My Blog on My CV?

This is a question posed by Doctor Vee yesterday and picked up by the Devil’s Kitchen.

Both pieces tend to pick up on the positive benefits of doing so:

This, from Doctor Vee:

The truth is that blogging probably is one of my better achievements. It has certainly been my main extracurricular activity over the past few years. So I think I will throw caution to the wind and stick it on my CV. After all, chances are that they will find it via Google anyway. I am also convinced that my years of blogging has given me lots of skills. That is actual skills, not M4D 5K1LL5.

and this from DK

I do mention blogging on my CV, although I do not include the URL unless asked to do so: The Kitchen could be a bone of contention. Last year, I went for a job, just prior to moving to London, and one of the interviewers was a certain Julia Hobsbawn of Editorial Intelligence (and once of Hobsbawn Macaulay—yes, that Macaulay). I was slightly disconcerted when the first question asked was what the URL of my blog was.

However, as I pointed out in Doctor Vee’s comments, I don’t. My CV contains only my professional achievements. If, during an interview, I feel that extracurricular activities are relevant to the discussion at hand, then sure, I’ll mention it – as I did recently when asked about attention to detail. I mentioned my paid writing and therefore my pedantry when it comes to proof reading my drafts before submission. It was relevant at the time, but is not on my CV.

One of Doctor Vee’s commenters made the following observation:

If it is in your name, then they will ask you why it is *not* on your cv. What are you hiding?

My response to this is, broadly, that it is not relevant and therefore none of their concern. Sure, they can look at it as it is in the public domain, but it contains nothing of my work, so there is nothing that may cause them concern. Failing to include an extracurricular activity on one’s CV is not hiding anything, it is simply not mentioning that which I do not consider relevant. There is, however, another factor at work here. That is; the distinction that I draw between work and leisure. My blogging falls firmly in the latter category. I do not discuss my work here and while not exactly anonymous, the use of a pseudonym means that I can maintain a degree of separation.

The line I draw between my work and my private life is one that I do not allow employers to cross. My private life is just that; private. I am reminded here of my father’s experience during his last period of employment before retirement. He had worked his way up to the highest grade at his level within the civil service. When he transferred to an auxiliary role with the military he dropped back a grade and this, he accepted. When he failed to regain his erstwhile grading following a successful review, he was told that it was because he did not take part in any of the regiment’s social activities. Frankly, I was appalled (so was he). I, too, do not take part in works social activities. I may get along fine with colleagues, but that does not mean that I want to socialise with them and it certainly does not mean that I want my work life intruding into my private life. I have a firewall between the two and will maintain it with vigour. Employers who expect me to share my social life with them are in for a disappointment and they are employers that I will always steer clear of anyway. A contract of employment does not confer ownership of my time beyond that when I am at work. Or, at least, none that I am prepared to sign.

So, if asked by an employer why I do not have my blogging (nor, for that matter any of my other leisure activities) on my CV, I’ll be polite about it, but the short answer is that it is none of their business and I fully intend to keep it that way.