HOW TO GET PUBLISHED
Step 1: Pick an accomplishment from you resume that have these criteria:
a Shows how you did something better, faster, cheaper or at no greater expanse or on time or just as well under extremely difficult circumstances.
b. Is relevant to the current issues of your professional objective, sector or industry employment focus.
c. would be of great interest to your readership, either within your professional community or your target industry.
Step 2: Decide on the angle you want to present and think of a brief outline: focus, conclusions, suggestions to your colleagues, a practical application, etc.
Step 3: Review all of the journals, newsletters and of your national and local professional associations to see what the hot topics are.
Step 4: Call up the editor and discuss your basic idea and ask her/him whether your idea and/or angle is appealing to the readership and if not what angle would they like to see.
If the topic is not appealing at all or has recently been covered, ask what topic would be appealing. Ask for word count of the article and the bio form so people can contact you.
Step 5: Write the article immediately and get it to the editor with a note that you'll call for feedback regarding it's acceptable as is, needs a revision or is totally unacceptable.
Step 6: Once the article is published, find out if the national journal has a reprint service. If it's a local newsletter, you're on your own.
Step 7: Use this article along with your resume and refer to it if this accomplishment is relevant to the key responsibilities of the employment opportunity.
Step 8: Over time you should have your own personal library of professionally relevant articles to include with resume and/or take to interviews with you.
Step 9: Call me if you need some modest amount of help - I'm job hunting too!!!
It's easy to get published and anyone can find something to write about. People who are published are assumed to be "experts" in their field which is why it is so important for job hunters to get published.
However, what job hunters typically fail to realize is that getting published doesn't always require a significant breakthrough or discovery of a new cosmos. It could be about a project that was done for less money, taking less time and effort or under unusual circumstances, with a unique twist, application or result.
If your experience offers none of this, then write about changes you'd like to see happen or a problem you'd like help with. You could write about some element of training or preparation that was missing in preparing you for your job, a particular project or working conditions. You could even write about a project that had no drama, but was simply a competent performance using some of the basics of your field.
I once wrote an article entitled "An Old Fashioned Way to Implement Management by Objectives." I had no new or significant techniques to discuss, no dramatic breakthroughs. I had simply completed a project using the basic technology that's been around for years. It was a solid job, well done, using basic steps that are most often neglected.
The easiest way to get published is to call the editor of the local newsletter or national magazine and discuss the idea you have and ask "What angle would your readership like to read about ?" The editor, most of whom are starving for articles, will tell you what to write about, the style, format, slant and length.
Since they have in effect, told you what and how to write, they will of course, think it's brilliant when they receive it. Because I always speak to the editor first, I have only had one article rejected. Also, be sure to tell the editor that you are open to rewriting it any way that will ensure its getting published.
Additionally, by publishing in the local newsletter first, you can make a modest investment of time and energy, get some local visibility, before expanding it for national publication. And always, have someone outside of your field read it for intelligibility. You want that lowest level of comprehension.
One of my clients was in transition from teaching to training and development. She contacted the editor of the local newsletter to discuss her article describing the process of this transition. Several weeks later, the editor contacted her because of a call she received from an employer looking for a trainer. Three phone calls and one trip later, she had the job. As far as I know, the article has never been completed.
Another client looking for a job as a general manager of a hotel, wrote an article entitled "How Does Your Hotel Sound." This was based on the responses he received in calling the top 10 hotels in Chicago, to determine how they would respond to basic questions about guest services, prices, availability, etc. This article is both very publishable and great data for an interview.
