Well, I finally finished my online portfolio. This is no small feat—in my mind anyway—since what I do feels so varied and so much of it is sort of behind closed doors. The majority of the stuff I write doesn’t exactly have my name signed to it, you know? (I’m working on changing that.) And I do worry that some of the examples being out of context will not be the asset to me that they have been to the brands they were written for. But I think I’ve managed to collate a decent enough representation of what I’ve been up to the last few years, for better or worse.

Now I have to find a company or organization that actually values worthwhile content development, community management, and brand building over cheap tricks and content spinning, and then convince them to hire me.

Hey, did you know there’s a buzzword for that? It’s “content marketing”, which basically means website content that isn’t a total waste of everyone’s time. That is, meaningful, quality content vs. regurgitated garbage or pointless, rambling drivel. Kind of depressing that there has to be a buzzword for that concept to be taken seriously, huh? And that it’s not just the default way webpages are written? (It’s hard not to be a little jaded about it after working in SEO for even just a couple years; there’s lots of pressure to spin content, pump out a lot of BS copy, and do other cheap tricks.) Fortunately, “content marketing” really is the only viable long-term marketing strategy if Google has its way in the end, or if you want to do meaningful brand building.

Okay, so I sort of have opinions about web content.

Or maybe I’ll try to find a front-end dev job and hope for the best. I don’t know, man. I just need employment so I can pay my rent and fix my car. I tried to freelance and I don’t think I have the balls to do it full-time. At least, not at this stage in my life.

And you know what else I’m done with at this stage in my life? Hiding who I am. I’m quick and quirky and eccentric, and I understand that sometimes makes folks uncomfortable (which I do what I can to mitigate.) And maybe it makes them think I’m not “professional” or something along those lines. But, you know what? I am plenty professional. I’m also creative, innovative, diplomatic, honest, and I’ll always, always, always go above and beyond to help out. It’s just in my nature. If something so superficial as the color of my hair or my name being Hal or the hobbies I have somehow overshadows that to someone, then it’s really, really not my loss, and I have to keep telling myself that. Because I genuinely need to not feel ashamed about who I am for 40 hours every week. It’s a line in the sand I’ve drawn. I don’t want to work for anybody who wouldn’t hire me.

Anyway, tomorrow I start sending out my resume. I’m a little nervous about it, if I’m honest.