2015 is about to come to an end and what a great year it was.
I like to thank all of you for your continued support of my blog over the past 1 year of its existence.
Although I started blogging since 2005, it was pretty random and it was done via a wordpress.com platform which didn’t provide the best user experience.
Fortunately, my friend (who runs Wet Tee Shirt now) introduced me to Michael Hyatt and the Get Noticed theme that he uses and provides as a product.
That led me to better position what I wish to write instead of everything under the sun (which I could do so on Facebook).
Initially, it covered recruitment topics (for employers and hiring managers) and career topics (for job seekers).
As I was forced to register a dedicated business for my career training services (due to compliance reasons), I took the opportunity to set up a website for CareerLadder and migrated all career related topics over.
That left my personal blog with Recruitment, Productivity, and Entrepreneurship.
Around May 2015, I wrote a blog post outside of those topics. It was about my experience in bringing my 3 kids out alone and how I survived that outing.
It was a random rant as I was disappointed with my blog traffic then.
Incredibly the blog post which require zero research and less than 40 minutes to write went viral.
That post received 1,155 views on the day of posting and another 1,642 views on the next day.
The results made me explore this genre since and it became the 4th topics I write about on my blog.
Along the way, a few other blog posts also started getting more views than usual.
I’m still trying to learn the construct of a good blog post and experimenting along the way.
What to expect in 2016
I have completed an eBook draft and is in the process of getting this formatted. It’s a beginner’s guide to entrepreneurship, targeting very much as the mid-career professionals who might want to explore this space as an alternative.
Some whom I’d spoken with had tried doing their own business but it isn’t simply registering a business and printing your own name card with a Gmail address.
Most get disheartened when their attempts didn’t work.
Of course, it wouldn’t.
My guide will teach you how to get a business started and excel in it even if you are doing this on a part-time basis.
My blog postings would continue although the frequency might be reduced.
Using an editorial calendar, I have already mapped out (more or less) what to write over the next 12 months so that should help me write in a better sequence and relevance to my audience.
After almost a year of break from the exit of my recruitment business, I am keen to return to full-time work and is currently in talks over a few opportunities.
I will keep you posted on that when it happened.
If you want to keep up with me beyond this blog, then you can always follow me on Twitter (@adriantan18), Facebook or LinkedIN, where I tweet about our other projects, marketing tips, and tons of other cool things.
Now let’s take a look at the best of Adrian Tan’s Blog in 2015.
Best of Adrian Tan’s Blog in 2015
January 2015
The Ultimate Job Apps and Web Tools Guide That Will Get You Hired – This belongs to my old career category which I have since migrated to CareerLadder blog. In it, you will find 8 recommended phone and web apps that could help you discover your inner callings or simply optimizing your resume to get it read by a recruiter.
February 2015
The 5 Most Poisonous Office Personality Types – This is one of my older blog post which I republished on my blog. It covers the types of office colleagues you would wish to avoid. I could go on and on if I didn’t keep it to 5.
March 2015
5 Secrets Headhunters Will Never Tell You – Drawing from 11 years of recruitment experience, you can find secrets that headhunters will never tell you. Things like reference baiting to how quickly they scan through your resume for the first time (it’s less than 10 seconds)
April 2015
Why this $800 job ad will get 0% response – My first post which went viral, clocking 2,162 views in April alone. This came about after running through the papers one day and I came across this job postings which I just felt was totally ineffective. I decided to dissect it and put my list of recommendations on what might work instead. It’s my first long-form post with more than 2,000 words.
May 2015
How To Survive With 3 Young Kids Out Alone – My first foray into the parenting genre. This blog post chronicle one of my attempts to bring my 3 kids out alone on public transportation. And what I did to make sure it went as smoothly as possible. It went viral and garnered 3,659 views in May alone.
June 2015
6 Ways We Wasted Money on Our Kids – Raising kids in Singapore is really expensive and it was made worse with the things we wasted money on for them. With some research, we uncovered cheaper alternatives when it comes to clothing, medical care, and even diapers.
July 2015
24 Awesome HR tools for Entrepreneurs and SMEs – My first list post which I curated 24 HR tools that would be enormously beneficial to entrepreneurs and small business owners. You get to learn about tools for employee feedback, to an implementation of an intranet in minutes.
The Most Comprehensive List Of Daddy Bloggers in Singapore – With me gaining momentum in writing parenting related topics and scoring better traffic in terms of a list post, I decided to put the two together and write a list post on daddy bloggers in Singapore.
August 2015
Are You Ready To Become An Entrepreneur in Singapore? – Leveraging from my decade of experience as an entrepreneur, I created a guide for all aspiring entrepreneurs to gain a better understanding of what is needed to start a business in Singapore.
4 Spouse Picking Advice I Will Share With My Kids – This post was inspired by a statement Sheryl Sandberg mentioned: “The Most Important Career Choice You’ll Make Is Who You Marry“. It got me thinking about the kind of spouse I would hope my kids would have to support them in their life’s journey.
September 2015
How To Deliver A Speech Like Dr. Chee Soon Juan – As a public speaker, I am extremely impressed with Dr. Chee Soon Juan speech during the election period. My post isn’t political, but a dissection of what he did right as a public speaker that drives the emotions and supports from the masses.
October 2015
Our Summer Family Trip To Hong Kong – One of the few of our family travelogue, this is one which saw us at Hong Kong under the hot summer heat. We went to a vintage amusement park and had great fun at Disneyland. This post is still getting me very good traffic until today.
November 2015
Destroy Your Competition With These 3 Free Recruitment Hacks – Using just LinkedIN to recruit is so 2014. My post put together 3 tools which allow you to go beyond your competition to ensure you get the first pick of the (talent) cherry)
December 2015
Our Year-End Family Trip To Bangkok – Riding on the success of my Hong Kong travelogue, I wrote another one which documented our year end trip to Bangkok.
These were some of my best blog posts. I hope that you liked them.
I would like to thank you once again for supporting us throughout the year by offering feedback, sharing our articles, leaving comments and suggesting topic ideas.
I am really very thankful and hope to add even more useful blog posts in 2016.
