What to Put on a Business Card If You Are Unemployed
Feb 10th, 2010 | By Bill | Category: Employment NewsThere are a lot of web-based services where you can design your own unique professional business card and have it printed on quality paper. These are very reasonable in price and represent the best $15-$25 investment you can make in yourself. Use one of them!
What to put on your card when you are unemployed? Some of this is up to you. Do you want to include your home address? In some instances, you may not want to do that. Do you want to include your e-mail address? Not if you’re going to be handing your business card to people who use e-mail marketing! A way around this is to start a blog and have a contact form on your blog. Put your blog address on your business card. This gets a little traffic to your blog, too.
Here are the essentials, things that you must put on your calling card:
Your name (obviously) and some way to contact you. Telephone numbers are good. A title — yes, give yourself a title What you do in bullet points A logo — either spend $20 to have someone make one for you or do it yourself, but it helps. A call to action on the reverse side — “Hire me! I’m the best.” You can easily fit all that on a card. You can now hand this card to any interviewer, prospective client, or colleague who can help expand your network. While you’re at it, make sure to get a card from everyone you talk to and file them all. Make notes on all cards you collect so that when you call the people you can refer back to the original conversation.
In surviving unemployment, a business card is an essential tool. Get one.
You should join our little community, Survive Unemployment! There is a great article there about unemployment business cards.
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Hi Bill, what would you say to someone that wants to get those free cards from VistaPrint?
Business cards are essential in a job search. You can’t pass out resumes at a networking event. It’s ok, but not really professional. I would also consider going to a stationary store and get seamless business cards and put some temporary ones together.
I agree that having cards is essential, but not sure I agree with the call to action: “Hire me! I’m the best.” SnapDat is an iPhone app that lets you create and send cards paperlessly, which, in some circles, is gaining popularity. I’ve read a number of tweets recently regarding folks shredding stacks of business cards.
.-= Eric´s last blog ..Lane Kiffin: Is he really that different from you and me? =-.
I’d suggest adding your LinkedIn profile address, Twitter ID and Facebook link if you’re using those for networking in your job search! Great suggestions!
My cards have my name, what I do, phone number, e-mail address and LinkedIn address on the front and four “bullet points” on the back (leaving ample room for people to write on the card backs). I’ve not wanted to include my Twitter ID and blog link, for fear of cluttering the front. The other comments raise good points about including them, however.
.-= Michael Gauger´s last blog ..Say what? =-.
Was wondering what email you can use on business cards if you dont have your own company or are unemployed. Is it ok to use a gmail or yahoo address?
It’s definitely OK to use gmail and yahoo as email addresses. Gmail is better in my book since you used to need a referral to get it and it has much better features than yahoo like calendars. Even better is to get your own domain which shows that you know how to use the internet.
Also going back to the main article, you should always have one email address on your business card, even with telemarketers. I have 2 cards, one set that I use for friends and job prospects and another with a separate address that I use for people who I think may spam me or call on me to sell stuff. These people go directly to my voicemail on google voice and their emails do not go to my blackberry.
-Mark at http://ameres.net
.-= MAmeres´s last blog ..MAmeres: @OnsetLaurie may I send you some resumes? =-.
I’ll tell you now, VistaPrint is good, but beware of the spam they send out.
These are some great ideas. I’m really glad I found your blog. I have been working online for a while now and I think I do need a business card, because I randomly meet people who are interested in what I do. Thanks a lot for making this seem easier.