Interview with a Blogger - Stephen Fowler

I only met Stephen for the first time at our recent networking event although I have been reading his blog for ages and we've communicated via email for a number of months now.   When I met him I realised how little I actually knew about him.  I had know from his blog that he has 20 years experience in the recruitment industry and that he know works for a software company.  However, I really wanted to know more about his blogging.    So I thought I'd interview him for the blog (I'm going to try and chat with one of my fellow recruiter bloggers each week now and publish the interviews on the blog).

Stephen's blog has a good mix of content.  He picks up interesting recruitment news articles to talk about, posts a lot of interesting and strange recruitment videos and has the occasional rant.   He also manages to post three or four times a week.    So, here is my interview with Stephen:

How long have  you been blogging?
Would you believe it has now been 12 months, phew!!

Why did you start?
Someone said a year back you can make money out of Blogging so I had a go, the result was very little money but an obsession in Blogging.

What do you do, work related, when you aren't blogging?
I sell recruitment software for Arithon

Do you think blogging has helped your business?
Yes on a number of levels, when I started Blogging I was a Recruitment Consultant and the blog was instrumental in being offered my role at Arithon, as it showed my passion for technology, the web and recruitment, mind you I was using their software too!  In addition Arithon has benefited from the referral business so it has been a win win scenario.

What do you feel is the biggest challenge about writing a blog?
It isn't just about finding the time to write content, which needs to be regular and often to succeed but you also need to be reading other blogs, news articles and commenting on those blogs, which can be very time consuming and hence the biggest challenge.

What's another blog that you read and why do you recommend it?
There are so many to choose from and most are on my blog role, so to help point people in the right direction I would suggest Joel of Cheezhead.com partly as he has become the figure head within this industry and Jim Stoud because of his style with the recruiters lounge and his fun approach. From the UK it has to be yours, Louise, because of your mixed balance of content and more importantly blogging is about networking and you does this better than anyone (I'm obviously blushing profusely at this point). 

Just pick the ones you like, it could be their style of writing or the specialist market.  What is important is that you subscribe, either by email or RSS feed as these bloggers give you so much free information that it will give you the edge on your competitors.

What do you want your reader’s to know about you?
Recruitment has finally given me the freedom to work where I want and for whom I want.

If you knew someone was thinking about starting a recruitment related blog, what advice would you want to give them?
Just do it, but especially if you work in a specialist sector; then you have no excuse, as it will give you credibility, FREE quality passive candidates and you will be learning so much at the same time. Oh and if I was to recommend a blogging format then it would be wordpress or alternatively give me a call and I will give you a few more tips to get up and running

Is there a question you wished I asked you?
What would you do if I didn't blog? I am just glad you didn't ask!

Comments

[Rick]

Good stuff.

I've shoved you both onto the blogroll at Flip Chart Fairy Tales.

[Louise Triance]

Thanks Rick, I appreciate the link. Louise