Do You Like Your Job?

I don’t know if there are any concrete numbers on this topic but if I had to guess I would say that less than 25% of people like their jobs. Most people continue to go to work because they feel they have no other options. They are either lacking in the educational background to improve their situation or maybe they have overextended themselves financially and they have to keep working at a job they hate to support their lifestyle.

Whatever the reason is that you continue to work at a job you hate I am here to tell you there are other options. The internet is continuing to become more and more a part of people’s lives. Older people, that are technologically challenged, are even finding their way on-line. It would make sense that the growing popularity of the internet would lead to career opportunities for people. After all, if someone is buying from the internet than someone has to give that person an avenue to make their purchase.

This is where the article gets to the point if you haven’t already figured it out. You can begin your own internet business for much less than if you were to open a store selling the same products. You don’t need liability insurance for slip and fall accidents, no worker’s compensation insurance for employees needed to man the store, etc… For an internet business you need a decent computer and preferably a quick internet connection, otherwise you’d go nuts waiting for the slow dial-up services.

Because the internet is relatively new, meaning within the last 15 to 20 years or so, not many people grew up thinking they want an internet business when they grew up. At the same time, people do not even consider it now that they are old enough to work. If you really think about it you are being held down by your employer, if you don’t like your job that is. You dread going to work. You painfully make it through each day. By the time you get home you are too emotionally drained to even think about changing your career. When you finally do consider it, it is only because things have gotten so bad at work you just need to get out the door.

The problem with this situation is that you end up going from one bad situation to another because you don’t think clearly when the offer comes. You are so desperate to get out the door of the current company anything looks good.

I went to college and got my bachelor’s degree. I have completed half of an MBA program. While in the MBA program I questioned why I was doing this. The degree would only allow me to get a higher paying job I hate, where I still need to deal with corporate politics. As I write this article it is 70 degrees outside, which is good for April in Massachusetts. I spent the whole day playing outside with my 2 year old daughter. This kind of time spent with my daughter is possible because I made the change and now live off the internet.

You can do it too!

I was skeptical to make the leap to the internet too. One thing I read since I started my quest to live off the internet was, “If you continue to do what you have always done you will continue to get the results you have always gotten.” It just made so much sense to me and I live by that saying now. I went to college because I wanted to build a good life for myself. At 18 years old I saw my father get laid off from the company he was with for 25 years. I didn’t want that to happen to me and I thought a degree would prevent it. Well, I was let go from my company after 4 Ѕ years.

I am tired of getting up everyday hating my job. I am tired of being controlled by a company that could care less about me. So, I am doing something different than I have always done, hoping for different results than I have always gotten.

What is preventing you from doing the same thing? It is estimated that 500 million websites will be created between now and 2010. By getting your foot in the door now you are giving yourself the ability to become established before the levels of competition make it difficult to be successful.

My article is not designed to trick you into an MLM program. (multi-level marketing) I am personally against those. I am talking about affiliate and reseller programs. I personally participate in both and have success with both. I would normally give a few examples in my articles but the rules of most sites prevent affiliate links in articles. If you want to learn more do a search on your favorite search engine or feel free to contact me directly using the email address in my profile below. I would be happy to spend the time to help you pick the program best for you.

If you made it through this article there is a good chance you are looking for a way out of your current employment situation, or you need employment. The best part of this whole thing is you can do it part-time to start so you can keep your job until you establish a level of income you are comfortable with. I hope this article has given you the encouragement to take the chance and go for it. You deserve better, we all do.

Beware Of Job Fraud Scams!

Searching for a job can be difficult enough, but when you finally spot the 'job of a lifetime' – just consider that if the job sounds too good to be true – quite likely, it is!

Imagine the job of "Designer - Developer/Applications/IT" with a tax-free salary of $120K for 6 months work.

Perks including Paid Overtime at $300 per hour, paid first-class accommodation, $3,000.00 flat rate travel/entertainment allowance for every intercontinental trip, free comprehensive healthcare, two weeks of paid vacation, a free laptop computer and free transportation/vehicle.

WOW!!! – Where do I sign up???

This is just one of the many recent postings on Monster.com – other jobs with the same salary and benefits are also available – including:

* Project Manager - Project/Infrastructure/IT
* Analyst - Systems/Support/IT
* Technical Advisor - Computer/Security/IT
* Analyst - Data Manager/IT/

Sometimes the scams are easy to spot – other times it can be more difficult. Quite often the job titles and job descriptions are often stolen from other legitimate employment sites.

You may be able to enter a snippet of the job description in double-quotes and find the original source through your favorite search engine.

For example, the position I mentioned earlier contained the text "(C++, Java, HTML, PHP, Visual Basic)" in the job description.

Search for this in Google (including the double-quotes) and you’ll quickly see how often this exact string has been used in scam-related job postings.

These companies (more likely individuals) have absolutely no intention of hiring you – they are simply after the "Administration Fee" you need to send in advance.

Here is an example of some terms on a recent posting on monster.com:

You are liable to make charges of about USD$950.00 for the procurement of your working and residential permit documents which covers:

1, Administrative charges:
2, Diplomatic Courier Charges:
3, Working Permit charges:
4, Residential Permit charges:
5, Hard copies of the terms:

They promise reimbursement of fees and travel expenses to attend the interview, but only AFTER you’ve shown up for the job and discovered they never existed!

In addition to money sent to the fraudsters in advance -- you could be suckered in for airfare, hotel and thousands of dollars in other expenses.

Some obvious clues that should send up bright red warning flags:

* The job is in Nigeria, or posted on behalf of a Nigerian company. Quite often the jobs are IT-related in companies involved with oil, banking or mining.

* The contact is using  hotmail.com or some other free email service. Legitimate offers generally come from legitimate companies with real email addresses.

* The telephone number is a fake. Don’t even try to call. Most often, if the number even works at all, it leads to a mobile phone in Nigeria or a similar country. Check the country code before calling and see if it matches the company’s address (if they even provide one).

* Beware of requests for detailed personal information, such as a copy of your passport, birth certificate, SSN card and so forth. This trick is used to make the application more ‘real’ but if they can't sucker you on the ‘application fee’ – they may just sell or use your identity instead.

* Quite often, there will be many errors in the references, spelling and/or grammar. Here is another example:

"You are to receive the hard copies of the contract terms and agreement and also your working and residential permit altogether, it will be delivered through Diplomatic Courier Services(DHL) to your various designated addresses respectively."

Do a Google search for "Diplomatic Courier Services(DHL)" and you will again see dozens of listings discussing or exposing the scam.

There are many variations to this new type of scam. Currently, IT professionals seem to be the major target. Monster.com and Monster's country-specific sites have become the hot target for these scamsters.

Although Monster does remove bogus job postings fairly quickly, the process to complain about them is difficult and time-consuming.

In many online job boards, there is no 'filtering' or human review process for job postings -- otherwise such fraudulent listings would be need to be much more difficult. Many job boards also allow free postings for advertisers -- making them even more attractive for scammers.

The important thing to remember is that few legitimate employers will ask for fees of any kind up-front – in fact, many employers will pay for your travel expenses in advance.

Don’t let the job of your dreams become a financial nightmare – be cautious when dealing with any business you can not easily identify or verify. Best of luck on your job search!

Better Job Search Engines

Job search engines use state-of-the-art technology to assist people in their job quest. Here you could enter all the relevant information to reduce the lists of sought after jobs to get more accurate results.

Because new jobs are being added daily or even hours after, the tendency to see the results you had yesterday may be different from what you see today. This is where job search engines come in handy.

After some trial and error there are a few job search engines that could yield better results. They allow searchers to see major job sites, companies and even its associations by entering a keyword and location. Results can be seen in different ways, it could be in a browser list and some sent thru e-mail.

SimplyHired.com, America's Job Bank, Jobster, and Indeed.com are just a few of the search engines that can give you more accurate results. These sites include over 500 job listings with job boards, prime newspapers, and numerous companies with career pages.

Indeed.com even has an advance search option that could be used to search company names, positions, and even the distance for commuters.

America's Job Bank let's you enter the job category you would like to search, then you can enter either the city or the zip code and state you would like to find the job and it gives the list of job openings. If you're lucky, you can even get the quoted salary from each of the companies you're eyeing on.

In SimplyHired.com aside from the list of jobs open, applicants are also given a short description of the job you're about to handle including the responsibilities to be met even during application. It also includes the type of company, location and date when the job was posted.

Jobster provides the latest job postings from today up to the last 7 days wherein you can also choose the distance you prefer. This site gives you the ability to see the list of the freshly posted jobs from a variety of sources.

How Well Are They?

These sites give listings that are relevant and timely, compared to other search engines that generate results a little longer than the others. Some would even provide results that are far from the location picked out.

So far the best among the search engines used is the Simplyhired.Com. It showed the job title, a link was also provided for posting, a summary of the job description, where the exact current location and where it originated. The produced results are easy to read, non-confusing with bits and pieces more of information plus the getting around is user friendly.

Best Jobs

Employers have said that they are more likely to be 12 percent more graduates this year than last year. It is the first projected increase since the year 2000.

In another study, a projected 60 percent of US business plan to employ the same number of graduates this year as with last year. That is an increase of fifty-five percent from last year, according to the CERI (Collegiate Employment Research Institute) at MSU.

According to recent studies, US Corporations and businesses will employ more graduates with a bachelor’s degree in business, biological and physical sciences. Those with construction management, engineering degrees, health care and accounting will also experience an increase in hiring. Other fields will have a slight decline.

On the average, companies are hiring forty three percent of its interns to fulltime and regular status. The expected increase in the hiring of graduates coincides with an expected growth forecast of the economy next year according to a recent survey by the Federal Reserve Bank.

A lot of companies are coming out of a slump and are now hiring their interns and looking for more. A lot of companies are posting jobs and coming into different campuses.

Most experts advise that during the holidays, whether you’re looking for permanent employment or internship, it is time to step up your search.

Take advantage of the holiday events you’re going to, discuss what you’re looking for and your goals. Businesses don’t want to be flooded with calls and faxes of resumes. They will probably rely on word-of-mouth to get a handful of candidates The holidays are a perfect time to network.

What to expect:

Companies will hire more students earning bachelor’s degree in business and management, physical and biological sciences. Engineering, health care and accounting degrees also would experience an increase. Other degrees will experience a decrease in hiring

Businesses expect to employ about the same volume of MBAs this year as last year. Businesses have found employees with bachelor's degrees being able to do some work being done by MBAs.

It will be harder for graduates with computer science degrees to find work.

Companies are more likely to employ students who have undergone internships. The work experience, they say, makes a lot of difference. Federal agencies will employ more graduates but not nearly enough to offset the decrease in hiring by the state and local government agencies.

On average, starting salaries will increase by 1 to 2 percent.

A Time To Take Stock, After Loosing Your Job

In today’s highly volatile and ever-evolving job market, job security is fast becoming a thing of the past. Hundreds of thousands of people are laid off each year, and this figure is on the rise, so you are not alone! But depending on how long you were at your last job, you may find that you are somewhat rusty when it comes to how to look for a job in today’s environment.

The first thing is to realize that being laid off is really not the end of the world. In fact, it might even turn out to be a blessing in disguise – a mandatory career change! Utilize it as a chance to reflect on why you were laid off and what the next stage is. Getting laid off can happen to anyone, of course, but if you want to turn the situation into a productive, positive one, you will need to face the facts and understand why this happened to you. Go through a self-analysis of why this happened to you: Could it have been avoided or not? Could you have gotten out on time or not? All this is required to ensure that your next move and job market strategy has a realistic and factual foundational. The last thing you want to do is keep at an industry which is becoming extinct!

As you put together your job market strategy and decide what job options to pursue, and whether to diversify or stay within the same industry, you may discover that you are a bit rusty in your job market awareness. There are key things you need to be aware of if you are going to successfully achieve your job goal. For instance, never put on your job applications that you were laid off, as this will raise unanswered questions as to why you were laid off. You will have time to explain the reasons once you get your foot in the door for a face-to-face interview. A great tip is to write “End of contract” on your applications. This is playing it safe.

Whatever you do in seeking work, make sure you take charge of your life and show your best side to prospective employers. With the right plan and a great resume, your success is certain. However, to achieve it you must have the appropriate job market skills. So start by analyzing your job market activity competency level with our FREE Job Market Performance Assessment.