It might be. And it can certainly be a factor in you getting hired. Case in point: Joel Postman, whose experience was recently catalogued in the San Francisco Examiner.
On the other hand, its a story that’s worth reading closely. The story is not, for example, of an anonymous blogger with no work or prior experience who started a blog which led to him getting hired into a great position at a communications company.
No, Mr. Postman’s story is that of a blogger who had a degree in journalism, who was already at HP and pioneered a blogging initiative at that company. There’s no surprise then, that he was hired into a communications firm with the purposely ambiguous title of “Director of Emerging Media”, with a mandate to help evangelize blogging amongst the firm’s clients.
While I don’t know if having a blog, or having a familiarity with blogs is a required competency for new media professionals, one would think that it would help. On the other hand, while blogging is a tool which is clearly recognized by public relations and marketing professionals as important there’s still a disconnect between what is regarded as important, and what actions are actually taken to embrace it as a tool.
Mr. Postman took advantage of this disconnect by embracing it at his old company, which I think is fantastic. On the other hand, one does wonder blogging as a medium is no longer “new”, and *does* become something that is required, rather than regarded as something new and ground breaking.
