ll say it again:
When someone gets your resume, the first thing they’re going to do is Google your name. And if you’re pitching an organization on your digital skills, you need something better than yourname.wix.com. Go to domainr.com and search for your name. If you can buy yourname.com, do it. If that’s taken, try something that fits your career aspirations: yournamereports.com, byyourname.com, yournamestories.com, etc. Build a website that showcases your reporting, and make it easy for someone to contact you. (You wouldn’t believe how many people build websites with no contact information!)
Then take the next step: Open up an incognito window, and search for your own name. (That way, you’ll see results that aren’t personalized for you.) What comes up? Is there anything on there you wouldn’t want a potential employer to see?
Your goal should be to get your own domain to the top of the page — but at the very least, you want it on the first page. (If you built your site with WordPress, use a tool like All in One SEO to set up your site correctly for Google.) Make sure that what comes up represents you: a LinkedIn profile (and yes, take a minute and personalize your LinkedIn URL), a Twitter account, and clips or work from your previous experiences.
If you meet someone new, remember: What matters most is what they’ll see when they Google you. Make sure that what shows up there — your personal domain, your professional social media profiles, etc. — showcases who you are and what you want to do next in your career.
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That photo is by Nick Adams from Unsplash.