Job Seeker Information

In today's rocky financial times, most people's minds naturally turn towards retaining their jobs. It's a terrible thing to wonder if a pink slip is coming packaged in with that next paycheck. Many large companies were formerly thought of as bulletproof, yet even employers like Google are laying off large numbers of employees, and some retailers such as Kay Bee Toys, Circuit City and Wilson's leather are closing down all of their retail outlets altogether. Even the government, an employment sector once thought of as totally secure, is contracting and laying people off. In such times of economic uncertainty, in addition to staying active with your job search and checking both local and nationwide job listings daily, there's one other big step you can take to make your employer see how valuable you really are.

There's one surefire way to let your employer know that you're valuable- educate yourself. If two similarly benefited and salaried employees are both up for layoff consideration ,an employer is usually going to retain the employee that's achieved the highest level of education. Employers want workers that constantly strive to better themselves by increasing their knowledge- some employers even provide tuition reimbursement all the way up to 100% of the final cost! It's in the employers AND the employees best interest to know as much about the industry they are in as possible, and higher education helps to fill that function.

It sounds difficult- how is one person supposed to work a full time job, keep up with social obligations as well as maintaining home and family, while attending college at the same time? While it's difficult, it's not impossible- many people make this arrangement work. Nowadays, there's an alternative to traditional classroom attendance- home schooling, distance learning for higher education. You now have the option to earn an accredited degree in much less time than you thought possible, and in the comfort of surroundings that you choose, be it your living room, home office, Starbucks or the beach. You'll be receiving a quality education without the hassles of buying textbooks, finding parking, making yourself presentable and adhering to a predetermined schedule, and at a comparable cost to classes in a traditional educational setting, as well.

Most online classes consist of reading electronic course packs or text books, and then participating in discussions via email or message board, while competing both individual and group writing assignments. You'll want to get familiar with the tools that allow groups in disparate time zones and geographic locations to stay in contact, such as Internet Relay Chat and instant messenger- this is because there is group work involved in many of these types of classes. The biggest attraction of distance learning is that you can largely set your own schedule- if the urge to write a paper strikes you at 4 AM, you can write it then, and if you wake up thinking about a great point to raise in discussion, you don't have to wait for class to start to do it. Costs are about the same of a traditional physical classroom (maybe a little bit higher), so the cost isn't prohibitively expensive, either.

If you have a strong sense of motivation and personal responsibility, as well as a healthy dose of self discipline, you will be a success in the world of online academics. There's a caveat- not having regular classes to attend and instructors to bug you about completing assignments means that there is no one to blame if you don't keep up- you will have to be internally motivated to do the work. If that sounds doable to you, you should strongly consider online education as a way to improve yourself- it's a no-lose proposition!

There are two goals to be met when trying to roll out a successful Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign.

1. Drive targeted, highly qualified job seekers to a corporate career website.

2. Increase an employer's brand, through obtaining high search engine rankings for pages that contain content related to the keyword strings that job seekers are using to search for jobs.

As the industry expands, there are more and more companies jumping into the career site optimization space. Most of these vendors are selling the same product or service, something along the lines of "we will pull your jobs from your ATS, create a micro-site that optimizes those jobs, and then send the candidates to your ATS".

While this approach does create optimized job pages for Google to find, the problem is that the neither of the two primary goals of the SEO campaign are met. This on its own will not lead to more job seekers applying for your open positions. You aren't building the brand because it isn't enough to structure a page so that Google can see it- you have to get quality sites to link to the pages you want to promote or no job seekers will find your pages.

Here is why.

It's very important that you optimize these micro-sites for the keyword phrases that job seekers are actually using to look for jobs in the search engines. For example, you could make a page optimized for the phrase "third grade teacher jobs in Elkhart, Indiana"; however, no one is going to type that into the Google, Yahoo! Or MSN search box. It doesn't matter how much time or money you spend promoting a page if no one is going to search using the keyword phrase you're optimizing for, because if they aren't searching that way they certainly aren't going to find and apply for your jobs. Most people do not ever go past the first results page when using Google- in fact, more than 85% of all traffic is driven by the first 10 results in Google, meaning that only top 10 and top 20 rankings even really matter. If you're optimizing for a longer string (4 words or more) you might as well not even be indexed by Google if you aren't on the first page, because not many people use strings that long to search, and even if you get 100% of the traffic, well, 100% of 50 people is still only 50 people. That's not going to drive the kind of traffic you want to get, to your site!

So is there anything out there that does work?

It is essential that you first do your keyword research; researching a list of potential search strings and using your findings to develop a library of "keyword phrases" that the seekers you want to target are likely to use to try and find job openings. Only after you have done this research can you work on creating a "landing page" for your jobs, specifically designed to rank in the top 10 results for the specific phrase you choose. It's important enough to stress again- the key to SEO is knowing what keyword phrases your jobseekers are using to look for jobs in the search engines. Only after you know that information can you start designing pages around targeted, highly relevant keyword strings. Once your landing page is optimized, most vendors will offer to help "submit" that page to the various search engines.

It's not a difficult process.

You can't stop there, however. While the above steps will likely get you indexed in Google, it's not going to be on page 1, and if it's a competitive phrase you're probably not going to be on page 2, 3, or 4 either! The last step on your path to SEO success is also the most time consuming, difficult and expensive part of the process. Without the proper marketing of your career site and its associated landing pages, your pages are no different from anyone else's. To be considered an authority, and therefore rank highly, you have to pursue back links from other, high-quality websites.

In closing, there are 3 important parts of any SEO strategy.

1. Doing the proper keyword research to figure out how to drive jobseekers to your career site while building your brand.

2. Design and create a web page optimized for those keywords.

3. Implementing a landing page marketing strategy to build credibility and authority to these new web pages.

If an SEO strategy doesn't encompass all three of these aspects it is bound to fail. The failure will be measured by the lack of targeted job seekers to the new micro sites or career site.

Are you in the market for Anchorage Alaska Jobs? The good news is that our northernmost state has plenty of work available for engineers.

It wasn't always easy to attract quality engineers to work in Alaska, what with the state's long winters and dark daylight hours and relative lack of creature comforts. Even though there are a lot of things not to like about Alaska on the face of it, Alaska experienced tremendous growth in the second half of the 20th century, with cities such as Anchorage growing by as much as 13 times, due largely to engineering feats such as the securing of a clean, reliable, unfrozen water supply, increasing amounts of well-paved roads, and the implementation of gravity sewers. Another major factor was the building of a huge natural gas pipeline from the Kenai fields, which gave the professional community working in Anchorage access to a clean, reliable, safe source of energy, making the dangerous yet ubiquitous floor stove obsolete. What did all of these projects have in common? They needed skilled engineers to be successfully carried out!

Engineers are in high demand in Alaska; the state's environmental challenges ensure that there will always be engineering tasks to carry out. All one has to do is look at any industry-specific publication, Association web site, or engineering job board to determine that engineers and surveyors are always going to be in demand in America's northernmost state. There are surely more Alaska engineering jobs available than there are people to fill them, as people in the industry are reporting an increase in the amount of firms trying to lure them away from positions they already hold to work in Alaska instead. This is a natural outcome of the fact that engineers are always needed no matter what the economic climate may be.

The outlook for Anchorage jobs is good for several reasons, the first being that an increasing amount of Federal money is being allocated for new projects in oil and gas acquisition there. Expansion of infrastructure, construction of utility pipelines and the desire to exploit new sources of oil and natural gas ensure that there will be many large-scale engineering projects going on in Alaska, and for quite a while as well. Among young people, engineering isn't really seen as a "cool" or desirable profession, so as older veteran engineers retire, there are fewer college graduates coming in behind them to take their jobs.

Alaska has a very extreme climate, and along with that there are limited transportation networks and logistical infrastructure. All of Alaska's' difficult working conditions crystallize to forma need for increasingly ingenuous engineers- you won't be working in a cube; instead, you'll be out in the field on the cutting edge of design, earning the respect of those who understand the difficult challenges of working in Alaska.

Less than a decade ago, people who were enrolling in nursing school were being told that they were crazy. They were told that the job was brutal, and that there simply were no career nursing jobs out there for nurses straight out of the Registered Nurse training programs.

Shortly before the turn of the century, however, the situation began to change in reality, as people who had studied the practice of nursing had long suggested it might. All of a sudden, hospitals, nursing homes, and other places that depend on nurses to run realized that staff members who left the job were not being replaced by new people. The result was a shortage of nurses that continues to get worse each year. One of the biggest problems for the United States is that the shortage of nurses is not localized; it is a global problem. In order to ensure an adequate supply of nurses nationally competition must be faced far beyond regional considerations.

The benefit of the shortage, to nurses, will be an improved future work environment, as employers try to better conditions in order to attract quality candidates. However, in the short-term, it's putting a lot of strain on everyone and may actually exacerbate the frustrations nurses may have, which may cause them to not only leave their jobs but also discourage others from becoming nurses.

In order to ensure that the current crisis in nursing does not continue much further into the future, the two areas of retention and recruitment need to be addressed. This article will take a look at some of the topics that come up among nurses when it comes to addressing these issues.

With up to 40% of the nursing workforce expected to retire over the next 10 years, it's very important to keep the younger members of the profession happy, so that the current crisis in the field can be halted, and more people will become interested in a career nursing.

One of the biggest complaints that nurses have long had within the places that they work is that their chosen career path is regarded more as a job than a profession. This is especially true within the medical community, where doctors have traditionally been dismissive of the opinions of nurses, often giving nurses the feeling that they are but cogs to carry out the will of the machine. It has taken a massive depletion of the nursing work force to demonstrate to both other medical professionals and to the public in general that nurses are an integral part of any health care system, worth as much respect as doctors, respiratory technicians, or any other professionals. The public, as well, is increasingly aware of the vital role that nurses play in the area of medicine.

A benefit of the current nursing shortage (if you can consider it a benefit) is that non-nurses are finally starting to realize how rigorous the training and testing processes for becoming an RN are. It takes just as long to become a nurse as it does to earn a B. A., B.S., or any other undergraduate degree!

Too often, nurses report that the conditions in their workplace are poor. This doesn't apply to things necessary to doing a job (i.e. sick patient), but instead applies to things that are directly influenced by management policy such as nurse-to-patient ratio, hours of work, use (or lack of use) of support staff, and the condition of equipment.

A standard nurse's schedule includes a combination of both day and night shifts. Clearly, it's impossible to run a medical facility without nurses, so it isn't as if the night shift can just be eliminated. However, some suggestions for parity include paying extra for nurses that work the night shift, or adding a third "swing shift" to the rotation so that the night shift is not as long as the day shift is.

Government spending increases on healthcare should help resolve some concerns including the concerns nurses have about support staff and equipment. Nursing is a job that includes quite a lot of lifting, so medical care facilities will need to invest in modern equipment to assist with this burden so that nurses can have longer careers. Many nurses also report that they are held responsible for performing duties that would traditionally fall to a receptionist or an orderly, and in order for them to stay focused on their nursing duties, care facilities will have to budget better so that nurses aren't being needlessly overburdened.

The biggest short-term problem facing the industry is the nurse-to-patient ratio. Most facilities are unable to fill vacant positions, and so the ratio remains at a level that many nurses are uncomfortable with. However, efforts to address the issue properly still provide hope.

Recruiting of nurses is the second vital focus for the future of nursing. This milieu will see increasing attempts to train nurses properly, and increased efforts by medical providers to attract good nurses. Those that can't offer sufficient training and enticements will soon find themselves without enough nurses to run their facilities!

It's of no small concern that colleges and universities are not producing enough nursing graduates to fill the current demand, or even enough to replace those that are currently leaving the profession. A parallel concern is that of those who DO graduate nursing programs, ever increasing numbers are choosing to work at relatively lower levels of stress and higher levels of pay in institutions such as prisons and nursing homes.

In order to improve the patient to nurse ratio that is such a common complaint among nurses, it is vital to increase the number of students coming out of nursing schools across the country. Universities and colleges need to have the funding available to create these spaces. In addition, facilities and governments will have to offer programs such as student loan forgiveness programs in order to attract potential students to the profession.

Over the last 10 years, several "secondary industries" targeted towards nurses have come to the forefront. Industries such as travel nursing programs and nursing agencies hire their own nurses and then contract them out. These nurses generally make more money than those that choose more traditional employment and they have the added benefit of a constantly-changing workplace, often with all travel expenses paid. Healthcare organizations are going to have to take a long hard look at matching these kinds of benefits if they want to attract quality nursing personnel.

As far as the nursing profession goes, the long term future is bright. The current shortage allows a graduating nurse to virtually write his or her own ticket. In addition, the shortage is expected to grow worse, which has pushed the concerns of nurses into the public spotlight. In order to alleviate the shortage, governments and facilities will have no choice but to meet the concerns of nurses in order to keep them at their jobs.

Alternatively, the future of the nursing profession may lie within nursing agencies. Unless facilities and governments realize that the concerns of nurses need to be met at the ground level, new and established nurses alike will continue to gravitate towards the pay and flexibility that these agencies offer.

Armed with these facts, you should be able to make an informed decision about whether a career nursing is right for you. Happy job hunting!

The security breach at a major online job board last year may have made you a little hesitant to put your resume into online databases for fear that your contact information will be used for money-making purposes such as direct mail or email marketing or even identity theft. However, there are security measures you can take that will make your online job search at sites that include jobs.com in their URL.

There's always the option of just not putting your resume on the Internet at all, but that's going to saddle you with a pretty large disadvantage in that recruiters that use the internet to find candidates won't be able to find you! Instead, you will have to proactively monitor many different job boards, looking for companies that are looking for you. It's a lot easier to find candidates for a recruiter when they can search through online databases looking for skill sets that match yours and contacting you about unadvertised job openings. If the case is that you want to be easy to find, you'll have to post your resume, so how can you do that and ensure that the boards you post to are legitimate and have precautions in place to ensure the safety of your information?

First of all, make sure you feel confident posting your resume on a job board. Read their privacy policy and find out if and where the site redistributes your resume do you trust those other sites as well? It may even be a good idea to take a look at the employer side of the site and research their guidelines for resume searchers. The best way to feel totally secure is to email or call the board and get information on their security measures. They want your resume so that employers can search for it, so they'll give you answers.

Once you've done your research and are confident that the boards' privacy policy is sufficient, you must be careful when applying to jobs and replying to emails. Job boards do a lot to ensure that only valid jobs are posted but it's impossible to monitor every job manually, and inevitably, some jobs will make it "past the filters". So what does this mean for you? It means that you have to be vigilant, and keep a jaded eye out for fishy emails or jobs that sound too good to be true, because as the adage says, it probably isn't true. Under no circumstance should you ever give your vital personal information such as your bank account number or Social Security number. A jobs.com board or an employer will never ask for that information via email, and this fact is usually stated explicitly in their privacy policies.

If you are unlucky enough to be a target of one of these phishing scams, or some other sort of deception, it's in your, the job board, employer, and everyone that uses that site's best interest to report it to the board as soon as possible and with as much information as possible. You can also report strange-looking or sounding jobs, too- this will help cut down on the number of fake jobs posted to that board. The more you can help the job boards, the better job they will be able to do of prevention in the future.

By knowing where your resume is posted, doing your due diligence in regards to security measures and keeping an eye out for fraud, you can help keep yourself and your personal information safe while conducting an online job search.

The security breach at a major online job board last year may have made you a little hesitant to put your resume into online databases for fear that your contact information will be used for money-making purposes such as direct mail or email marketing or even identity theft. However, there are security measures you can take that will make your search for internet jobs more secure.

There's always the option of just not putting your resume on the Internet at all, but that's going to saddle you with a pretty large disadvantage in that recruiters that use the internet to find candidates won't be able to find you! Instead, you will have to proactively monitor many different job boards, looking for companies that are looking for you. It's a lot easier to find candidates for a recruiter when they can search through online databases looking for skill sets that match yours and contacting you about unadvertised job openings. If the case is that you want to be easy to find, you'll have to post your resume, so how can you do that and ensure that the boards you post to are legitimate and have precautions in place to ensure the safety of your information?

Always make sure that you feel confident before you post a resume to a internet jobs website. Read their privacy policy carefully, primarily to figure out where they may repost your resume, or who they may sell it to. If they do redistribute it to other sites, do you trust those sites, as well? The best way to get answers to these kinds of questions is to email or call the board directly. You can even log in as an employer and research all their policies on resume searching. These boards want your resume- it's a large part of how they make money- so any one that's any good will accommodate your requests without a problem.

Once you've decided which board(s) you trust enough to post your resume to, take proper precautions when applying to jobs and responding to email solicitations. Job boards work hard to ensure that only legitimate jobs are posted, however, it's near impossible to catch every single one of those "spam" job postings that may get through the filters. What this means to you is that you must keep an eye out for fishy jobs and emails. The old adage is truer than ever on the Internet- if something is too good to be true, it probably is. Never, ever give out your social security number or bank account information. An employer should never ask for that information via email, and a job board will not ever ask you for that information either, as is stated in most of their Privacy Policies.

If you do get a scam or "phishing" type of email and are able to deduce from what job board the sender got your information, it's in everyone's best interest for you to let the job board know as soon as possible, and give them as much information about said scam and the person who contacted you as possible. You can also report fraudulent looking job postings. The more aware the job boards are of potential rip-offs, the better job they can do to prevent them in the future.

By knowing what internet jobs sites ere your resume is posted on, doing your due diligence in regards to security measures and keeping an eye out for fraud, you can help keep yourself and your personal information safe while conducting an online job search.

Hi, and welcome to what will probably be many articles about careers in the healthcare industry. This article is designed to give you an overview of the basics of the somewhat embattled US healthcare system. This is not an exhaustive review of the entire industry, but it should give someone who is considering health care jobs a leg up.

In the US, a diverse selection of individuals and legal entities pay for health care- patients are offered both inpatient and outpatient services by charitable, commercial, or governmental entities. The healthcare system is funded by a mix of public and private funding, with the government picking up about 45% of the total annual cost.

Medicine is practiced in a variety of facilities throughout the United States. Obviously, there are for-profit hospitals, operated by private corporations, and there are also nonprofit hospitals, which are usually operated by the government or nonprofit or religions organizations. Hospitals provide a small amount of outpatient care in emergency rooms and specialty clinics but are run primarily to provide inpatient care.

The law uses a "fee for service" business model when it comes to healthcare similar to other service industries, meaning that the patient must pay out-of-pocket, in full, for all medical treatment rendered. If a patient has insurance, they will pay a set monthly premium that will help pay most of the cost of medical treatment, however, a deductible (a minimum part of the total cost) is usually paid up front. Alternatively, the patient may have to pay a "co-payment"- a small part of the cost of every procedure.,

Most health care coverage provided through a person's work is provided through managed care organizations which pay much lower prices for medical services than an individual would if they paid out of pocket. The thing that makes managed care different from traditional insurance is that the health plan organization has contracts with specific health care providers, as the managed care organization is able to bring their numbers to bear to negotiate price reductions.

There are many individuals that are not covered by private insurance, but are covered by government programs such as Medicaid (which provides care to the poor), Medicare (which provides care for the elderly and disabled), or the Veterans Administration (which provides care to veterans, their families and survivors). In 2006, Medicaid provided coverage for 38 million Americans while Medicare did the same for about 40 million. Another 11 million people are eligible for coverage but are not enrolled in any kind of government program.

The number of physicians accepting Medicaid has decreased over the past decade due to high administrative costs and low levels of reimbursement. Another program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program was created in 1997 to provide coverage for children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid yet can't afford to buy health insurance- however, this program is already losing funding in may states.

As you move forward in your career, only you can decide if the health care industry is right for you. Be vigilant, don't get discouraged- and you will find the health care jobs you're looking for in no time at all!

Less than a decade ago, people who were enrolling in nursing school were being told that they were crazy, and that career nursing jobs were not viable. They were told that the job was brutal, and that there simply were no jobs out there for nurses straight out of the Registered Nurse training programs.

Not any more! For a long time, people who studied the healthcare industry said that there might be a reversal of fortune, and there has been. Gradually, care providers such as nursing homes and hospitals, who depended on nurses to operate, came to realize that as nurses left their jobs they were becoming more and more difficult to replace. This has led to a severe shortage in the number of nurses available in the US- and the situation is getting worse. The shortage of qualified nurses is a global problem, meaning that health care providers have to compete on a world-wide scale to fill nursing positions.

What the nursing shortage should amount to, in the long run, is a much more improved working environment for nurses in the future. In the short term, however, this shortage is proving to be difficult to overcome and may actually contribute to the frustrations many nurses feel which cause them not only to leave their jobs but also to discourage others from taking up the profession.

In order to ensure that the current crisis in nursing does not continue much further into the future, the two areas of retention and recruitment need to be addressed. This article will take a look at some of the topics that come up among nurses when it comes to addressing these issues.

Making sure that nurses are happy within their current jobs so that they stay in the profession is vital to stabilize the crisis. With anywhere from 25-40% of nurses are expected to retire over the next ten years, ensuring that younger members of the work force stay at their jobs is more important than ever.

The general public is coming to the realization that nurses play just as important a role in the healthcare system as doctors and other medical professionals do, and the industry is starting to realize it, as well. Many nurses complain that they are not accorded the level of respect they deserve, as nursing is seen as less of a "profession" and more of a "job". Physicians are often guilty of this, making nurses feel as if they are simply there to mechanically carry out the doctor's orders, and nothing more. As the system loses more and more nurses, it will become more and more important to grant those remaining the appropriate level of respect.

Nurses are often short on respect, but the current nursing shortage is changing that. After all, the amount of education required to become a nurse is the same as that required to earn a B.A., M.A., or earn any other undergraduate degree!

Too often, nurses report that the conditions in their workplace are poor. This doesn't apply to things necessary to doing a job (i.e. sick patient), but instead applies to things that are directly influenced by management policy such as nurse-to-patient ratio, hours of work, use (or lack of use) of support staff, and the condition of equipment.

A standard nurse's schedule includes a combination of both day and night shifts. Clearly, it's impossible to run a medical facility without nurses, so it isn't as if the night shift can just be eliminated. However, some suggestions for parity include paying extra for nurses that work the night shift, or adding a third "swing shift" to the rotation so that the night shift is not as long as the day shift is.

Continued increases in the budget of the United States government in the area of health care are tagged to help resolve, among other things, the concerns of nurses both with support staff and with equipment. The job of a nurse involves quite a lot of lifting, so it is incredibly important if any nurses are going to make it through to retirement that the equipment available in the hospital eases their burden in this area. Many nurses find that they are also doing duties that are traditionally thought of as the responsibilities of receptionists and orderlies, and in order for nurses to attend to their nursing duties, sooner or later facilities will have to streamline funds so that these support levels are taken care of by staff other than nurses.

The biggest short-term problem facing the industry is the nurse-to-patient ratio. Most facilities are unable to fill vacant positions, and so the ratio remains at a level that many nurses are uncomfortable with. However, efforts to address the issue properly still provide hope.

It's going to be vital to recruit nurses heavily, as well. There will be marked attempts to train more nurses, as well as healthcare organizations making deals to attract nurses to work for them. If medical providers don't start paying attention, they will soon find themselves without any nurses to run their facilities!

One of the biggest concerns is that the output of nurses from universities and colleges does not match the number of nurses that are leaving. In addition, many graduating nurses are not going to work in traditional areas such as hospitals, instead choosing the lower levels of stress and the higher levels of pay available at other facilities, such as jails and nursing homes.

In order to improve the patient to nurse ratio that is such a common complaint among nurses, it is vital to increase the number of students coming out of nursing schools across the country. Universities and colleges need to have the funding available to create these spaces. In addition, facilities and governments will have to offer programs such as student loan forgiveness programs in order to attract potential students to the profession.

The last decade has seen a massive growth in secondary industries targeted towards nurses. These industries include nursing agencies and travel nursing programs which hire their own nurses and then contract them out to facilities in need. These nurses are generally higher paid than their counterparts in the facilities they are contracted out to. In addition, they get to change their place of work frequently, often with all travel expenses paid. Facilities are going to need to take a look at this practice and determine if they are willing to offer the kind of wages and benefits that these nurses are receiving if they ever hope to have a stable work force.

As far as the nursing profession goes, the long term future is bright. The current shortage allows a graduating nurse to virtually write his or her own ticket. In addition, the shortage is expected to grow worse, which has pushed the concerns of nurses into the public spotlight. In order to alleviate the shortage, governments and facilities will have no choice but to meet the concerns of nurses in order to keep them at their jobs.

Alternatively, the future of the nursing profession may lie within nursing agencies. Unless facilities and governments realize that the concerns of nurses need to be met at the ground level, new and established nurses alike will continue to gravitate towards the pay and flexibility that these agencies offer.

That should be enough to sink your teeth in to. It's a great time to be a nurse- you're in very high demand- and it's likely to only get better.

Hi and welcome to what will probably be many articles about careers in the healthcare industry. This article is designed to give you an overview of the basics of the somewhat embattled US healthcare system. This is not an exhaustive review of the entire industry, but it should give someone who is considering healthcare jobs a leg up.

In the US, a diverse selection of individuals and legal entities pay for health care- patients are offered both inpatient and outpatient services by charitable, commercial, or governmental entities. The healthcare system is funded by a mix of public and private funding, with the government picking up about 45% of the total annual cost.

Medicine is practiced in a variety of facilities throughout the United States. Obviously, there are for-profit hospitals, operated by private corporations, and there are also nonprofit hospitals, which are usually operated by the government or nonprofit or religions organizations. Hospitals provide a small amount of outpatient care in emergency rooms and specialty clinics but are run primarily to provide inpatient care.

The law uses a "fee for service" business model when it comes to healthcare similar to other service industries, meaning that the patient must pay out-of-pocket, in full, for all medical treatment rendered. If a patient has insurance, they will pay a set monthly premium that will help pay most of the cost of medical treatment, however, a deductible (a minimum part of the total cost) is usually paid up front. Alternatively, the patient may have to pay a "co-payment"- a small part of the cost of every procedure.,

Most health care coverage provided through a person's work is provided through managed care organizations which pay much lower prices for medical services than an individual would if they paid out of pocket. The thing that makes managed care different from traditional insurance is that the health plan organization has contracts with specific health care providers, as the managed care organization is able to bring their numbers to bear to negotiate price reductions.

There are many individuals that are not covered by private insurance, but are covered by government programs such as Medicaid (which provides care to the poor), Medicare (which provides care for the elderly and disabled), or the Veterans Administration (which provides care to veterans, their families and survivors). In 2006, Medicaid provided coverage for 38 million Americans while Medicare did the same for about 40 million. Another 11 million people are eligible for coverage but are not enrolled in any kind of government program.

The number of physicians accepting Medicaid has decreased over the past decade due to high administrative costs and low levels of reimbursement. Another program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program was created in 1997 to provide coverage for children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid yet can't afford to buy health insurance- however, this program is already losing funding in may states.

As you move forward in your career, only you can decide if the health care industry is right for you. Be vigilant, don't get discouraged- and you will find the healthcare jobs you're looking for in no time at all!

Hi everybody! Today, I will be taking some time to speak to the person looking for a part-time job. This is a bit of a departure from what is usually a more career-oriented column but I feel this information is valuable as well. You can conduct an online job search for a part time job the same way you can for a full time job. The same practices apply- always make sure you have an alternative to email or other online contact such as voicemail, an answering machine, or a cellular phone. If you are "pounding the pavement"- walking into retail stores- you should be prepared for an interview on the spot, as you may be offered an immediate interview. You can also try some of the lower-profile, but still large, job boards on the Internet, such as Go Jobs.com

All of the big national boards have search engines and sections for part time employment, and there are job boards on the Internet specifically set up for part-time work, too. The great thing about these boards is that you can usually apply for part time hourly positions right from your computer desk! Most of the major retailers, such as Target or Wal-Mart, have special sections- ending in jobs.com- designed to help streamline the process of hiring hourly workers.

Most online applications for part-time work are the same as those for full-time jobs- they will require contact information, education, and employment history, as well as salary information and your availability. Some of these applications will also ask for references.

Don't limit yourself to looking online. Make sure you keep aware of your environment, and be observant of new employment opportunities. Many retail establishments keep "Now Hiring" signs in their windows when they have opportunities available, and you can always ask to speak to a manager if it doesn't look like the business is hiring- they may have unadvertised opportunities available. Also, many of the smaller employers advertise on sites such as Craigslist, and the printed paper can be a good resource as well.

Remember, also, that you're not on your own- there's help out there! There a multitude of both free and very inexpensive resources available to assist you in your job search, including college student employment offices, the state Department of Labor, your high school guidance office, or the public library, too!

You definitely don't want your social/professional network to grow stagnant, either- many, if not most, part-time jobs are not advertised. Make sure everyone you know is aware that you're looking for a job- networking really does work!

Hello, welcome to my little corner of the web! Today, I'm featuring an article about the general state of the healthcare industry in the United States. This is not a top-to-bottom review of the entire industry, but it will give you an overview, and should give anyone looking for jobs in nursing a head start on the rest of the pack!

In the US, a diverse selection of individuals and legal entities pay for health care- patients are offered both inpatient and outpatient services by charitable, commercial, or governmental entities. The healthcare system is funded by a mix of public and private funding, with the government picking up about 45% of the total annual cost.

There is also a huge market in the US for medical devices, medicines and medical research and development. Most spending on medical R and D is privately funded; however, non-profit organizations and the government provide some funding as well. Most medical research and development for direct medical application is conducted in commercial labs, and most general research is funded by the government (for example, the National Institute of Mental Health) or by universities.,

Almost 60% of Americans receive health care coverage from their employer, although that number is declining in the tough economy. Workers have to pay about 16% of their own single coverage costs and about 28% of the cost of healthcare for their families. Additionally, they must also pay for deductibles and co-payments. However, employer contributions to healthcare are not taxable as income- this is a 150 billion dollar annual tax subsidy provided by the government.

Managed Care organizations include HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) and PPOs (Preferred Provider Organizations. A PPO general has a higher cost than an HMO, but a PPO allows the patient to choose where they receive their care, while with an HMO they are constrained to "in-network" providers. The PPO has been the dominant of the two, over the past decade, and it is common today for a physician or hospital to have contracts with a dozen or more health plans, each with different referral networks, contracts with different diagnostic facilities, and different practice guidelines.,

There are many individuals that are not covered by private insurance, but are covered by government programs such as Medicaid (which provides care to the poor), Medicare (which provides care for the elderly and disabled), or the Veterans Administration (which provides care to veterans, their families and survivors). In 2006, Medicaid provided coverage for 38 million Americans while Medicare did the same for about 40 million. Another 11 million people are eligible for coverage but are not enrolled in any kind of government program.

The number of physicians accepting Medicaid has decreased over the past decade due to high administrative costs and low levels of reimbursement. Another program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program was created in 1997 to provide coverage for children in families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid yet can't afford to buy health insurance- however, this program is already losing funding in may states.

As you move forward in your career, only you can decide if the health care industry is right for you. Be vigilant, don't get discouraged- and you will find all those perfect jobs in nursing you're looking for in no time at all!

There really isn't much difference between searching Internet jobs and using a newspaper, other than the number of job postings, the technology aspect, and hopefully some efficiency.

Finding jobs, especially internet jobs online requires basic knowledge of how to surf the Internet.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of job boards and job sites. There are geographically specific job boards, niche job boards by industry, or job function, boards focused on part-time jobs and even religious based sites.

Finding the specific job boards isn't difficult.
A quick search on Google for "Job boards", or "Jobs", will bring back more than enough career centers.

There are Industry specific job boards, such as Accounting, management, purchasing, and even sales job boards. Many of these job boards are relatively smaller, compared to big job boards, so there are advantages to using these sites.

It's in your best interest to search multiple job boards at a time. One client of ours is using over 20 job boards. He saves his searches, and creates job agents, and then spends 30-60 minutes reviewing those results each day%u2026 if there are any changes.

One of the benefits of an online job search is the ability to create job agents. These are simple "reminders" that usually send you email when jobs meeting your criteria come up. One thing to note is that it's important to test your job search criteria. For instance, if you add too many search criteria, you may get limited, or no results. If you create too broad of criteria, you get a lot of jobs that aren't relevant.

Posting a resume online is also unique to online job searching. This is a great feature, but can also be a little cumbersome. For instance, most big employers want you to post your resume on their corporate website. Well this isn't that difficult, it's just time consuming. Follow my advice and you'll be finding internet jobs in no time!

While you can spend a lot of time researching Internet Jobs, it's important to continue developing your referrals and social networks.

In the US, there are many more open jobs in nursing than there are qualified nurses to fill them. This is great news for anyone looking for a nursing job- as the United States' population continues to age, jobs in nursing will become more and more prevalent, and the numbers are unlikely to drop off any time soon.

Employers are being forced to use non-traditional means for finding employees including temporary and contract staffing, as well as traveling nursing agencies. All those unfilled jobs mean plenty of opportunity for a nurse that knows how to see it out. As such, you need to be on the Internet as part of your job search, as the healthcare industry is no exception to the rule.

For a registered nurse looking for a job in the year 2008, prospects are very good. There are many job sites dedicated to healthcare and nursing jobs, these sites often include links to both local and national nurse recruiters, travel nurse employers, and many other varieties of RN jobs.

There are lots of Internet job boards such as GoJobs.com, and taking that site as an example- they have over 20 thousand jobs in nursing, from emergency room nurses to traveling nurses, OR nurses, critical care nurses, and many other RN jobs. One of the best ways to help search through the myriad of listings on a site such as GoJobs is to set up a job search agent.

A job search agent, also known as a job alert or job notification, is an automated email notification. Basically, on a jobs website, you enter a set of search criteria such as "RN jobs in Baltimore, MA", and then you receive an email every day containing the updated listings that match your criteria. Job agents are useful for more than just finding a job, though:

1. Get updates on what local companies are paying for different positions.
   
2. Get updates on local companies, who are looking for people exactly like you.
   
3. Find out if there are jobs at your companies competitors.
   
4. Keep up to date on how many employers are hiring for different positions.
   
5. Get updates on jobs that you are in training for, or are looking to start a career in.
   
6. Get updates on Job openings at your EXISTING Employer!

Using this strategy will save you time because you won't need to dig through every listing every day on every site to see if there's anything new out there. You will get emails directly to your personal inbox, so use the extra time to relax- we all know the job search is stressful- or even learn a new skill. Good luck in your hunt for jobs in nursing, and I hope this has been helpful!

Get the competitive edge with your recruiting strategy%u2026 start using Niche job boards.

I'm going to shake things up a bit today, and post an article for employers, rather than one for job seekers. This should still be valuable to job seekers, though, as a "through the looking glass" view of how employers view you. The topic today is niche job boards- any board that ends in jobs.com, really, and why you, as an employer, should be using them as part of your recruiting strategy.

Finding a job on the Internet can be stressful and confusing for even the most qualified job seeker. As someone in the recruitment industry, you understand just how many job boards are popping up on the web daily. And you also know the struggle to understand which add value to your recruitment practices and which are not so valuable.

There are many ways to better present your company to qualified job seekers. For starters, going to where your ideal candidates are on the web shows them that you are not taking the easy way out by only using the quantity providers many employers default to. Discovering more about job seekers you feel are qualified lets them know you are serious about filling the position with someone who will excel. And you know best, a key part of selling (products, your company, whatever it may be) is making the "buyer" feel wanted and cared about.

Still not convinced that you need to post on niche job boards? Here are a few reasons to consider:

1. Niche job boards narrow the number of jobs seekers have to look through to find that diamond in the rough you posted. The more generic job boards require clever searching to eliminate jobs that aren't in the seeker's area, industry or professional level. With fewer jobs listed, it's easier for job seekers to find your job, even on the 15th day of posting.
2. Resume mining on niche job boards is less of a hassle than big boards. Although the quantity is lower, the quality level of the seekers is much higher making it more likely that you'll find a great candidate.
3. If you're thinking in terms of budget, hint hint%u2026a vast majority of smaller, niche job sites charge a very minimal posting fee, if they charge at all.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find niche job boards to post to by doing a simple web search. A good idea would be to look for associations related to your industry- they are as targeted as job boards come, usually don't charge high fees, and in general have good pools of candidates. Always be on the lookout for good boards that end in jobs.com and you should have a resource stockpile in no time! Good luck, and hopefully this niche board strategy will pay off for you as it has for me!

Today I'm going to discuss the healthcare system in the US to give you a better idea bout what you might be in for when looking for healthcare jobs. First let's look at some basic facts about the type of care and locations where the healthcare industry operates. Who is "the healthcare industry", anyway? In the United States, healthcare is provided by an array of public and private entities, funded by both public and private sources. The breakdown is that the US government foots about 24% of the bill, with private insurance paying about 36% and out-of-pocket expenses being about 15% of the total cost. That adds up to lots and lots of healthcare jobs for qualified individuals!

Types of Healthcare Services

* Ambulatory care- aka "outpatient" care, where no hospital stay is required
* Home Health Care = Nursing services, ordered by physicians and provided in the patients' residence
* General Practice- general practitioners of "family medicine"
* Specialty Practice- specialty physicians- oncologists, pediatricians, cardiologists, etc.
* Non-Physician - physician assistants and nurse practitioners

Where are Healthcare Services typically administered?
* Private Hospitals (usually operated by private corporations, for a profit)
* Nonprofit Hospitals (usually operated by religious organizations or independent nonprofit organizations, or governments)
* Specialty Clinics such as prenatal clinics, surgical centers, or family planning clinics
* Hospice care (for patients with less than 6 months to live, typically subsidized by
charities and/or government and provided in the patients' home)
What other things does the medical industry do?
* Research, development, production and marketing of pharmaceutical drugs
* Manufacture of Medical equipment/ devices
* Medical research

This may come as a shock to you- it certainly did to me- but the US spends over $7,000 a year per person, for a total of 2.25 TRILLION dollars (facts are from 2007). That means that we spend more, as a function of either GDP or on a per-capita basis, than any other developed nation in the world, and as I stated before, it means a lot of work for people looking for healthcare jobs. Healthcare counts for 16% of our yearly GDP!

The US is the only wealthy industrialized nation in the world without a universal healthcare system. About 16% of the total population is uninsured, with the rest being insured either through the government, their employer, or privately purchased insurance. There are also programs, funded by taxpayers, to provide healthcare coverage for the elderly, the disabled, children, veterans, and the poor. In fact, the government is the largest insurer in the country, spending 45% of the total cost of healthcare every year. Federal law mandates that medical services providers must provide emergency care to anyone that requests it, regardless of their ability to pay. There's a real problem with healthcare costs rising faster than wages or inflation- in the year 2001, over half of
all people who declared bankruptcy did so because of "medical causes".
The healthcare industry in the US is not thought of very highly throughout the rest of the world. The World Health Organization conducted a study in 2000 that ranked the US healthcare system as the best in the world in terms of responsiveness and expenditure, but 37th overall in performance and 72nd overall in overall level of health. However, that particular study has been widely discredited as not correlating very well with patient surveys about their own feelings on their medical care.

Bear these basic facts in mind when you decide if the healthcare industry is right for you, and come back for part 2 of my series on healthcare jobs!

If you're in the job market in Southern California, finding web developer jobs in Irvine will be very competitive. This article will help you get ready for that search!I'll bet you didn't know that programmable computers have been around for hundreds of years? Not electronic computers, to be sure, those are invention of the 20th century, but we can go as far back as the 1200's to find examples of programmable machines, the first of which was a human-shaped automaton that could be made to play different rhythms on a set of drums when movable pegs' positions were changed on its gears. The first real modern computer is very famous- the Jacquard loom was invented in France in 1801. This machine had a slot for a punch card, and depending on what holes were punched out of the punch card, different patterns would be woven into the fabric. Some of these looms are still in use today.
At the turn of the century, Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company, which would eventually become International Business Machines, commonly referred to nowadays as IBM. He continued the use of punch cards for programming, and that was used as an input to computers all the way through the 1970's. Punch cards contributed a major advance to the science of computing-for the first time, the whole machine didn't have to be reconfigured to run different programs.
In the 1950's the first higher-level computer programming language- known as Fortran- came on the scene. This was s huge advance, because it allowed its users to enter instructions in algebraic terms (such as x+7 = 9). These instructions were then "compiled" into machine language, used by the machine to carry out computations. At this point in the computers' history, instructions were still entered using punch cards or "tape". By the end of the 1960's, however, computers had for the first time advanced to the point where instructions could be typed on a keyboard right into the machine, due to advances in materials and dropping component prices.
The five most important elements of any computer program are

Efficiency: the amount of system resources a program consumes-the less the better.
Reliability: how often the results of a program are correct.
Robustness: how well a program anticipates situations of data type conflict and other incompatibilities that result in run time errors and program halts.
Usability: the clarity and intuitiveness of a programs' output can make or break it's success. This involves a wide range of textual and graphical elements that makes a program easy and comfortable to use.
Portability: the range of hardware and OS platforms on which the source code of a program can be compiled and run.

The steps of development of a software program are usually:
Requirements Analysis- what does the software need to do?
Modeling- anticipating usage scenarios
Implementation- bringing the software on line
Failure Elimination- debugging and further testing
The march of technology is seemingly unstoppable, and the computer is no exception- in fact, many modern scientific advances wouldn't have been possible without the computer. Computers nowadays work on quite an abstract level- a person could conceivable write whole pieces of software without actually learning machine language, at all! What this has meant is that modern computers require more resources; however, it also means that the process of programming has been streamlined for veterans, and that barriers to entry for novice programmers are also rapidly falling, leading to an increase in demand for programming experts throughout the developed world. . Keep these things in mind when you search for Irvine web developer jobs and you will be ahead of the game!

So you're thinking of moving to California. Great, I did about 4 years ago and I have never looked back! The people, the weather, and the job market here are all just fantastic. California is a great place to live and work, but there are some differences between working in California and working in other states. You'll want to take these into account during your first Cal jobs search.

Everyone loves taxes, right? RIGHT?? No, of course not, but we still need to discuss it here. Employers in California can only deduct payroll taxes as required by law. There are a lot of things they aren't allowed to deduct from your paycheck, either- they can't charge you for having a picture taken or for a work uniform, they can't deduct your gratuities from your check, and they can't charge you for "business expenses" or physical examinations as required for work. Employers can't charge you for "breakage", either- they have to absorb that as part of the cost of doing business.

Minimum wage in California is also the highest in the nation, even higher than the Federal minimum wage. Minimum wage out here is $8 an hour, which is pretty good if you consider that means you can make almost $1300 a month working at a very low-skilled job. Of course, there are special stipulations for sheepherders, but since you probably aren't a sheepherder we will gloss over those. If there is ever a conflict between the State and Federal minimum wage, the tie goes to the employee and the employer must pay the higher wage. Another interesting fact is that this law applies to servers, as well- whereas servers in other states make much less than minimum wage, based on the assumption that they will receive tips, in California they make the same minimum wage as anyone else- from $2.31 and hour to $8 an hour is quite a big step up!

Holidays in California may work differently than you're used to, as well. There is absolutely no requirement that an employer close down on any day of the year, nor is there a requirement that a Cal employer must pay extra to employees working on holidays. Make sure that you bear this in mind when discussing your schedule with a potential employer- in California, Saturdays, Sundays and Holidays are nothing special, when it comes to extra pay.

You may not be used to this next fact, either, but Cal jobs are very specific about how your pay is disbursed, as well. Employees must be paid on the 26th of the month for all hours worked between the 1st and 16th of that same month, and on the 10th day of the next month for all hours worded from the 16th of the previous month through month end. Also (this was a surprise to me), when you leave a job, all outstanding wages must be paid within 72 hours of the employee giving notice/working their last shift.

The biggest difference between California and where you currently work may be that California is an "at-will employment" state. Employees are free to quit their jobs without cause, and likewise, employers are allowed to terminate their employees without cause, as well. However, anti-discrimination laws still apply- you can't be disciplined or let go based on any of the following criteria (as defined by the California Fair Employment and Housing Act): race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry, physical disability, mental disability or medical condition, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, age (as it applies to people over 40), pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. Keep all of the above in mind when starting your cal jobs search and things should go swimmingly!

Now that we've discussed some of the more general aspects of truck driving jobs, let's get a little more specific. Today, we are going to discuss the one piece of documentation any truck driver needs to have- the Commercial Driver's License, hereafter referred to as the CDL.

You must have a CDL to operate any vehicle with a weight of 26,000 or more pounds, and it's also required to operate a tow truck or a bus. A tractor-trailer requires more expertise to drive than a regular passenger car, which is why the Federal government mandates a special license- namely, the CDL- for large, heavy vehicles. Up until 1986, drivers could get a separate license from every state, allowing them to cover up poor driving records and accidents, which is why the Department of Transportation (DOT) passed the Commercial Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1986, which standardized minimum requirements for obtaining a CDL and mandated both a written and road test.

You do not have to attend a school to take the test, you simply need to demonstrate competency on the road and pass the written test with 80% of the questions correctly. Employers, training facilities, States, governmental departments, and private institutions can administer knowledge and driving test for the State. The test must be the same as those given by the State issuing the CDL and the instructors must meet the same professional certification as State instructors.

A CDL allows an 18-21 year old to operate a commercial vehicle within their own state only. Once a driver turns 21, the license automatically converts to a national license that lets them transport cargo across state lines. New York and New Jersey also have additional laws related to the CDL which apply to limousines and school buses.

There are also several additional endorsements a driver may earn for their CDL:

T- Double or Triple Semi Trailer- Written Test

P- Passenger Vehicle - Written and Driving Tests

S- School Bus- Written Test, Driving Test, Background Check, Sex Offender Registry Check and "P" endorsement

N- Tanker Truck- Written Test

H- Hazardous Materials- Written Test, Background check through the TSA

X- Combination Tank/Hazardous Materials- Written Test

Operating a commercial vehicle without a CDL is a civil penalty of up to $2,500, in more extreme cases; a criminal charge may be levied with a penalty of up to $5,000 and 90 days in jail. An employer may be fined up to $10,000 if they willingly and/or knowingly allow a driver to operate one of their vehicles without having obtained their CDL. You may lose your CDL if you commit two or more serious traffic violations (90-day to 5-year suspension) or one serious traffic violation (one year suspension). You may also lose your CDL if you are found to be driving under the influence of an illicit substance or are convicted of using a CMV to commit a felony (3 year suspension).

To get your CDL, the best course of action is to attend an accredited CDL training program through a truck driving school, where you will learn how to read a map, how to plan your trips, and how to comply with DOT law, as well as the mechanics of driving the truck like backing up, turning, hooking up a trailer, and driving on the road.
Here are some tips on choosing a CDL training program:
Shop around- there can be massive variations in price and quality of instruction from school to school
Community college and vocational/technical schools are almost always accredited, and provide an excellent value
Most trucking companies won't hire you if your CDL training was completed in a week or two- try to find an eight-week school.
"FREE TRAINING" is not always free- some companies require you to work for them for a year in exchange for "free" training.
You will need a physical exam and your driving record will be checked by any trucking company you apply with. Don't pay for training that you won't be able to use.
Most companies will disqualify you if you have been convicted of certain felonies. Again, don't pay for training that you won't be able to use.

Have you ever heard the phrase "if you bought it, a truck brought it?" Well, that's because trucking is the main driving force behind America's economy! 70% of everything you buy has traveled on a truck at some point. In the year 2006, trucks transported over 10 billion tons of freight, and the trucking industry was a 645 billion dollar business! Here are some things that you're going to want to know if you intend to take on truck driving jobs as a career.

Truck drivers are generally excellent behind the wheel- they spend a lot of time there! They are involved in traffic collisions less than half as often as passenger car drivers are. However, truck driving jobs do present its own unique set of challenges: the hours are long and lead to fatigue, the profession can be very lonely, and there are significant health and safety challenges. Drivers are also subject to strict Federal regulations and must submit to random drug tests, as well.

Consider the following:

Truck drivers experience 10% of ALL the workplace fatalities in the US and 8% of all workplace musculoskeletal injuries. It has even been suggested (with strong empirical evidence to back it up) that a long-term career as a trucker can reduce the average person's life span from 10 to 12 years! That may be why the industry experiences such a high rate of turnover- 136% in the 4th quarter of 2005. That means that for every 100 people that took a trucking job during that time frame, 136 of them quit!

Knowing some of the industry rules may help you decide if you want to pursue a career in trucking or not. Legally, truckers can drive for 11 hours at a time, with a 10-hour break immediately afterwards. Also, truckers MUST take a 10 hour break after their 14th hour of the day, independent of the number of miles driven. Truckers may drive up to 70 hours per week, but are not paid overtime after working the standard 40 hour week. A trucker has to be 21 years of age to drive cross-country and 18 years of age to drive a truck within their home state. Many carriers are hesitant to hire young drivers and will not hire you unless you are at least 23 years old- 25 years old, in some extreme cases.

Truckers are usually paid by the mile, so a trucker has to drive a lot to bring in a good paycheck. When a driver isn't driving (if they are sitting waiting for freight to get loaded or in traffic, for example), they aren't making any money- this leads some drivers to bend the federally mandated rules about drive times in order to ensure their pay is good. A trucker averages from between 19 to 44 cents a mile. It's tough to narrow down "how much a trucker makes" because incomes from $300 a week to $1200 a week are frequently reported.

Trucking is keeping pace with the Internet, as now almost the entire industry is computerized. Most trucks are equipped with a Qualcomm Satellite System, which tracks where the truck is down to a three-block radius. In the past, truck drivers were tied to the telephone to know when and where to get their next load, but now, the trucking company's dispatcher simply sends out a message over the Qualcomm- this message includes directions, location, distance- everything the trucker needs to handle the load.

Now that you're armed with a little more knowledge, get out there and get yourself your CDL and your first truck driving jobss. You'll be hauling freight in no time, and helping to keep our economy moving!

Everyday, I continue to learn something new about the online job search process.
Today, I learned that Truck Driving Jobs, is one of the most competitive niches in the job board business.
"Really?" you say?

You bet. Here's why.

When truck drivers finish delivering a local or long haul load, many times they have to head back home, or to another destination. It makes sense, that if they can pick up another load, on their way back, or to their next delivery, to keep the truck full, they can make more money.

Well, welcome to the Internet. Most truck stops are already Wifi enabled. Using online job boards, truck drivers can log into the Internet, find a delivery, that needs to be made, pick it up, and take off. It's actually a pretty unique solution to creating great efficiencies.

So you want to be a trucker, eh? There are some terms you are going to need to know, and having the "lingo" down pat can't ever hurt in a job interview, or during a networking opportunity. With that in mind, let's review some of the industry's common terms.

Motor Carrier- a person or company providing transport of people or goods using commercial vehicles

Shipper - The person "sending" goods using a freight service

Receiver- The person "receiving" goods using a freight service

Consignor- The person who transfers legal responsibility for a load to a carrier

Consignee- The person who takes legal responsibility for a load from a carrier

Freight- The cargo being hauled / handled

BOL (Bill of Lading)/Manifest- A paper document that states the content and nature of the cargo

Intermodal- a description referring to a single container that is transported via multiple means during shipment, i.e. from air to sea to rail to a truck

TSE/Shore Power- Truck Stop Electrification- external power "docks" that allow truckers to operate internal systems such as climate control or television without idling their engines

Deadheading- Operating a truck that isn't hauling any cargo

OTR (over-the-road)- Any trip longer than the maximum per-day period of 14 hours where the driver doesn't return to the home location

Terminal- A dock where trucks come and go and freight is sorted

Owner/Operator- a self-employed independent contractor that operates a privately owned or leased truck

Team Drivers- A team of 2 or more drivers that ride in the same truck and drive in shifts so that the truck is essentially always in motion. Usually used when a shipment is time-sensitive or perishable

Dedicated (regular) Route- a driver that transports cargo between 2 or more locations repetitively, usually keeping to a certain schedule.

Irregular Route- a driver who goes anywhere at any time without sticking to a scheduled route

Regional- a Driver who works in a limited geographical area within a certain radius. A regional driver may or may not maintain a regular schedule.

Truckload (TL)- A load of freight consisting mostly of one kind of cargo, usually handled by an Over-The-Road driver

Less-Than-Truckload (LTL)- a load of freight consisting of several different types of cargo with several different destinations, usually handled by a dedicated or regional driver

Let's say you are applying for truck driving jobs. Do you need to include a cover letter with your application? Yes, absolutely- read on to find out why!

You have probably contemplated whether or not it's worth it to write a cover letter when trying to find a new job. Does it make a difference? Does anyone read it? What information should it include? Well, HR professionals resoundingly answer that it DOES matter, and, all things being equal, a well-written cover letter can give you an advantage over an applicant that doesn't submit one at all.

It may help you to think of your cover letter as the "sales pitch" that accompanies your "marketing material"- which is your resume. You wouldn't likely buy a product just based on a list of specifications, someone needs to tell you why you need it. Your cover letter fulfills the same function!

It's important to represent yourself as best as possible when applying for a job, as employers usually receive an absolute avalanche of resumes when they open up a position. They don't have time to sift through each and every resume, so your cover letter can go a long way towards enlightening them as to your potential.

So how can your cover letter set you apart?

Your cover letter is your personal introduction, the yin to your resume's more formal yang. The cover letter explains what you want to do in your potential new position, and what makes you qualified to do it. Your cover letter should include a quick introduction, the name of the position you are applying for, what interests you in the position, and why you are qualified to do it. DO NOT, however, include your salary history/requirements- they go in a separate document.

It's important that you state your qualifications in a way that doesn't make you seem overconfident or worse, cocky. You should look through the job advertisement that originally attracted you and pick out a few of the requirements, then list them. Alongside this list, note any experience, qualifications, certifications or any other factor that proves that you have the desired skills and experience for the position in question. Then, simply close with a "thank you" and provide your contact information. Make sure that you include a full version of your contact info on the cover letter in case it gets separated from your resume.

Has it been a while since you've looked for a job? Have you been affected by lay-offs? Are you just ready for something new? In any case, you now need to start being proactive, exploiting your connections, and getting yourself into a position that you want and can be happy in. So where should you begin?

Be resourceful. Use the vast resources of the Internet to start looking for a job before you have to have one to pay the rent. Search job boards and company career centers and set up job agents, so that you are updated when new or applicable jobs are open. Just putting the word out is very beneficial, as well. If you find that the job boards don't have the types of positions you are looking for, think about any associations you are part of and check their websites. An increasing percentage of associations have their own career centers, enabling employers to advertise directly to specialized individuals like you. There are also many niche job boards out there, that focus on a particular geographical region or industry- these boards may be excellent at providing well-matched opportunities while they also help you to narrow your search.

It's all about connections. It always helps to have someone "on the inside" at an organization that you want to work for. You can use these connections to get an idea of what the company culture is like before you start working there- things like how management works, for example- this will give you an idea if the company is even worth your time to consider. Those same connections might also know of open positions that aren't publicly announced or "internal referral" jobs that you won't find on the large national job boards. Lastly, having a reference from someone within the company is always helpful for positions where there is a large pool of applicants.

Stay Positive. Job searching can be frustrating and even depressing, but don't let it affect you that way. Those sorts of negative feelings will color your resume, cover letter and interview. You never want employers to think that you are too anxious; conversely, seeming dispassionate isn't a benefit, either. Remain upbeat, remember, this job search is to improve your life! If you follow these rules and stay positive, potential employers will see your true, passionate, professional self. Remember: the right job is out there; you just have to find it!

If you're in the market for a new job, why not check out GoJobs.com? Here's an example of one of their pages showing truck driving jobs.

I was helping my friend look for a trucking job, and it occurred to me that there may be a lot of people out there that aren't using niche sites to look for a job. So, I wrote kind of a primer here on why you ought to be using niche jobs. I hope you like it!

Even advanced Internet users can get stressed out and confused when trying to conduct an online job search, qualifications notwithstanding. A couple of things contribute to this stress, first of all, you are more than likely without employment or dissatisfied with your current job or career. It's not uncommon at all to feel lost when looking for a job online. What sites should you use to conduct your search? Does it even matter? Should you post a public resume? How do you start?

It seems like a new job board or employment website springs up every day, and since Internet recruiting is still a relatively new field, there is probably a lot more than just one board a day getting off the ground. There are tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of websites out there for employment, and your ideal job may be posted on a job board that you've never even heard of. You may be saying to yourself "well every employer uses one of the big, well-known, Super Bowl advertising boards- right?" Some employers do use these boards exclusively, however, there's an emerging trend- employers are taking a closer look at their recruitment advertising budgets and re-evaluating the effectiveness of various traditional sites for the variety of positions they need to fill.

The odds are good that your ideal job is a hard-to-fill position, which makes it all the more likely that your employer will reach out to Association websites and regional or industry-specific job boards. This is where you want to put your resume!

Still don't want to try? Here's a few good reasons why you should consider including these niche job boards in your job search:

1. Once you've defined and located your niche, you are ALWAYS in demand! Joining an Association related to your field of expertise or career track lets potential employers know that you are more qualified for positions that fit their niche than job seekers on the large generic boards.
2. When an employer chooses to post on a niche job board, they have already taken measures to target their ideal candidate. Rather than the "carpet-bomb" approach of posting only on the big, national job boards, they have made an effort to understand you, the job seeker, and where you feel most comfortable searching for work. This is the type of employer you WANT to work for, because they have you and your success in mind, not just their own interests.
3. Using niche job boards allows you to be maximally effective in your job hunt- you don't have to sift through thousands of potential jobs to find that one "diamond in the rough". The big national (read: generic) job boards require you to be a master of their complicated search function in order to eliminate all of the jobs that aren't in your geographical location, industry, or at your current professional level.

Get out there and find your niche! There are many thousands of different Associations out there, and probably more than a few pertaining to your specific field. Find the ones that represent who you are and what you do, and become a member; alternatively, you can search for jobs by state, in your industry or region of the country and then sign up on the sites that seem to have the results you want. Good luck!