Job Hunting USA

A very old friend who lives in New York wrote to me today regarding Bill's post about totaljobs.com. It was a reminder that we can be too parochial - but we do do our best to cover the waterfront for everyone!

Anyway, here's some reminders of previous posts - and some new links for US job-hunters and freelancers.

Geoffrey discovered Secrets of the Job Hunt and Job Radio when a French friend invited him to join Monster France on LinkedIn. You can find that post by typing 'Monster France' into the Search Box on this blog - and there were a lot of other links to follow from Secrets of the Job Hunt and Job Radio. I'm not including a link to here to Monster France. It's spread to the UK - but not (so far as I know!) to the USA. If you want to look at Monster France - type it into Google.

I talked about the Twitter Job Deck shortly after Geoffrey's initial January post. You can find that post by typing 'Look at Twitter Job Deck' into the search box - and I think it's worth looking at it. And using Twitter. And Facebook. And Naymz. And any other advertising platform you can find to advertise yourself.

New things: if you want to freelance in the United States look at Elance or ifreelance - do you?

Hope this helps! I we find anything else - we'll let you know.

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/

totaljobs.com is worth a long, long, visit

Speaking of talking to people in shops, I had quite a long conversation with an old client last week who was made redundant early last year, and spent most of the year doing all the right things and still failing to get another job in his field.

He told me that he had finally found a job with a charity - a complete change of direction for him - on-line through Total Jobs .

I'm very glad to say that the man I met by chance last week was much changed from the angry and devastated person I originally met last year - and who told me at the time that he felt castrated by his redundancy and feared that he would never work again.

As he was well into his 50's at the time, I have to say that I feared that as well, but as it turns out we were both mistaken - and perhaps we were both focusing on getting back to the past, rather than looking to use the past to create a future.

I do have an excuse for that negative reaction, by the way. I'd just lost one of the newspapers I'd been writing a column for for years, and I could see my long career as a political correspondent crashing to a halt. That didn't happen - but only because I did a re-think, changed focus a bit, and refused to let it.

Anyway, my old client was full of praise for Total Jobs - and having looked at the site I can why.

It's well worth registering there. And even more worthwhile to do a re-think, accept that you may have to change direction, and look forwards rather than backwards.

Bill - http://www.therapypartnership.com

Freelancing - It's Skills, not Age, that Matters

I met an English woman in the supermarket yesterday. I don't 'know' her exactly - she's just another English person, and we made a decision when we came here that we were not going to get into the 'let's ignore the French and just enjoy the country ex-pat scene' - but we usually say 'hello' in passing.

Anyway! Somehow we got to talking about who was doing what and where, and it turned out that she freelances - partly from here at home, and sometimes 'on site' in Britain.

She gave me a lot of useful addresses, and I'm including some of them, but the most important thing is that there are many, many websites where you can learn about freelancing, advertise yourself your skills - and find jobs! - just by typing 'freelancing UK' or 'freelancing USA' into Google. In the meantime - start here:

http://www.freelancersintheuk.co.uk/

http://www.freelancers.net/

http://www.freelanceadvisor.co.uk/

http://www.elance.com/

I was particularly interested in elance.com because it asked a very important question - 'What can you elance?' I thought about it, typed in boxes - and was surprised to discover that I DID have things I could 'elance'.

I think that maybe a lot of people don't appreciate that their skills are valuable. And, by the way, freelancing seems to be about skills, not age. I ticked an awful lot of boxes today, and got an awful lot of thumbs up - but nobody said, "Excuse me. Did you say 1947?"

Liked that...

Try it! What can you lose?

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/

Advertise Yourself

If you haven't joined WebProNews and are looking to advertise yourself, your availability, or your services on-line it might be worth doing it. It's free, and a lot of the articles could help you to put together a really good "Look at Me, I'm Here and I'm Just What You're Looking For" campaign.

Today's article was entitled "Can You Be Successful Without a Website", and it was mainly aimed (as many of the articles are) at small businesses, but there was a lot of valuable information there for people who are just trying to use the internet to sell themselves to prospective employers.

I found it particularly interesting that 'social profiles' often show up very early in searches - much earlier, actually, than websites do because small websites are becoming harder and harder to find UNLESS they are attached to, say, a Facebook or Google Profile.

The article had various links attached to it giving lots of advice as to how to make 'social profiles' more interesting and more likely to come up in searches.

Worth going to have a look.

Bill - http://www.therapypartnership.com

Virtual Working

One or another of us has talked about 'going virtual' a couple of times before, but I came across a really interesting blog yesterday on MA Consulting's website - and it's worth having a look at it. You can find it under 'Quick Links' on their home page.

MA Consulting follows a completely virtual business model - there is no office and management and consultants all work either at home or at their clients premises - and the blog explains how to make the best of this business model, how to set it up, what the benefits are to everyone involved, and (very importantly) what kind of people virtual businesses look to employ.

It also hints at the downside of virtual working - and mentions something called CoWorkingWest which is designed to ensure that virtual workers DON'T have to spend every day working alone. If you are already a virtual worker, or are considering become one, it's worth taking a look at that site, too.

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com

Debt Management Companies Make Me Suspicious - Particularly if They Mention the Word 'Free'

I received a post today from a Company which was effectively advertising a 'free debt management plan'.

I immediately became extremely suspicious.

There is no such thing as a 'free' debt management plan that is not being run by one of the many charities or government-funded organisations that have been set up specifically to help people deal with debt.

If you have a problem dealing with debt a good place to start to look for advice is the The National Debt Line which is a genuinely free service and which is in partnership with the charity The Money Advice Trust .

If you look at The National Debt Line's site, you will see that it carries a warning about Claims Management Companies, and that there is an information sheet to read.

Read it carefully - and avoid companies that make unsubstantiated claims, or ask for money up-front to deal with your problem.

The Ministry of Justice is the Claims Regulator for Claims Management Companies. If you have already become involved with a Claims Management Company and are dissatisfied with the service you have received, the address to make a complaint is:

Complaints Management Regulation and Compliance Unit
57-60 High Street
Burton-on-Trent DE14 1JS
Tel: 0845 450 6858 or 01283 233 309
e-mail: info@claimsregistration.gov.uk

Look: a Charity is a charity, but a Company is a business. Charities get their money from you and me and foundations and trusts and a whole range of other sources. Businesses have to MAKE money. Therefore - and obviously! - nothing that a Company offers is ever going to be 'free'.

Geoff - http://www.metlissbarfield.com/

And Here is - the News?

According to the Charity Credit Action , 1,995 people are still being made redundant in the UK every day despite the fact that we are supposed to be 'creeping' out of the recession. As a result, 386 people will be declared bankrupt or insolvent every day, and somebody's property will be repossessed every 11.2 minutes every day.

In those circumstances, would someone like to tell me why one footballer's alleged 'affair' with another footballer's ex-girlfriend is hitting the front page?

Credit Action has a useful website. Ignore the big bold stuff, and go to the bottom of the Home Page where, under the headings 'Home' and 'Debt Advice' on the left hand side, you'll find another heading 'Unemployed'.

Useful information! What you might call the real news.

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com

"Guardian Work" by Ian Carpenter

I was listening to 'Talk Sport' yesterday when I heard an interview with Ian Carpenter who has written a book called "Guardian Work".

Ian Carpenter was a property manager in Basildon when he was made redundant. His response to his jobless situation was to reply to every single advert in a single issue of the recruitment pull-out of the Guardian newspaper regardless of whether he was qualified for the jobs advertised or not. Over a six month period he replied to 450 advertisements - including the one for an acrobat. He didn't get a job out any of them - or even an offer.

On the other hand - it wasn't a waste of time. Mr. Carpenter kept a blog of his experiences, and it's been published by Beautiful Books under the title of "Guardian Works".

Ian still keeps his blog at Guardian Work - and I think it would be worth going there - and buying the book.

Ian Carpenter is an extraordinary person. According to 'Beautiful Books' he's now running a second bookshop at Southend - and still looking for a job.

Think about it.

Emily - http://www.therapypartnership.com/