WebProNews » Careers

The Best Degrees to Have for the Current Economic Climate

Chris Crum — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 18:41:33 +0000

The Best Degrees, an organization aimed at helping people find the best degrees to meet their particular career goals, has put out a report listing what it says are the top 51 degrees that currently offer the best overall job potential, given the economic climate in the U.S.

The report, the organization says, is based on exhaustive research of jobs in the U.S. that require a specific college degree.

“We found a strong demand for degrees in technology, computers, and healthcare,” says Dee Barizo, editor of The Best Degrees.

The list of the top 51 is presented as follows:

20 Degrees With Great Job Opportunities (Ranked by Salary)

25 Degrees With Good Job Opportunities (Ranked by Salary)

6 Degrees with Good or Great Job Opportunities but School Admissions are Competitive (Ranked by Salary)

46. Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) Degree
47. Doctor of Dental Surgery Degree
48. Doctor of Pharmacy Degree
49. Doctor of Optometry Degree
50. Master’s Degree in Health Administration
51. Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Degree

The report itself goes on to discuss each of the degrees listed.

LinkedIn Rolls Out Career Explorer

Chris Crum — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 12:21:43 +0000

LinkedIn has launched a new beta product called Career Explorer, aimed at college graduates.

"Students now have the ability to explore different career paths based on their school, level of education, and desired industry," explains LinkedIn’s DJ Patil. "In addition to visualizing various career paths, they’ll also be able to find relevant job opportunities, top companies, estimated salary ranges as well as the people in their network who can get them there."

The tool provides recommendations for career paths based on work interests and the real paths others with similar profiles have taken. Users can create and save multiple paths.

It also provides stats and industry trends about potential professions, jobs, and companies. It shows relevant job openings and additional info about how users can secure or find more info about the positions that are open. Users can then follow the employers that interest them.

LinkedIn is rolling out Career Explorer to students at 60 universities across the U.S. They’ll release it to the entire LinkedIn community in the coming months.

LinkedIn Makes Professional/Company Networking More Customized

Chris Crum — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:12:48 +0000

LinkedIn made a couple of announcements today. First was an update to its Company Follow Feature, and second was the introduction of its new Career Pages.

Company Follow has an updated look and feel with better customization, more personalized insights for professionals, and a new Career tab for both companies and professionals.

The first thing you see with the latest version is a newly redesigned look and feel of the page itself," says LinkedIn’s Ryan Roslansky. "In addition, companies’ new updated pages keep members in the loop with customization of relevant updates from the company whether it be blog posts, jobs, company news or corporate twitter feeds."

"The second biggest change you’ll notice is the personalized, insightful view of the company that now makes it easier than ever for you to see your first and second degree connections while researching the company as well as more information on the daily activity of that company on LinkedIn," adds Roslansky. "It provides a very unique perspective on how the company has evolved on LinkedIn over time, the representative profiles of employees at the company and the composition of the company’s employee base. This information can come in very handy for professionals ranging from job seekers to those in business development."

The Career Tab is the biggest addition. When a user goes to a company profile page, LinkedIn says they’ll be able to understand the rang of opportunities a company has to offer, based on the user profile.

Likewise, the new career pages can be customized so they adapt to the viewer. Different jobseekers will see info more relevant to them. There is also a new analytics feature that shows what kinds of professionals are interacting with their pages.

There are new editing capabilities for realtime updating, customizable modules to showcase things like benefits, projects, etc., and a new "Contact a Recruiter" feature.

Career Development Sites See Surge in Seniors

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:23:08 +0000

While visits to online career development websites continue to grow, fuelled by fears of job security and increased layoffs, there’s one particular age group that has grown faster than others.

Visits to career development websites grew 20% YoY, according to Nielsen, rising 41.5 million visitors in January 2008 to just under 50 million in January this year.

The vast majority of visitors to career development sites, around 17.8 million, are aged 35-49. However, Nielsen found a significant surge in visitors aged 65 and older, increasing 41% from 2.5 million unique visitors in January 2008 to 3.6 million in January 2009.

It appears the need to generate income is motivating the older generation to stay in work, especially during difficult and uncertain financial times when their nest-eggs are less than secure, and they are turning to the Internet to seek out jobs. For many older job seekers who have lost long-term jobs, the Internet is a new medium through which to find new positions and opportunities exist for niche content to attract them.

This trend looks set to continue, according to a report out last year from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. They state that while the total labor force is projected to increase by 8.5% between 2006 and 2015, when broken down by age group some very different trends emerge. In particular, workers aged 55-64 are expected to rise by 36.5%, but the most dramatic surge will be among workers aged 65+ – up an incredible 80% as Baby Boomers flood the job market.

Overall, workers aged 65 and over are predicted to make up 6.1% of the total labor force by 2016, up from 3.6% in 2006.

In January CareerBuilder was the most trafficked job site with 20.8 million unique visitors. Yahoo! HotJobs came in second with 11.8 million visitors, while Monster.com was third with 9.5 million visitors.

Online Job Demand Rising Again

Chris Crum — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:00:16 +0000

The number of online jobs went up according to the Monster U.S. Online Jobs Index. The increase marked the end of a three-month decline, indicating that employers are preparing for the fall hiring season. In August, online job availability went up in 14 of the Index’s 20 industry categories and in 13 of the 23 occupational categories measured. Still, the index is 14% lower than it was a year ago.

Big areas of growth in online job demand were the utilities industry (which registered the largest monthly increase), education, training, and library occupations, and healthcare. The biggest gains on a yearly scale, however, come with the public administration and agricultural industries. Farming, fishing and forestry had the sharpest decline for the month, while information, professional, scientific, and technical services saw the sharpest year-to-year decline.

"On the upside, the Index’s overall annual growth rate remained steady, suggesting no major change in underlying nationwide demand for labor compared to July," stated Jesse Harriott, Vice President of Research at Monster Worldwide.

The Index over the past year

While online job demand in all nine U.S. Census Bureau regions was down for the year, seven out of those nine saw growth over the month. The biggest growth came from the West North Central region. This is attributed to the aftermath of flooding. Online job demand increased in 40 states and the District of Columbia. At the city level, the Index monitors 28 U.S. metro areas. Eight of those saw an increase in online recruitment activity. Boston showed the biggest increase, and San Diego saw a nice one as well.

The Index has a ways to go before it reaches where it was a year ago, but this might be the beginning of an upward trend.

In-House SEM Salaries: Quite a Range

Navneet Kaushal — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 19:52:14 +0000

Earlier today we discussed some mind boggling statistics about search marketing and its efficacy, see: PPC Ads Are Ignored 88.5% Of The Time!. Another study, this time about search marketers by SEMPO, explores the earning potentials of SEMs.

The salaries actually have a surprising range, with the lowest ones bordering around minimum wages $60/year to the highest ones being around $70,000 a year. The years of experience show a positive correlation with the salaries. So, if you’re an aspirant then you need at least five to seven years of experience to be in the income range of $100K to $200K.

A key finding is that about 33% of in-house SEMs are managing monthly budgets of over $200,000, this figure was a surprise for everyone. "We anticipated a lower ceiling of monthly spend closer to the $100,000 range so we were pleasantly surprised," quips Duane Forrester, co-chair of SEMPO’s In-House SEM Committee and Lead SEO Program Manager with Microsoft.

The figure of $200K spend also shows that the search marketing industry is in good health, "it syncs up with SEMPO’s current trend projections that SEM spending will double by 2011, to more than $18 billion," Forrester said.

The figures also reflect the newness of the SEM industry as most of the respondents had less than 5 years of experience and only a few held the top positions.

Forrester vouches for the reliability of the statistics of so many drawing the six figure salaries, and offers some advice for budding SEMs "SEMs need to be realistic about their careers and plan as they would for any viable career opportunity…if you’re ready for a six figure job, go get it! There are a lot of good jobs out there."

Picture Credits: Sempo

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Jobfox Secures $20M In Funding

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 17:32:00 +0000

Jobfox.com – yes, another job site – is having a good year so far. Record 2007 sales and third round financing pulling in $20 million from investors, the company plans to double its US sales and support offices.

Investment firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson led other investors, which includes Menlo Ventures and New Enterprise Associates.

Jobfox is headed up by CEO Rob McGovern, who founded and was CEO of CareerBuilder, the most widely used job site on the Internet. "The rapid growth of Jobfox is due to the tremendous receptiveness from job candidates and corporate recruiters," said McGovern.

Jobfox plans to open new offices in Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. The company says it also is planning international moves, thanks to an alliance with Australia’s Fairfax Digital, which owns national job board MyCareer.