An Interview with Me, Myself and I

The first step in this process is actually interviewing myself. We can call this the sample interview. After all, how can I expect to interview people if I cannot be honest with myself?

The first thing that I tell clients and colleagues alike is that you have to know where you have been before you can know where you are going.

As for me, I didn’t start off in search, or on the web for that matter. In fact I was an architecture student planning to build buildings, but my work-study job was in a computer lab. Need I say more?

So, a few people and I built websites for a few organizations in college. After graduation, I did work for an architecture firm for a few months, but after my great-grandmother’s passing, I realized that life was too short to not to be doing what I like to do, being online.

So I started pounding the pavement. My first gigs were freelance gigs (I should of known something then), but I settled down to a programming position for a year.

I was then laid off. A month later, I worked at a certain Internet advertising company doing the precursor to text ads with banner ads. Two years went by, and I decided to get an MBA.

After getting the MBA, I started looking for work, this was post-bubble 2002. Finally, I find a job as an Internet Marketing Analyst. My role was to prepare reports, provide assistance with programming and deal with vendors that provided services for my employer.

Even though the title didn’t change much, the responsibilities evolved. I was first reviewing and deciphering log files (anyone remember those?) As time went on I became interested in SEO and SEM and how they made an impact on traffic.

In 2006, I was laid off yet again, but this time, I decided to start working for myself, primarily due to eldercare responsibilities. In addition to growing personal responsibilities, my business also started to evolve once again, this time to blog development.

Now I focus on not only branding and customizing blogs, but I also focus on making them of course, search engine friendly.

What advice I would give? Don’t be afraid to learn something new. Its just one of those challenges that one encounters on the road to success.