Right now the forums are a bit sparse. Of course, the site is new. Go add your voice. Perhaps a recruiter or two will drop in, find you, and be overwhelmingly impressed with your knowledge. You never know.

Which Are Yours?

March 12, 1998

Ok. Let's face it. There are plenty of places on the net to go look for job postings.

Incredibly serious hunters will check each and every site on a regular basis. After all, one site just might have that dream job that no other site has found yet.

Others of you though, are just looking. The idea of visiting each and every site is mind boggling. So, you'll find a few that you like and those will become your stomping grounds.

How do you choose which ones will be yours?

Well, a new alliance may make it easier.

Monster Board and Online Career Center have joined together and forayed into Excite and Yahoo!.

The two employment sites will be featured in the Yahoo! Classified site where you can look for jobs by region, state, profession, and just about anything else you can think of.

They're also joining with Excite's Career and Education channel to become a one-stop shopping ground for those needing direct access to more than 100,000 job listings, personal job search agents, resume-building and posting capabilities, company profiles and valuable advice on managing a career.

However, for those of you who want a bit less hoopla and a bit more control, try the All New York Employment, Career, and Job Resources page. This 216K page, not site, not just for New Yorkers, has links to everything you need. An easily-organized, no-frills, find-what-you-want, and leave-it-at-that kind of place. It also offers a marvelous a job resources by profession section where you can hunt in a logical way for jobs as diverse as zookeeping and acting.

One Stop Shopping

March 11, 1998

Need a new stomping ground for your job hunt?

Try the site out of Clemson University. It's not really a site, but rather a page--a very slow-loading page at that. However, it pulls together in one space some of the best sources on the internet that aree related to the job hunt.

In fact, you might find enough links at the site that, if you follow them all, you could become your own career expert.

The pages starts, eventually, with a rather tedious and lengthy introduction to the contents and its creators. It then moves to a table which indicates there are nine different sections, ranging from what the creators call job search engines, to large corporations with job postings, to cost of living information. There's also a career resource section and internship and fellowship opportunities.

What does make the page helpful is the rating and comment section for each of the links. Not all have been rated yet, but each has a concise, almost always positive comment associated with it. And while we may disagree with some of the comments, they have included some very helpful sites.

So, approach it with lots of time and a bit of skepticism.

Aside from the difficulty you might have in scrolling down such an extensive page, and aside from the fact that little in it seems alphabetized, it's nice to see a place that looks at so many aspects of the job hunt and tries to pull them together.

A Brief Look at Both Sides

March 10, 1998

Career Source Magazine OnLine devotes itself to career improvement. Although its paper version is free in certain counties in California, its September/October issue is online for free.

The job listing section is reasonable in that there are quite a few companies who have posted positions. The drawback is that it's a niche market -- definitely geared toward those who live (or want to live) in California.

The most useful part of the magazine is its skimpy editorial section. There are only three sections, but they're worth reading because of who the magazine hopes to draw. Career Source wants to capture both the recruiters and the hunters. To that end, they offer bits of information and comment geared toward each group.

So, although you won't need to spend long at the site, browsing through the editorial section might just help you get a clearer idea of how your needs as a hunter and the needs of the recruiter mesh together...

Upgrade Your Skills

March 09, 1998

Think technology isn't for you? Think again.

Inacom Corp. just finished the latest round of open houses intended to bring new blood to the reseller. They've attended 30 career fairs so far this year and have hired about 700 people. They want 1,00 - 1,500 more over the next year to year and a half.

They're not alone. Everyone is scrambling for people with technical skills. Do you have any to offer?

If not, perhaps it's time to consider gaining some.

Ok. We're not absurd. We know you can't become a techie overnight. Nor can you learn to be a problem 2000 solver in a matter of weeks. You can, though, begin working on it.

If you hate your job (or don't have one) and can afford the time, go find a computer science program at a local college. See what they have to offer and whether it's something you think you could do.

If the thought of years of school doesn't cut it, check out a local community college and see what they offer in the way of Web design courses or HTML or Java for the next semester.

Better yet, do it all online.

ZDNet University lets you take all the computer courses you want, online, for $4.95 a month. According to their site, they offer courses in:

Programming: Java, Visual Basic, C++, Visual C++, CGI
Webmaster: HTML, Dynamic HTML, JavaScript, Push Channels
Design: Photoshop, Graphics, Web Layout
Databases: Microsoft Access, SQL, PowerBuilder
Networking: Windows NT, Web Servers, UNIX
Net User: Netscape Communicator, Searching the Net
Desktop: Upgrading & Repairing, Office Applications
Business: Marketing, Advertising, Web Management

No, you get no college credit. As far as we know, you don't even get a certificate of completion. What you might get, though, is a demonstrable skill that can improve your employability profile. And, the price is right.

Online Courses and Lecture Notes is a site of links to course material and notes that exist on the Web. While much of it is specific to a particular course at a particular school, the material may be useful to others who are interested or who are taking similar courses.

If you're interested in credit courses, or aren't sure that computer science is the way to go, look at the 400 courses offered online, compiled by the Electronic University Network.

While distance learning isn't for everyone, it is a great way to add to your technical (or other) skill base and improve your competency with using the Internet.