Jobmonkey.com

jobmonkey.com is in my opinion the best career and job market oriented site out there, it is organized well and has something to offer everyone, the CEO and the highschooler looking for his first summer job. On Jobmonkey internet users can find out about interesting summer jobs and all sorts of careers around the world. A component of the site is its blog, which is a random digression of job market related information. For example the most recent blog post, posted 8:17 pm on January 26, 2009, revealed that America’s job market lost 71,400 jobs yesterday primarily due to Caterpillar and Pfizer.

The Author of the Blog is Mara Strom; and despite my browsing, I was unable to find information about Mara and her relation to the field. Mara posts frequently, sometimes she takes a couple days off, but in general she posts daily.

January 8th, 2009 at 10:45 pm, Mara posted “Work at home? Beware of Scammers!” I found this post to be pretty interesting in light of the work-at-home ads that seem to pop up all over the Internet. Mara describes a study CNN did that revealed an astonishing ratio of 54 scam ads to 1 genuine ad. Some of these scam ads manage to convince internet users to pay a fee via credit card to get more information about their stay at home job. They pay the fee and because they didn’t read the fine print somewhere on the page they get nothing in return.

Another one of Mara’s posts I find interesting is from September 23rd, 2008 at 12:52 am, its called “Monday Markets: Green Collar Jobs.” This post discussed the emerging need for green-collar jobs and workers. The post defines green-collar workers as blue-collar workers who somehow help other people or the environment via their work without polluting. In her post Mara quotes Carl Pope, the executive director of the sierra club (one of the countries oldest grassroots environmental organizations), who said

“A green job has to do something useful for people, and it has to be helpful to, or at least not damaging to, the environment.”

Mara also discusses a 2007 study by the American Solar Energy Society that cites interesting statistics. According to the study,

“renewable energy and energy efficient industries currently account for 8.5 million jobs in the United States. With federal policy to support green industries, that number could grow to as many as 40 million jobs, which is equivalent to 1 out of 4 workers, by 2030.”

Mara’s blog is very academic, she supports everything she says with factual information and she often quotes specific statistics. Her post vary, some are longer then others and some are more thorough then others; on average Mara’s post are about three quarters of a page long. Jobmonkey.com is a website and a blog for everyone and anyone looking for a job. The site gives detailed information about how to pursue currently available jobs and the blog keeps its readers current with changing job markets. I really like the way Mara writes and the structure of her blog; those two things will definitely influence my blog. Unlike jobmonkey.com, my blog is concerned with actual careers and the types of lifestyles those careers foster; whereas Mara’s blog is concerned changing job markets and what job opportunities are out there due to the change.