Here are 6 great websites to help you with your career planning. Only 1 of these offers job listings. The others are aimed at helping you with all the other considerations that accompany making career decisions; whether you are just starting out or making a radical change.

Career planning should involve more than perusing job listings. Your 9-5 happiness (or whatever time schedule you have) strongly depends upon the understanding you have of your personality type, interests, aptitude, education and so forth. The following sites are great resources to help you figure a lot of this out.

Career Cruising – http://www.careercruising.com

Type – Provided by Anaca Technologies Ltd developer of online career guidance resources for the North American marketplace. This is a national source.

Affiliated organizations - Established in 1997, Career Cruising is currently used by over eight thousand institutions across North America, including schools, employment agencies, libraries, colleges and universities.

Group or population resource is intended to serve - interactive career resource designed for people of all ages. It has products to meet the needs of educators, career counselors, and workforce development professionals.

Goals and objectives applied to resource - Career Cruising offers a suite of online career guidance and planning tools designed for people of all ages. It has tools to help an individual find the right career, explore education and training options, build a customized portfolio, manage a school’s course selection process (for e.g. guidance counselors), or set up a career development network in a community. This website would be appropriate for most populations and would be used as long as a paid subscription exists.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives - Site has products and services for schools, libraries and employment centers such as a guidance system with add on modules (including course planner and network). Real time stats are provided to monitor student progress. Hundreds of occupational profiles are available which include: job description, information on working conditions, earnings, education and training, a sample career path, links to related occupations, other resources, and multimedia interviews.

Strengths of the resource – easy to navigate, user friendly, clean modern look, and it has lots of interactive features.

Weaknesses of the resource – may be more appealing to a more youthful audience. It requires a paid subscription for use.

Career Builder – http://careerbuilder.com

Type or category of resource: This is a international source created by Gannett, Inc. in conjunction with Microsoft

Affiliated organizations – Tribune Company and McClatchy Company

Group or population resource is intended to serve – International population of adult job seekers

Goals and objectives applied to resource – Company provides access to a vast amount of job posting information, links to companies posting jobs, ease of submitting a resume and cover letter, and notification of new job postings via email. It also makes job recommendations based on keywords and locations.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – Resumes and cover letters may be uploaded and submitted at the click of a mouse. Job postings are pulled up by keywords and location and may be organized by posting date, location and keywords.

Strengths of the resource –This site has an enormous amount of job information, is well organized and easy to use. There is no cost for the job seeker to use this service.

Weaknesses of the resource - This site only assist job seekers who have specific career choices in mind. Although it may suggest searches, these are based on the keywords that a job seeker has entered. There is no career guidance portion or information that gives occupational outlooks or profiles. Job seekers need to estimate the job outlook by the number of job postings that exist for a given keyword on a nationwide (or international) basis.

United States Department of Labor - http://www.bls.gov/bls/infohome.htm

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations - Bureau of Labor Statistics (fact finding agency for the Federal Government)

Group or population resource is intended to serve – This site provides free information for business leaders, consumers, investors, job seekers, media, public policy makers, students and teachers.

Goals and objectives applied to resource – Provides job outlooks, descriptions of occupations, profiles, occupational hazards and workplace injury statistics, typical occupational compensation in various geographic locations, educational requirements for each occupation. It has a very extensive database of free information.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – This site has lots of information that can assist a person who is wants to know more about any given occupation from many perspectives.

Strengths of the resource – Information is free and plentiful on this site. It is easy to navigate from one area to the next (even for those who are particularly Internet savvy).

Weaknesses of the resource – There are no job postings or means to take an inventory of a person’s traits or interests in order to make recommendations.

O*Net - http://online.onetcenter.org/

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations – many CIDS use this data base as an element of their research

Group or population resource is intended to serve – developed by the Federal Government and offered for online for free to individuals and organizations

Goals and objectives applied to resource – This site is a comprehensive resource that provides links to related sites, occupational descriptions, classifications, interest items and so forth.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – database of more than 900 occupations with information on tasks, knowledge, skills, work activities, work context, interests, work values, related occupations and job zones for each. Interest items use the codes developed by John Holland.

Strengths of the resource – This site is extremely powerful. It can “crosswalk” between different occupational classification codes (e.g. Standard Occupational Classifications (SOC) and Military Occupational Classifications (MOC)). It has online help and counselor resources. It is also available in Spanish.

Weaknesses of the resource – It is so vast that it requires some practice to be familiar with the site.

America’s Career Resource Network - http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ovae/pi/cte/acrn.html

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations – State government entities facilitate State Career Resource Network (CRN) activities.

Group or population resource is intended to serve – students and their parents

Goals and objectives applied to resource – Seeks to improve career decision-making by relating educational decisions and experience to occupational exploration, career choice, and vocational preparation. It informs students about the knowledge and skills that are necessary to pursue any given career path.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives – database of teaching materials, updates, helps students with assemble college and financial aid information.

Strengths of the resource – Great career planning resource on the educational steps needed for a given career.

Weaknesses of the resource – Since the site is presented by the U.S. Dept. of Education, it has a singular education focus.

Veterans’ Employment & Training Service (VETS) - http://www.dol.gov/vets/programs/tap/tap_fs.htm

Type or category of resource: National

Affiliated organizations – United States Department of Labor

Group or population resource is intended to serve – U. S. Veterans and transitioning service members

Goals and objectives applied to resource – to provide Veterans and transitioning service members the resources and services to succeed in the 21st century workforce by maximizing their employment opportunities, protecting their employment rights and meeting labor-market demands with qualified veterans today.

Activities, assignments, or tasks to assist client in achieving these goals and objectives - Job grants on the State level are available for veterans, as well as transition assistance programs (TAP) and employment services. TAP Workshop attendees learn about job searches, career decision-making, current occupational and labor market conditions, and resume and cover letter preparation and interviewing techniques. Participants also are provided with an evaluation of their employability relative to the job market and receive information on the most current veterans’ benefits.

Strengths of the resource – effective resource to help Veterans and transitioning military personnel secure jobs sooner

Weaknesses of the resource – is singularly focused on military personnel and their families.

The top 5 issues are:

• The changes necessary to drive SEO, particularly technology changes, cannot be executed in house on a
• timely fashion.
• Many organizations think SEO is “free” and are therefore insensitivity to the investment necessary, (as well as the continuity of investment required) to develop and maintain SEO results
• SEO programs are complex — and most organizations under invest in their web analytics systems. This deprives them of key data necessary to optimize lead generation efforts.
• Getting FTEs (Full Time Equivalent employees) to do SEO work is difficult in this age of the hiring freeze. Talented SEO professionals are available however; justifying bringing them in house is difficult.

These five reasons strongly point to the need to outsource SEO to a team of experts who can effectively deliver the service a small business needs and wants.

Source: http://covario.com

This is the tale of a Florida resident that wants to buy a home , qualifies for FHA, has a steady job, is creditworthy, yet all lenders are turning her down.

See the original post here:�
Why you can’t get a loan - CNNMoney.com Talkback

Well, supposedly we all know what doing more of the same brings… more of the same…and that is a formula for insanity!

So, if we all know this then why are so many small business owners refusing to take a good look at themselves and try to evaluate what is going on?

It must be that fear has gotten a grip on them.

Fear makes people “hunker down” and then do more of the same.  It even makes them ignore information, events and people that are in a position to help them implement the changes that they need to grow even during these frightening times.

The reality is all business is not going to die or go away. This period of time is really a shake up and the ones who are going to shaked out are the ones who are not figuring out more competitive ways to do business.  It is that simple.

Businesses who seek to pare down and do more of the same will not thrive.  Most likely they will be one of the casualties.  The ones who are willing to take the risk of trying something different will distinguish themselves in the market place and consequently take on more market share.

Small businesses need to stop being peddlers who get more and more shrill as their fear levels increase.  They need to take a deep breath and understand that in this day and age consumers still want and seek added value.  They will pay for the experience (the classic example is the Starbucks coffee).

Businesses that commoditize their products or services will find it harder to recover even if they make it through the recession.

Are you tied to old Outbound Marketing techniques? You are if you are relying on telemarketing, trade shows, direct mail, email blasts, print ads and TV/radio ads. This is now generally regarded as: Interruption Marketing.

If this is what you do, you need to rethink your marketing plans right away. Just consider how favorably you feel about being interrupted. Yeah right. Toss that picture.

You need to listen to Seth Godin (creator of Squidoo and Marketing guru) who stresses the importance of getting your customers permission to market to them. Permission marketing is the future. Are you going there?

If so, then you are saying hello to Inbound Marketing methods: SEO/SEM, blogging, social media, RSS, offering free tools and trials and doing lots of public relations work.

There is no need to panic. You do not need to go it alone, but you do need to change and change quickly. You will find that inbound marketing is a cost effective way to market and by cutting out some of your disappointing outbound marketing strategies, you will be free to move ahead with inbound marketing strategies. You will realize a great ROI with your decision to shift to inbound marketing. What are you waiting for? If you are behind your competition, they are probably already starting to do this. If you are already ahead, make sure you keep your lead. Act now.

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