Second thoughts about an online presence

Blogging has not landed me back on a payroll. Nor has social/professional networking, a YouTube page or a Twitter account helped me find a job. As the jobless months drag on, I wonder whether all of this online stuff has actually prevented me from being hired.

The drill for most laid-off journalists is this:

Day one: Join LinkedIn.com
Day two: Get on Facebook
Day three: Start blogging

Then let it all simmer a bit and wait for the phone to ring.

Actually, there is more to it than that, but you get my drift. We're becoming a cliche and the results are the same. The phone rarely rings. The e-mail replies from employers are scarce. The job sites, like LinkedIn.com or CareerBuilder.com, yield tons of spam but no job offers. Employers who want to hire me can't. Just not enough pennies in the pot. The new online-revenue streams aren't very deep and advertising remains flat. Hiring, particularly for newspaper companies, is spotty at best. I sense some editors and publishers wanting to capitalize on my experience by bringing me on board, but there just aren't any positions available.

There is some evidence, more so in my gut than in any scientific poll, that suggests that life on the Internet isn't a cure-all and can actually do more harm than good when searching for work. Yes, all the media and some career experts say modern-day journalists need to be tweeting up a storm and posting text, photos and video on their blogs regularly to show they are progressive and tech savvy. I can do all of that with relative ease, but it's never set well with me. I feel it's self indulgent. I think it reveals portions of myself that may not come across the way I intended. It's too easy to be misunderstood here.

For instance, I am politically independent. Yet, someone reading this blog, particularly lately, might think I am leaning towards the radical left. If that someone is in a hiring position, I am potentially screwed, depending on their political views. One edgy post in a blog of well over 200 could lead to a snap judgment. The only snap judgment I want to hear at this point is "you're hired."

Is it better to put yourself out there and run the risk of being misread? Or is it safer to remain relatively anonymous and not interact in cyberspace? These are questions job seekers wonder about.

There is no foul language or bikini-clad women in this blog. But there are opinions. As a native-New Yorker, I believe debating issues is a good and natural thing. As a one-time newspaper columnist and editorial writer, I guess this stuff is in my blood. I would think that would be a positive quality to project, especially to media companies, but I can also see how one's image could be skewed through a simple Google search.

After many months of being relatively well connected online, I've never felt so disconnected from the working world. Unemployed journalists need to find a delicate balance between being engaged online while not blogging or tweeting themselves right out of a job interview. My blog posts, LinkedIn.com and Facebook profiles, rock 'n' roll YouTube pages or anything else that comes up in a "Mick Calvacca" Google search are not the total summation of who I am. In fact, my professional personality and sensibilities are considerably different than my online persona might indicate.

There is a lot to mull over about the value of blogging and other online activities. I blog to keep my brain working and because that's what unemployed journalists do, I guess. It helps me keep up with the news and I have learned a few technical tricks along the way that might come in useful at some point. Those are good things. With that said, there is very little evidence that there are any job-finding benefits to having an online presence. What I need to figure out now is whether I am doing more harm than good by sharing some of my thoughts and interacting in such a public fashion.