HR/Employment Blogosphere Update for December 5, 2005

I’ve added a new category to the Blogroll: “Blogs, Career & Job Search.”

My intention is to make this blogroll comprehensive as to the areas covered, rather than limiting it to a few personal favorites. So I will gladly accept any suggestions for additions. I would also like to hear if anyone listed has stopped posting or should be removed for other reasons.

The new category includes some delightful additions I just discovered. (But it also bloats my Bloglines load to 195 feeds! No, I don’t get to them all every day. Not even every week, unfortunately.)

So today I’m focusing on posts from this Career & Job Search category.

One of the best-organized and prolific seems to be wildjobsafari, promising a weekly schedule:

• Monday: Resumes;
• Tuesday: Networking;
• Wednesday: Adding Value and Overcoming Obstacles;
• Thursday: Interviewing;
• Friday: Reader’s Questions.

“Safari” offers sound and very specific advice in “ADDING VALUE: When to give 1,245,829.4%.” and “NETWORKING: First Contact With Mr. Smith, Part 3: First Impressions.”

At Wired & Hired, I found more great advice in an easy-reading and entertaining style that will keep me coming back. Look at “Resume 101″ and “Take looking for a job as seriously as you take getting laid, and we will all be happier,” for example.

The latter post kind of echos the computer-dating/ internet-job-search analogy Michael and I kicked around in the posts from this Blawg that are featured in BlawgWorld 2006.

Business Mom “looks at the intersection of, conflict between, and negotiation around business life and home life in a family with kids.” This blogging Mom has “five kids aged two through eleven years, a small but growing business (WorldWIT) and a busy travel schedule.” She writes lately about “#@&*%* Profanity at Work!” asking “how do you deal with a workplace that has more profanity than you’re comfortable with?” Blogging Mom’s latest home-life post covers ground most Christmas-observing American families can relate to: “Christmas on the Edge” (“I’d hate to see another domino tumble – I’m thinking of my sweetly innocent seven-year-old, still in the magical realm of belief in red-suited guys with flying caribou – before its time.”).

The Writing Life, a member of Blogging Mom’s World WIT network, “has decided to make writing [his] full-time career choice, and [will] chronicle the transition from employee to freelance writer in this blog.” He writes “Who you are does not equal what you do,” reflecting briefly on the difference between being a writer and being “a writer who made his living with other jobs.”

I see blogging presenting great opportunities for many of us who have secretly been writers while holding other jobs, including diversifying our income sources, so that we become writers who make part of our living with other jobs. I don’t see it as an either/or. Wish me luck.

Executive Resumes and Career Transition Strategies asks: “Dwindling Perks and Benefits to Return?” and warns quite properly about the dangers of metadata: “Does Your Resume Reveal More About You Than You Thought?”

Caution about metadata is, of course not limited to resumes, but applies to all manner of documents.

For Career Success offers “The Top Reasons Why You Should Create A Portfolio.”

It would be nice to see a follow-up post explaining a bit more what to include in such a portfolio and how and when to present it.

Jobseeker’s Revenge has good tips on how to “Avoid the Top Three Cover Letter Mistakes!”

CareerBuilder.com’s Worklife asks “Are you really working at home?” Answers from a CareerBuilder survey may surprise. Tips for working from home more productively follow.

About.com’s Job Searching cites “Help Wanted in New Orleans,” which notes wages and hiring bonuses are increased, but housing for workers is an issue. Job Searching, from the large about.com network, also provides tips to “Check Before You Accept a Call Center Job.”

Knock em Dead provides a short list of “Job Search Tools for Uncommon Jobs” that look quite promising.

Accelerating Momentum warns job seekers of “Job Search Scams” and links to some “Interview Tips.”

Somewhat related to interview tips, Secrets of the Job Hunt posts “Communications disconnect impacting young job seekers,” quoting from and linking to an article that includes a sound file of an interview with the CEO of a company offering “a $147 program for young adults called ‘The Job Journey’ to help them fill gaps in their abilities to land a job including ‘proper business-style vocabulary to build rapport.’” Also of interest from “Secrets” is “SimplyHired.com Introduces New Salary Tool.”

Photo credit: StaneStane via flickr

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