What NOT to Send an Employer for a Blogging Job

More and more people every year are packing up their regular 9-5 jobs and heading into the big world of blogging, to kick start their career online. Blogging jobs usually allow people to blog and talk about what they care most, which needs no sort of motivation if that is the case. As well as this, the hours you choose to work are flexible and, pretty much, all you need to start a career into blogging is a computer with internet connection!
However, you will also need to apply for jobs online, be it on blogging job boards such as ProBlogger Jobs, using contact forms and emailing employers looking to hire freelancers. This is a crucial part to a blogging career since without any work, how do you suppose you will get an income. Create a website and write content for it? If you do this, it might take months or years before you start producing reveneue. When you start your blogging career, you need to make sure you land your first job as quickly and effectively as possible.
With this in mind, coming from the viewpoint of both someone that has sent applications for freelance work and has hired freelancers, here are some tips you can utilise when you send off your application to employers.

1. Make the application personal – There is absolutely nothing worst for an employer to read something that:
   1. Is generic. By this, it is extremely clear that the person has simply copied and pasted a generic application hoping that will be enough to get the job.
   2. Goes into detail about experience not required for the freelance work. For example, if I requested that the freelancers would need experience with numbers and maths, then seeing an application describing how they have a phD in the Arts and Crafts would not help the situation.
2. Don’t bite off more than you can chew when choosing your rate. The rate you obtain from freelance work will very much dictate how well you progress into your blogging career. For this reason, there is a tendency for freelancers to become very optimistic with rates. However, the reality is that, especially when you first start out, do not worry about the rate since it is far more important to get a good blogging job under your belt first. For this reason, if you had a target that you wanted to achieve for your rate, make sure you are extremely negotiable at first as some sort of work at a cheaper rate is better than no work at all.
3. Keep it concise. Although the vast majority of jobs will require the employer looking at your CV, personally, I find it far more beneficial to employing people to have a covering email that tells me what experience you have that is related to the job you are applying for. For example, if an employer gets 20 applicants, each with a two page CV and a covering letter, it will take quite a while to digest. If the 20 applicants sent personalised covering letters that mentioned their experience in them, it would make life for the employer much easier as well as illustrating the same content to the employer in a more precise fashion.