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30 Best Markets to Find a Job
by Rachel Zupek, CareerBuilder

Job seekers with no ties to any particular location often seek jobs in big cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco. But are these the places where they’re most likely to find a job?

Not according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job seekers are better off looking in such cities as Sioux Falls, S.D., Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Rapid City, S.D. All of these cities registered some of the lowest unemployment rates in September 2008.

Low unemployment rates seem harder to come by in today’s economy. Unemployment rates were higher in 349 of the 369 U.S. metropolitan areas surveyed, which means 92 percent of cities have seen an increase in their unemployment rates. Only 25 areas reported lower rates, while six areas had no change. The national unemployment rate in September, 6 percent, was up 1.5 percent from 4.5 in September 2007.

Ten cities recorded jobless rates of at least 10 percent and nine areas registered rates below 3 percent. Eighty-four metropolitan areas posted unemployment rates of at least 7 percent, up from only 17 areas the year before. Only 46 cities had jobless rates below 4 percent, down from 133 areas at the same time last year. In total, Among the 310 metropolitan areas for which nonfarm payroll data were available in September 2008, 140 areas reported over-the-year employment gains, 164 reported losses, and 6 had no change.

Despite these startling figures, several cities have low unemployment rates. Here are 30 cities (and their Metropolitan Statistical Areas) with the lowest unemployment rates, according to the September numbers released by the BLS.*

1. Bismarck, N.D.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.5

2. Casper, Wyo.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.5

3. Logan, Utah
September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.5

4. Sioux Falls, S.D.
September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.5

5. Morgantown, W. Va.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.6

6. Ames, Iowa
September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.7

7. Fargo, N.D.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.8

8. Iowa City, Iowa

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.8

9. Rapid City, S.D.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 2.9

10. Lincoln, Neb.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.0

11. Provo-Orem, Utah

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.0

12. Billings, Mont.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.1

13. Charleston, W. Va.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.2

14. Midland, Texas

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.2

15. Salt Lake City, Utah

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.2

16. Idaho Falls, Idaho

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.3

17. Lafayette, La.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.3

18. Santa Fe, N.M.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.3

19. Charlottesville, Va.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.4

20. Farmington, N.M.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.4

21. Grand Forks, N.D.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.4

22. Lawton, Okla.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.4

23. Madison, Wisc.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.4

24. Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers, Ark.-Mo.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

25. Harrisonburg, Va.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

26. Ogden-Clearfield, Utah

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

27. Oklahoma City, Okla.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

28. Omaha-Council Bluffs, Neb.-Iowa

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

29. Portsmouth, N.H.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

30. Sioux City, Iowa

September 2008 Unemployment Rate: 3.5

*Based on preliminary September numbers accessed October 31, 2008.

Rachel Zupek is a writer and blogger for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues.

You’ve Got Mail. Is it Full of Lies?
By John Roach, special to MSN Tech & Gadgets

E-mail was a novelty when Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) logged on to her laptop in the opening scene of the 1998 hit romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail.” A mere decade later, e-mail is a cornerstone of modern communications. But a growing body of research suggests we’ve yet to adapt our social behaviors to fit with an era where every message we send is next to impossible to digitally erase.

“People don’t quite grasp that aspect of it,” says Charles Naquin, an assistant professor of management at DePaul University in Chicago. The disconnection may help explain why the research he and his colleagues are pursuing shows that e-mail is the most deceptive form of communication in the workplace.

In one recent experiment, the researchers handed 48 business students a hypothetical $89 to divide between themselves and a fictional person who knew only that the amount lay somewhere between $5 and $100 and would accept whatever came his way. Half of the students were told to conduct the transaction via e-mail; the other half with a handwritten note.

A whopping 92 percent of the e-mailers lied about the size of the pot – and how much the other person would receive – whereas less than 64 percent of the handwritten note writers lied. What’s more, the lying e-mailers told more egregious lies about the size of the pot – and felt more justified about their lying, to boot.

“They do not have this social obligation toward the other party when they communicate via e-mail versus pen and paper,” says research team member Liuba Belkin, an assistant professor of management at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Terri Kurtzberg from Rutgers University also contributed to the study.

The team suspects the rate of lying was nearly 50 percent higher in e-mail than pen and paper due to the perception of handwritten notes as more formal and personal than e-mails. This would fit with earlier work showing that people are more willing to break social norms in an online environment versus face-to-face interactions.

It’s easier, for example, to call a co-worker a jerk in an online evaluation than it is to her face, Naquin says. The new work, he adds, suggests it is even easier to call that person a jerk in an e-mail than it is with a pen and paper, even though neither form of communication requires a personal interface. “There should be no difference, but there is, and that’s what’s interesting,” he says.

Adaptation lag?

Jeff Hancock is an associate professor of communications at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. He says the level of e-mail lying found in the study is fascinating, especially in an age when people should be aware that e-mail leaves a digital, searchable trail that makes hiding deception difficult at best.

He suspects the experimental conditions of the study eliminated e-mailers’ risk of being busted and, conversely, heightened the perception of risk for the handwritten note writers, since they had to place the note in a publicly monitored mailbox. On top of the formality of handwriting, this physical delivery brings “an aspect of the face-to-face world” into the equation, Hancock says.

“On the other hand, I would have still thought there would have been less lying in e-mail,” he adds. Research conducted in Hancock’s lab indicates people lie most over the phone, which is less personal than face-to-face communication and, presumably, not recorded such as in an e-mail or text message, and thus cannot be used to challenge their honesty.

“We think that people have a sort of unconscious knowledge of when to play it safer,” he says. “But they don’t have a conscious knowledge, and that’s why you see these big, huge errors.”

For example, e-mails pulled from Enron’s servers helped the federal government build its successful cases of fraud and conspiracy against executives at the former energy-trading giant.

Text messages proved former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick lied under oath about a romantic relationship with his chief of staff, Christine Beatty.

Sexually explicit instant messages to pages were at the center of the scandal that forced Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., to resign in 2006.

Hancock suggests lying and deception frequently occur in these newfangled recordable media because humans have yet to fully adapt their social norms to them. People have been talking for about 60,000 years, using durable media for maybe 6,000 years, using recordable media on a wide scale for 100 years, and using recordable, searchable digital media for just 15 years, he notes.

“We are used to nothing being recorded,” he says, adding that soon everything we say and write may be recorded forever. Ultimately we’ll adapt our behavior to fit the new reality.

Software is watching?

David Skillicorn is a computer scientist at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, who is working on software that may add incentive for terrorist groups and criminal organizations – and maybe one day office workers, too – to adapt more quickly to the new, digital reality.

The software is based on the work of James Pennebaker at the University of Texas in Austin, which shows that written lies contain fewer personal pronouns, more negative-emotion words and fewer exclusive words such as “but” and “except” than honest prose.

The lack of personal pronouns is a way for liars to distance themselves from their words; negative-emotion words are associated with the guilt of lying; and the lack of exclusive words signifies a cognitively simple story, which might be expected if the story is fabricated, according to the research.

“There’s characteristic changes in the frequency of those things, and the reason nobody really noticed until the last decade or so is that that’s really hard for humans to see,” Skillicorn says. “But it is really easy for software to see.”

His team wrote software to examine a database of Enron e-mails, which was made publicly accessible by the federal government, to see if they could ferret out deception at the time the executives were manipulating financial data and engaging in insider trades and other illegal activities.

The program uncovered e-mails that were out-and-out lies, but perhaps more interesting, Skillicorn says, the program revealed activities that were more deceptive in nature than simple lies. “You got the sense reading over the text that they were not completely being upfront in what they were saying in their e-mail.”

The software is able to rank the level of deceptiveness in an e-mail – or transcript of a conversation – only within a set of similar documents. An e-mail in isolation is too random for the program to determine if it alone is deceptive. Skillicorn says the software may be most useful for analysis of intercepted communications between terrorist groups and criminal organizations.

Until humans evolve new social norms for the digital age – and the tools to rapidly detect deception – Naquin of DePaul University advises his students to develop personal, offline relationships with people before interacting with them online. “With people you don’t know … I would be very cautious as to what you perceive as honest or dishonest online,” he says.

Then again, were it not for the cover of false identities afforded by e-mail, would the budding romance in “You’ve Got Mail” ever have flourished sufficiently to support the happy face-to-face ending?

Tool Up for Midcareer Job Hunt

Bad news for workers is good news for LinkedIn

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Where everyone else sees economic gloom and doom, Reid Hoffman sees opportunity.
As the freshly minted CEO of LinkedIn (and its founder), he is shepherding a moneymaking tech company in battered Silicon Valley. And he anticipates more growth next year.

That is no small achievement. The social-networking site, which lets business professionals create online profiles to seek jobs and network, is adding members faster than ever despite its own recent layoffs and a management shake-up.

“LinkedIn is the office, Facebook is the barbecue in the backyard, and MySpace is the bar,” says Hoffman, referring to the three major social-networking sites battling it out for millions of consumers and billions of dollars in online ads.

“Every individual is a small business or brand,” Hoffman says. This month, he succeeded Dan Nye as CEO, whose two-year stint as chief executive was underscored by dramatic gains in members and revenue.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Internet | Boston | Microsoft | Google Inc | MySpace | Silicon Valley | Facebook | Forrester Research | Porsche | Jerry Yang | Reid Hoffman | Jeff Weiner | Dan Nye | Gaining | CEO of LinkedIn | Dipchand | Jeremiah Owyang | Marissa Gluck | Radar Research
About 1 million people flock to the network every two weeks now, compared with 1 million per month earlier this year. (The site has 33 million members from 8 million two years ago.)

Gaining momentum

The surge accelerated in early September, when murmurs of recession began to take hold and business professionals intensified their networking efforts.

Since then, LinkedIn has experienced a 14% surge in recommendations its members make about each other, an 11% increase in number of connections made between LinkedIn users, a 10% jump in invitations sent, and a 9% bump in page views.

Many of the gains have come from employees and laid-off workers in financial industries such as investment banking.

“I use it as a recruiting tool and as a way to network as more people use LinkedIn,” says Tim Whitman, a 36-year-old public-relations specialist in Boston who has 335 connections. “The economy is a factor. But it is a great business-networking tool in today’s unstable work environment.”

With fewer jobs available, Hoffman and others expect a rush in online business networking. “Many people — employed or not — will do project work as consultants, and look for clients,” he says.

Hoffman, meanwhile, expects good tidings in 2009. “We are poised to drive the company to the next level,” he says. “Many (potential members) do not know how LI can help them, week after week.”

To reach the unfamiliar, LinkedIn this year revamped its site. It unfurled a recruiting service for human-resource departments, a survey application for market research firms and several advertising services. It launched a new search platform, mobile service, company profiles and a redesigned home page. And it served up Spanish and French versions of the site.

LinkedIn’s new additions have made it easier for its members to collaborate not just with co-workers but people outside of their jobs, says Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Big changes at the top

No tech company is immune to the economic downturn that has cost the industry tens of thousands of jobs this year. LinkedIn laid off 36 people, about 10% of its staff, last month.

At the same time, LinkedIn has undergone an executive makeover for its next phase of growth. It hired movers and shakers from Internet heavyweights Yahoo and Google — most notably former Yahoo executive Jeff Weiner, who had been mentioned as a possible candidate to replace departing Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang.

Weiner, who will report to Hoffman, will join as interim president for an unspecified time to oversee daily operations.

Earlier this month, Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, the former Google executive behind the search giant’s mobile business and other products, was picked to oversee LinkedIn’s development of products and services. He replaces Hoffman in that role.

The changes come at a time when LinkedIn thinks it can add more members — and analysts say the site can do a better job of getting its millions of current members to use the site more. “LinkedIn hasn’t quite figured out how to encourage frequent participation,” says Marissa Gluck, an analyst at Radar Research.

Dave McClure, a start-up adviser and angel investor in Silicon Valley, thinks LinkedIn can improve its retention of customers. But he says it remains “tops” among social-networking sites in creating revenue because it is the business network of choice.

“I’m pretty confident they’ll go public in the next four to eight quarters unless someone makes them an absolutely huge offer,” McClure says. Indeed, LinkedIn has not suffered a dip in advertising, which accounts for about 20% of its revenue, and for which it commands some of the highest online ad rates.

This is especially impressive given an expected slowdown in online ad spending. Spending grew 25%, to $7.66 billion in 2008, but growth should taper to 22% in 2009 and 19% in 2010, Forrester Research says.

The business-contact site has prospered through banner ads from the likes of Porsche and Microsoft; premium subscriptions for members; job postings charged to corporations and small-business owners; and corporate sales to Symantec, MTV and others.

Much of the growth came under the auspices of Nye, a veteran software executive who raised about $80 million in funding during his tenure as CEO. He said he will remain aboard through January and continue to advise the company. He characterized his departure as right for him and for LinkedIn.

“I am incredibly proud of all that we have accomplished — our business model, balance sheet and infrastructure are strong,” Nye says.

Nye leaves a legacy of a profitable company that has gobbled up revenue from advertising, online subscriptions, job listings, corporate sales and surveys. Though company officials are now mum, six months ago, LinkedIn said it expected $75 million to $100 million in revenue this year.

10 Advertising Words to Avoid in 2009
Susan Gunelius
Thursday December 11, 2008, 3:00 am EST
Yahoo! Buzz Print The economy, unemployment, companies folding, people losing their homes–2008 has left consumers wary of businesses. And that lack of consumer confidence requires straightforward, honest advertising messages to regain marketplace security. In 2009, perhaps more than ever, the words you use in your copywriting can determine whether you make a sale or lose a customer.

Here are 10 words to avoid in your 2009 copywriting.

Free
Ads that include messages about a free product or service promotions can work well during an economic downturn, but consumers need to see the products perform well. E-mail spam filters are tough on messages that include “free” in the subject line. While it might be tempting to use a subject line that says, “Open now to get your free widget,” that’s an e-mail spam filter red flag that will send your message to most recipients’ spam boxes. When the economy is tough, you can’t risk having your e-mails not make it to the intended recipients. Replace “free” with “complimentary” or “gratis” to sneak by spam filters without compromising the effectiveness of your message.

Guarantee
Few people believe in guarantees these days. Unless you can prove your guarantee is real, use the valuable real estate space in your ad for a more effective message that consumers are likely to believe and act on.

Really
If you want to waste space in your ads, include “really” in your copy. This word does nothing to help your messages. Instead, it slows consumers down, and they are not likely to wait around for the complete message. Don’t risk losing them by loading your copy with useless filler words. Make sure every word in your copy is there for a reason.

Very
Does a message sound more compelling with “very” in it? Is “When you need very fresh flowers, call ABC Florist,” more effective than “When you need fresh flowers, call ABC Florist”? If you answered, yes, reread the last paragraph.

That
Once you finish writing copy for your ad or marketing piece, reread it and make note of every time you use “that” in your copy. Chances are, you can delete 90 percent of them because “that” is a filler word that doesn’t advance the consumer through the message. Instead, it slows down time-strapped consumers. Deliver the messages your audience is likely to respond to, and deliver them quickly.

A Lot
Don’t use vague copy with words like “a lot” that do nothing to differentiate your business from your competitors. Instead, quantify your messages. If you offer 20 varieties of roses in your flower shop, say so. If you respond to customer service calls within five minutes, tell people. Which is more compelling: “You can choose from a lot of shoe styles at Sally’s Shoe Boutique” or “You can choose from more than 100 shoe styles at Sally’s Shoe Boutique?” No doubt, “100 shoe styles” is more intriguing than “a lot of shoe styles”. A lot can mean different things to different people. Don’t leave room for guesswork in your copy. Make your messages extremely clear with no room for confusion.

Opportunity
You’re not helping anyone when you offer “opportunities” in your copy. Consumers don’t want opportunities. They want to feel confident handing over their hard-earned money. They want to know they’ll get the results they want and need, not the opportunity to perhaps get those results. Don’t let them wonder what they’ll get when they pull out their wallets. Tell them.

To Be (or Not To Be, For That Matter)
Write your advertising and marketing messages in the active voice, not the passive voice. If any form of “to be,” “has been” or anything similar appears in your copy, rewrite it. Writing in the passive voice doesn’t command action. Writing in the active voice does.

Synergy
This overused piece of jargon has had a long life, but it’s time to move on. Leave jargon and 10-dollar words out of your advertising messages. There’s no room in copywriting for buzz words and words that consumers need a dictionary to understand. Consumers don’t care about your “unique value proposition.” They care that when they pay for your product or service, it will deliver the results they expect. Naturally, there are some exceptions to this rule, such as B2B copywriting, where jargon might be expected. In most copywriting, however, keep it simple.

Drinkability
Budweiser is already using “drinkability” in its ads. Seriously though, the point is valid–don’t copy your competition. Instead, differentiate your product and business with unique copy and messages that your target audience is likely to respond to.

The rules of successful copywriting don’t change from one year to the next, but as the marketplace and environment change, so must your messages. Use the list above as a guideline to writing great advertising copy in 2009.

Recession Job Search
Looking for a job is tough when there isn’t a recession. When searching for a job in a recession, you need to take special care in how you present yourself to potential employers. Recession job search discusses tips for conducting any job search in a down economy. Recession Job Search is part of Business Exchange,…

Recession Job Search is part of Business Exchange, suggested by Colleen Paulson. This topic contains 228 news and 26 blog items. Read updated news, blogs, and resources about Recession Job Search. Find user-submitted articles and comments on Recession Job Search from like-minded professionals.

Best Careers for 2009

U.S. News profiles 30 careers that offer strong outlooks for 2009.

usnews.com. Added to topic by Jeremy Macdonald on December 21

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Overrated Careers

13 careers that have a mystique that outstrips their reality

usnews.com. Added to topic by Jeremy Macdonald on December 21

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The 150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs

TIME: The best recession-proof jobs are those that are least sensitive to economic downturn, and which have the highest…

time.com. Added to topic by Shirley Brady on November 13

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Six Tips to Help You Land a New Job

Here’s how top career experts say you can improve your job-seeking skills in a worsening economy

BusinessWeek. Added to topic by Phil Mintz on December 1

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Ahead-of-the-Curve Careers

13 cutting-edge careers, viable now and poised for future growth

usnews.com. Added to topic by Jeremy Macdonald on December 21

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Seattle Times tells 500 employees to take a week off without pay

The employees — managers and nonunion workers — may take the week off all at once, one day at a time, or in…

Romenesko. Added to topic by Jena McGregor on December 22

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Where the Recession-Proof Jobs Are

Career expert Laurence Shatkin just wrote a book called “150 Best Recession-Proof Jobs.” TIME’s Barbara…

time.com. Added to topic by Shirley Brady on November 13

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CareerBuilder’s Recession Job Hunting Tips

careerbuilder.com. Added to topic by Colleen Paulson on December 2

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Job seekers, don’t take December off, experts advise | News for…

It may be almost time to hang up the Christmas stockings – but not the job search. Resist that temptation.

dallasnews.com. Added to topic by Roxanne Ravenel on December 3

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Amid Rising Unemployment, A Few Bright Spots for Job Seekers

unexpectedly high 240,000 jobs in October, the tenth straight monthly decline, and yet another sign that the…

Time. Published on November 7

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Five Tips for Tapping into the Hidden Job Market

The Career Artisan, Mary Elizabeth Bradford shares five tips for finding work by going beyond published job ads and…

blogtalkradio.com. Added to topic by Roxanne Ravenel on December 4

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Unisys to Cut 1,300 Jobs, Suspend Raises

WSJ.com is available in the following editions and languages:

online.wsj.com. Added to topic by Jena McGregor on December 23

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Jobless in This Economy? Be Flexible

not all easy to come by. If you’re out of work, your task is to get into ‘extreme job search’ mode. Drop the…

ABC News. Published on October 11

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The Recession: My Facebook, My Therapist

In a time of growing unemployment, tumbling stocks, and rising foreclosures, people are finding comfort–and sometimes,…

BusinessWeek. Added to topic by Tom Giles on December 17

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330,000 applicants vie for Obama administration jobs

More than 330,000 people have applied for top jobs in the Obama administration so far, in an unprecedented outpouring…

USA Today. Added to topic by Jeremy Macdonald on December 22

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Few Industries Immune From Widespread Layoffs

This recession is causing pain that is more widespread, economists say, affecting the investment banker, the auto…

Washington Post. Added to topic by John A. Byrne on December 23

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First-time jobless claims jump to 573,000, a 26-year high

The U.S. labor market weakened further last week, with the number of first-time filings for state unemployment benefits…

MarketWatch. Added to topic by Shirley Brady on December 11

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” Forecast 2009: Your job

just 37% of companies are considering or planning cutbacks in 2009.That’s partly because after the 2001 recession,…

CNN Money. Published on November 10

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10 Secrets for Searching for a Job in a Recession

your chances of landing a new one, follow the best practices outlined in this story for conducting a job search when…

CIO Magazine. Published on October 27

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In-Demand Jobs Under Obama Stimulus Plan

A little terrified at the prospect of graduating in a few months into the worst economic downturn since the Great…

BusinessWeek. Added to topic by Louis Lavelle on December 17

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How to Enjoy Work Again

Helping people create careers (and lives) that light them up. Managing your Gain-to-Drain Ratio.

usnews.com. Added to topic by Jeremy Macdonald on December 21

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Jobless Benefits, State by State

They vary wildly, in both dollars and eligibility. State unemployment offices have one thing in common, though: They’re overwhelmed and understaffed
By Moira Herbst
In good times, consumers search out the best places to eat, raise their kids, take a vacation, or pursue a career. But as the recession deepens and more workers lose their jobs, a more germane search may well be the best places to be unemployed.

Of course, laid-off workers can’t pick which state in which to qualify, but considering the vast differences across state lines, many probably wish they could. The 50 U.S. states—plus Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands—offer a wide range of unemployment-insurance dollars to recipients, from Puerto Rico’s $133 weekly maximum to Massachusetts’ $900. They also use different methods to determine who is eligible to collect: In South Dakota, 18% of the jobless receive benefits, compared with 69% in Idaho.

“States have different cultures around providing benefits,” says Maurice Emsellem, policy director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers in Washington. “Some work to help people get [unemployment benefits], while others look for ways to deny them.”

A 26-Year High

The federal average weekly benefit is $293 a week, and about 38% of the jobless receive payments, but state by state the numbers vary wildly. Mississippi joins Puerto Rico on the low end of the spectrum. Its weekly maximum is $210, with weekly payments averaging $180.77 going to about a quarter of that state’s jobless. In South Dakota and Texas, just 18% and 20% of the unemployed receive benefits, respectively. That compares with Massachusetts’ average weekly benefit of $383.77 to 57% of its jobless workers, or Hawaii’s $414.17 average weekly payment and 42% recipient rate.

Unusual high-paying jobs
If you don’t mind veering off the beaten career path, these professions will pay you well. » Six careers to consider

by Gabby Hyman, FindTheRightSchool.com

American job titles and responsibilities are constantly morphing to suit the economic and cultural transitions of our madcap age. Euphemisms are often the way recruiters dress up old job titles to narrow the field to specialists. A “hash slinger” is now termed a “culinary resource professional.” Kidding aside, today’s workers are often forced by marketplace realities to undergo at least one rapid job change over their adult lives. Many enroll at online colleges and trade schools to garner fresh skills that fit their experience and previous training.
Some of these hot new careers you may have never heard of are “green-collar” jobs. These jobs are on the rise as the business world responds to dramatic increases in energy costs and environmental regulation. And while disposable income seems threatened by a roller-coaster economy, other new careers are springing up to suit those who have cash to spend.

Here are six hot career fields you may not have heard of:

Eco Tourism Director

Professional Hacker

Pet Psychologist

Conservation Consultant

Fashion Consultant/Personal Shopper

Mobile Experience Architect

Recruiter Roundtable: Keys to Success in 2009 by Yahoo HotJobs
Expert Advice on What Job-Seekers Must Do This Year

The Recruiter Roundtable is a monthly feature that collects career and job-seeking advice from a group of recruiting experts throughout the United States. The question we put before our panel this month is:
In light of the troubling economic climate and tightening job market, what is the one thing that job-seekers must do in order to be successful in landing a good job in 2009?

Exhaust All Options

Network With Smarts

Flexibility Is Key

Diversify and Listen

Tailor Your Resume

Also on Yahoo! HotJobs:

Recruiter Roundtable: The ‘weakness’ question

Avoiding the Ax: Where the Jobs Are
By SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
While the employment landscape looks sparse right now, the outlook for 2009 isn’t uniformly bleak — and is downright bright in some recession-resistant industries.

Employers that provide necessary products and services — hospitals and insurers, for example — tend to always need recruits. And areas employers deem critical to their survival, like accounting and information technology, rarely get cut. What’s more, some fields, such as bankruptcy law and crisis-management consulting, are thriving because of the downturn.