Click Here for a New Career
Thousands of websites offer career information. U.S. News.com career coach Marty Nemko recommends these :
www.onestopcoach.org A portal to federally funded sites offering quality help. If you need human help, the site links you to a local federal OneStop Career Center.
www.rileyguide.com/prepare.html The best portal for those trying to choose a career.
www.job-hunt.org The best site for those who have a career goal and now are trying to land a job.
www.khake.com This site focuses on careers not requiring a college degree.
www.mylifecoach.com Offers an online version of the Strong Interest Inventory. This 25-minute assessment yields a synthesis of your interests and an annotated list of suitable careers. For $24.95, you receive a comprehensive report and phone interpretation.
www.careervoyages.gov/careercompass-main.com This takes just one minute but can be quite helpful. You simply pick your first, second, and third choices among six interest areas and up pops a tailored list of careers.
www.bls.gov Offering far more than statistics, this site is home to the federal Occupational Outlook Handbook. That contains profiles of many careers, each ending with links to additional information.
http://ipl.si.umich.edu/div/subject/browse/ref09.00.00/ This portal links to online directories of professional associations' sites--for example, the American Accounting Association or the National League for Nursing.
Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com, Hotjobs.com, and craigslist.org
The odds are tiny that an employer will pick you from among the millions of job seekers who troll here, but the sites do offer discussion groups, which provide tips from the trenches.
Indeed.com and Simplyhired.com These sites aggregate job listings from hundreds of employment websites, including the big ones. You can instantly screen over 4 million job listings from one site.
www.usajobs.gov USAJobs contains more than 20,000 federal government job openings. To find even more, you can search the 150-plus federal agency sites individually. A gateway to those sites is www.firstgov.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml.
www.salary.com and salaryexpert.comThese sites estimate salary for hundreds of occupations, adjusted by ZIP code. It's wise to check both sites because they use different sources for their data. Basic reports are free, but there's a $29 charge for those customized based on your experience, the size of the employer, and the characteristics of the particular job.
This story appears in the March 20, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.