Online sources may cure job-search blues

By Joyce Lain Kennedy Workplace Q&A | Tribune Media Services

I followed up on your recent mention that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is flush with jobs. After I went through the agency’s registration procedure, the site came up with available jobs in my occupational category, most in locations outside of my state of Massachusetts. All were administrative assistant jobs, which I don’t fit. Admittedly, I am a white male non-veteran, so my options are limited, but the hiring door is not open wide at FDIC for me. – Bob

Contacting Bob, I suggested that he pop over to a just-launched online job resource, CareerCast.com, a job portal operated by technology provider Adicio.

That same day Bob called me back to say “thanks” and to tell me that he had discovered on CareerCast two attractive job openings in his backyard for which he was well-qualified and was moving immediately to apply for both of them.

The CareerCast job portal contains about a half-million jobs from more than 500 newspapers and niche job boards across the United States and Canada.

Similar to familiar and useful aggregation sites, such as Indeed.com and SimplyHired.com, CareerCast directs job-hunting surfers to the originating job board, where they apply.

But unlike aggregation sites, CareerCast allows job seekers to upload or create resumes and cover letters and use their stored personal data to apply to jobs across the network. Their resumes are visible only to recruiters on the sites on which they apply. This feature guarantees much greater privacy for the job seeker because there’s no searchable database of resumes that can fuel identity-theft problems.

In addition to job listings, CareerCast offers career-related content and advice directed by Tony Lee, who formerly headed Dow Jones’ Career Journal.com and who knows careers-industry news backwards and forwards.

(Disclosure: Rick Miller, CEO of Adicio, is a respected professional in the recruiting industry. His company and my company shared an office a dozen years ago and we remain friends.)

Take a tech crash course At 58, I’m on the market and worry that technology to find jobs is beyond my grasp. Can’t a person still find jobs in traditional ways? – C.P. Absolutely, yes – solid job-hunting techniques ranging from responding to ads to networking are proven old friends. But perhaps you remember a rhyme often written in high school yearbooks: “Make new friends but keep the old – one is silver, the other gold.”

When you’re all a-twitter – yes, that’s a pun – about what’s up in technology, grab knowledge quickly on SocialMedian (socialmedian.com), a site that focuses on using online technology in many venues. SocialMedian is the creation of the talented Jason Goldberg, former CEO of Jobster.com.

In this deepening recession, don’t make the mistake of relying 100 percent on the same old strategies and approaches to find jobs and manage a career. Nor should you rely 100 percent on new-media sources. Put them all together and selectively rank those that work best for you. Degree still of value My son, a college sophomore, is talking about dropping out of school. What are those arguments about better job stability? – R.R.T.

The classic job stability-argument for your kids to stay in school just took a slight hit with rising joblessness for workers with bachelor’s or advanced degrees. But college grads still hold the employment edge.

In November, the jobless rate for college graduates reached 3.1 percent, compared with the national unemployment rate of 6.7 percent. One problem for college grads is that, starting in the 1980s, employers began cutting middle managers and older professional workers who were paid more than younger workers.

An excellent Washington Post story presents many details you’ll want to know: Google for “College Degree No Shield As More Jobs Are Slashed.”

Have a question: Contact Joyce Lain Kennedy at Jobs Today, The Los Angeles Times, P.O. Box 60164, Los Angeles, CA 90060-0164 or e-mail jlk@ sunfeatures.com.