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Web Literate
February 12, 1999
What is a "webmaster", anyway? A few years ago the answer to this question was fairly simple. The webmaster was the person who handled anything to do with the website. They were a jack of all trades, writing HTML code, putting up banners, buttons, gifs, jpgs, etc. Most likely they promoted and marketed the site as well. They conceived the idea for the website, designed it, and nurtured it through its infancy. While this is still true for small, do it yourself personal or business websites, the trend is clearly away from this definition. Webmaster is becoming a Job function with many different components, completed by a variety of personnel. The sprawling nature of webmaster functions has incorporated Job titles such as 'software developer', 'director of engineering', 'manager of information services', 'programmer', 'VP of marketing', etc. Webmasters in the near future are likely to be project managers with minimal technical skills beyond web design. Why does this matter? Because you may have skills that are applicable to some function of web design, promotion, implementation, creation & critique, etc. If Company X is looking to hire people to create and/or repair their website, they may be missing the hires they need because they're advertising for 'webmaster' and you never considered adding this title to your resume. When responding to Job Ads look past the title to the Job description - you may have some of the skills they want. Include some form of webmaster in your keywords and skills descriptions. Learn enough HTML to put 'webmaster assistant' or 'web marketing manager' down as one of your abilities. The goal is to avoid the primary screenout and get to the Interview stage. Your work ethic, personality, and interest in developing your web skills may be sufficient to get you in the door. If They like you, They'll probably be willing to train you in the specifics of what problems they want to solve. So what do these guys make? See webmaster pay scales to find out. Or look at a recent survey. A search in career mosaic for webmaster gives you twenty-nine Jobs. The same keyword search in monster.com results in two hundred twenty-five Jobs. Look at some of the Job titles and subsequent descriptions in these lists, and see if they are in your resume as keywords. If you know what titles a company is running their search under, you can position yourself to be one of their 'finds'.
Web Literate
February 10, 1999
You read the headlines, so you're fully aware about all the layoffs, cutbacks, and downsizing in Corporate America. "It's bad enough I'm having trouble finding a Job", you might think, "and now THIS!" Remember, those headlines are only half the story. Literally. For the last seven years, for every Job that was eliminated, there were two that were created. Most of the Job creation occurs in the smaller companies (less than fifty Employees), so these new Jobs don't get nearly as much press as the Corporate layoffs do. But new Jobs are being created at a frenetic pace. What kinds of Skills are hot right now? Some of the old skills, simply applied to new technologies. LookSmart is hiring producers, associate producers, graphic artists, and HTML coders. LookSmart has been identifying and categorizing the 'best of the web', reviewing what's useful and what's not so you don't have to waste your time floundering around in your searches. Content is back as web companies are being forced to pay attention to how their product appears. The days of put something up, no matter what, are waning fast.
Snap is another web directory, a subsidiary of CNET. Editors, assistant editors, technical writers, and others involved in the production of media content are flocking to newly purchased web companies that are fighting to maintain and build on their market share. Some of these companies are flush with recent injections of money, or have borrowed against their astronomical stock valuations. In any case, there are Jobs to be had in some of these companies, especially if you have some Internet writing, researching, or HTML background.
Online retail sales for last year's holiday season are estimated at $2.3 Billion, and estimates for annual online sales by 2003 are over $100 Billion. That's a lot of website development that needs to take place for these sales revenue estimates to manifest themselves. Information systems specialists, engineers of different stripes, database managers, and programmers are especially sought after, in addition to the aforementioned 'content creators' for various web directories & sites.
Can you explain things easily to others? Trainers for a multitude of software applications are also in high demand. If you enjoy public speaking, then consider leading seminars on some business software that is a piece of cake for you, but gives others fits. Not everyone breezes through new software, and the ability to understand it and teach others how to become comfortable with and apply new software will be valuable into the foreseeable future.
Now's as good a time as any to refine and repackage your skills as being web literate.
Hey, Professor
February 09, 1999
Investments in education are political decisions, affected more by the winds of economic prosperity and the clamoring of strong demographic segments than by good sense. Few will argue that money spent early on in training, improving the quality of education, and reducing teacher/student ratios is a poor investment. Yet it seems like we ignore educational investments for long periods until we can 'afford' them.
Well, that time is at hand. Unexpectedly large budget surpluses across the Federal and State levels are being earmarked, in part, for welfare to work programs, re-training, and improvements in the educational infrastructure. Children of baby boomers are hitting the schools like a horde of cicadas, leaving elementary, high schools, and (soon) colleges burgeoning with students. Baby boomers have enough political clout to direct some of the money into the coffers of a wide range of school systems.
Employment in the teaching profession is poised for substantial growth. One avenue of entry into the teaching profession is through the community college system. Many community college faculty applicants need (at most) only a master's degree in their field of study. This requirement can be obviated by work experience, lowering the minimum educational pre-requisite to a two-year Associate or four-year Bachelor's degree.
Community Colleges are not immune tothe lure of PhD carrying Job applicants, but they do recognize the importance of teaching ability rather than pure research skills. While some of these openings will be filled by current part-time faculty, there will be many openings for the positions being created/vacated by these people. As usual, science and technology teachers are in high demand now, as well as instructors for basic English and Math skills.
The first place to seek out teaching Jobs is in The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is online every Tuesday afternoon, one day before the print edition comes out. Searches can be done by keywords, a list of Job terms, or location. Peterson's is another excellent source.
Other sources include:
CASE - administrative positions in education
Independent School Management - Job listings private school Principles/administrators
THESIS - From the London Times, lists a large assortment of UK and international Job listings
Educause - Primarily information system openings, technical support personnel, librarians, etc
Jobs in Higher Education - Worldwide listings of faculty & staff job listings
Association for Institutional Research - Listings for decision making educators (e.g. management research, policy analysts, planners, academic affairs, finance dept, student services)
AERA - American Educational Research Association pulls job openings from their mailing list
MetaSearches
February 08, 1999
The web contains over half a billion pages already, and is growing at a rate of roughly 1.5 million pages per day. No single search engine covers all those pages; in fact, the largest ones accessonly a third of the existing web pages. This is where metasearching comes in. Metasearching allows multiple search engine queries to be done simultaneously, combining the results for a better cross section of results.
Some software applications that do metasearching have been around for awhile, like WebCompass. Now there are several inexpensive competitors that are worth taking a look at. Copenic 98 for Windows is free; the more advanced version is $29.95. Both of these metasearchers work the same way, you type in your keyword and the program looks through ten search engines in the time it would take you to look in one. Copernic produces one list from all the search engines, eliminates duplications, and gives you the option of discarding any pages that can't be reached. It also searches Usenet groups and email directories.
Or you can download Express (free). It allows general or targeted searches, and will list the sites in each category it can search. Unfortunately, in specialized categories it only searches a default site, rather than multiple ones, (which is why you were using it in the first place!). If you're using a Mac, look for Mac OS 8.5, which includes Sherlock, a metasearching utility. There are plug-in files you can download to improve its performance.
Some metasearching websites are available as well. While they don't offer the features of WebCompass or Copernic, they are easy to use and fairly effective. With Metacrawler you choose whether you want to search the web, financial message boards, Usenet groups, or Libraries. It lists the most relevant results. Dogpile is very similar to Metacrawler, but separates the results by the search engine they came from. Metafind allows the results to be sorted by keywords, domain, search engine, or from A to Z. Internet Sleuth has a nice feature that lets you pick which search engines should be queried.
These are only some of the choices out there. For a more complete list. Try the same search using some of the existing tools and see if one works better than another does. Effectiveness may depend on the kind of searches you conduct most frequently. Before long, metasearching will be standard operating procedure.
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