You Should Write. Here’s How.

Every job post lately has it. “Good written communications.”

How can I assess someone’s ability to communicate using the written word?

Their resume. But that’s usually overly prepared and doesn’t show a writing style.

A few e-mails. Yeah, you can see whether they proofread their emails before they send them.

It turns out this is post number 135 on JaySchulman.com. I feel like there should be more. It’s now 135 examples of my writing style. There are typos and oddly phrased sentences… but guess what? I’m not a perfect writer.

Before you close the page and move on, this isn’t a recommendation that you should start a blog. It’s hard to produce content twice a week for more than a year.

Guest Post

But I am going to open up the platform to allow you to write in the name of growing your career. While not many people will be impressed that you have a featured article on JaySchulman.com, you can point to it as a place for people to read your writing and your ideas.

I’m accepting guest posts to JaySchulman.com. If you’ve needed an outlet to express an idea or showcase yourself, here is a great opportunity.

Don’t worry if your just getting started or you don’t have a “name” in information security. That’s the whole idea. Make a name with the comfort that someone is going to read it before you post it. (Me.)

Topic

I post three broad categories of information: learning information security, career and management advice, and interesting stories that other information security professionals would be interested in.

For many people, the easiest thing to write about is in the “learning” category. My projects experiment is about teaching someone how to do a foundational or experimental activity where they learn something about information security. (Setting up a VPN teaches you networking and encryption, for example.)

Requirements

Before you start churning out words on the page, here are some things to consider:

• The minimum length is 500 words.
• There is no maximum length, but understand that people’s attention span is probably not too much over 1500 or 2000 words.
• I’ll edit your work so you look great. But that takes a bit of time. So…
• You must submit your post 14 days before it will be published. That way I can edit it, get your approval, and set it up for posting.
• I’m happy to link to your Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, how ever you want to feature yourself. You can even include a picture of yourself if you’d like.
• You can’t be negative about a product, person or company. You’re welcome to be negative about a technology (“I don’t like PHP”) or method (“Using 1234 as your iPhone password is dumb”).
• You can submit all kinds of multimedia — images, video, audio.
• No anonymous posting is allowed. You can use an alias if you already own the name in the information security community. (i.e. Infosec Taylor Swift)

Sign Me Up!

Sound like something you want to do?

Send me an e-mail at post@jayschulman.com. Include the following:

• Spend no more than 5 minutes typing words about what you want to write about. Use bullets. Give me the idea of what you want to write about. Don’t go crazy.
• Let me know why you think it would be valuable to people who want to grow their information security career/skills. (Maybe it’s obvious.)
• When you think it will be ready to post. (Note the 14 day lead time to edit.)
• Anything else you think I should know.

My goal is to help you showcase yourself. What to break some rules? That’s ok as long as you explain why.

Thanks.