S P O N S O R S

December 18, 1996 --- If you're looking for work in the DC area, you're in luck. Take a look at the recent makeover that the Washington Post gave their Career Post section. Streamlined (and dominated by a photo of Richard Bolles), the opening page is maturing. The real excitement, though, is the job search engine (driven by a company called Junglee).

What the Post has been able to accomplish is fairly interesting. They've integrated job ads posted on some DC area company sites into their classified ads database.

One of the really interesting features of the Post's approach is a regionalized look at the marketplace. A visit to the Job View page shows a matrix of Metro DC communities segmented by job specialties. So, if you want a job in Human Resources in Fairfax, VA, you click in that cell of the matrix. A little clumsy (because of the size of the Job View file), it's a very interesting bright spot in the future of Newspaper advertising. Who else, but the regional paper, would be smart enough to know the precise distinctions between say Arlington and Rosylyn or Alexandria and Crystal City. From a National employment perspective, they are blips in the data. From a job hunter's perspective, they are huge differences in neighborhood and commute time.

December 17, 1996 --- (from the archives) NewsMonger(tm), TechSmith's new Internet agent, provides complete, automatic monitoring of the USENET news service. NewsMonger finds the handful of articles, out of the 200,000 posted each day, that you need to see, and notifies you instantly via e-mail. Keep watch over your target companies, job descriptions or hoped for locations. Focus in on a single newsgroup or monitor all 15,000+ groups for jobs or other information about your target companies. A fully functional, time-limited evaluation can be downloaded from the web site. Requires Windows.

December 16, 1996 --- (from the archives) Newsgroups and mailing lists have become a complete nightmare for daily reading in the job hunt. How do you cope?

You can use a site like Liszt for locating topical mailing lists and newsgroups, but it can be very time consuming to read and monitor these forums on a regular basis. A service like DejaNews is more useful in that it allows you to search mailing list and newsgroup archives for a text string such as your company name. However, you still need to remember to do this on a regular basis.

Reference.com is a new site that combines the best of Liszt and DejaNews and takes the service one step further. In addition to topical and archive searches, registered users can store complicated queries to run at a later date. Queries can also be run automatically at a specified intervals so that each time the search is run, you receive an e-mail message that contains the results found since the last search. This is currently the best way to search the newsgroups for work if you are in a small enough specialty area.

January 14, 1997 (from the archives). If you broadcast your resume, you will get "flamed".

According to Joe Vitale, Houston net marketing specialist and author of the new book, "CyberWriting: How to Promote Your Product or Service Online (without being flamed)" (AMACOM, $18.95) there are several appropriate ways to handle flames:

1. Remember the new prime directive of cyberspace.
"Write in kindness," says the author. "As long as you soften your heart, take a deep breath, and write a kind message back to the flamer, you will end the flame war, neutralize the flame you received, and make yourself and the flamer feel better."

2. Delete the message before reading it.
"If the header on the message you are about to read says something like 'YOU FOOL!,' you know you are about to read a flame," says Vitale. "You would be wise to delete the message and save yourself the aggravation of reading it."

3. Forget it.
"A fundamental truth in human psychology is that people will defend to the death their belief that they are right," writes Vitale. "You have to be secure enough in your own self-esteem to let the flamer off the hook and not retaliate."

4. Save them for fun.
Did you know that Mark Twain and P.T. Barnum collected crank letters with the idea that someday Twain would write a book about them? Twain never wrote the book, but the idea made receiving those awful letters easier.

Vitale's 180-page new paperback also offers an adapted 1903 secrets for making money online, shows how to write cyber-sales letters and e-news releases, and describes a new formula for writing ads online that get results.

"CyberWriting: How to Promote Your Product or Service Online (without being flamed)" is Vitale's seventh book. He also wrote "The AMA Complete Guide to Small Business Advertising" for the American Marketing Association.

"CyberWriting" is published by AMACOM, the book division of the American Management Association. It can also be ordered online at http://www.amazon.com.

Career Magazine

(January 13, 1997): Do you read Career Magazine? The Boulder, CO based Website offers the following features:
• The Job Openings Database. Every day they download and index job postings from the major Internet newsgroups. Postings are searchable by location, job title and/or skills required.

• The Resume Bank, where you can enter resume information to be placed into the Resume Bank via an online form.

• Employer Profiles, where you will find detailed information on employers around the world.

• Products and Services to help you manage your career.

• Articles and News to help you plan and execute your networked career search.

• The Career Forum, a moderated discussion area where you can network with others, generate leads, share experiences, and seek advice.

• Career Links to other Career-Related Resources on the World Wide Web.

(January 12, 1997): Take a look at Webcatcher. The service (which mails you each weekend) tracks new sites on the net by subject area. Select your professional interests and sign up for a regular diet of new sites.

Any company investing in the Web is liable to be doing well enough to have a slot for you if you fit their needs. Use the Webcatcher weekly report to find out who is growing and what's happening in your profession.

• Companies with Job Ads (Nearly 1500 Links to Companies and their Job Postings)
• Tools (Everything You need for a Job Hunt)
• The daily newsletters are archived in weekly volumes in the Archives. Past issues include:

Many of the items are also included in the Tools Area. The Web's largest collection of Employment related resources is also included in the Tools Area. -----------------