Five Ways to Ride Out Unemployment with Online Resources Between Jobs

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This article was originally posted on WiredAcademic.com

Unemployment over 9% is the stubborn bane of President Obama’s administration. We wouldn’t wait for his help as he pushes through the new $300 billion jobs plan.

Here’s some ways to take matters into your own online hands.

1. Degrees: Brand matters

“I’ve been researching employer acceptance of online degrees since 1989. In 1989, the first year GetEducated.com surveyed corporations, less than 50% of managers rated a distance degree “as good as” a residential  degree. Today (2009 survey) more than 90% of corporate managers rate an online degree “as good as” a residential degree….. but only if 3 crucial characteristics are met,” said Vicky Phillips, Founder of GetEducated.com.

The most important factor is whether your future employer recognizes the name of your schoool.

Check GetEducated’s video for a more thorough discussion by Phillips.

2.  Who needs a degree, give me open source training.

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How do You Choose a Quality Online Degree to Get that Next Job?

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This article originally appeared on WiredAcademic.com

There are over 1,000 online degree programs, according to the Online Education Database (OEDb). If you’re jobless, or simply looking to expand your career horizon with online training, deciding to get started is the easiest decision. Choosing a program is where things get complicated.

Job seekers are not only lining up for interviews. U.S. News reports that jobless Americans are overwhelming retraining programs across the nation as well.

Just last week, we provided a quick list of online resources to looks at, but that’s only the beginning. U.S. News also covered the subject by focusing on career paths with promising growth prospects. Continue reading →

A Bad “Good” Job Isn’t Worth the Money

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This past May, for the first time since completing my undergraduate education, I found myself making a living wage.  But a week into my fancy Upper East Side job, I knew it wasn’t going to work out.  The simplest explanation I could offer friends and family was that it wasn’t worth my life.

It had taken me a bit longer to realize what Kaitlyn Kochany learned right out of the gates.

Like many Americans, I spent the last three years toughing out low wages, abusive supervisors, and high stress positions in the spirit of retaining a job during the recession.

What I learned at my fancy job was that more money wouldn’t compensate for the unprofessional environments I had endured at previous firms. Good wages wouldn’t suddenly make the same kind of position a good job. Even if walking away from gainful employment meant exhausting my savings and borrowing a pile of student loans, it was time to bet on myself. Continue reading →

The Business of Degrees and Money Majors

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Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce recently released a study clearly showing, for the first time, the earning potential of certain majors versus others. Engineering, computers, and mathematics top the list of median earnings, although business degrees, at 25 percent of all degrees awarded, are the most popular.

 

But Peter Thiel argues that college is completely pointless if you’re interested in starting a new venture, and he’s put money into the game. Thiel (at right) is the PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist who’s giving 24 college kids $100,000 each to drop out of school and start their own businesses. Bloggers and commentators immediately criticized him, not only because he himself earned degrees at Stanford, but because his selection criteria of the best-and-the-brightest is essentially cherry-picking from those students talented enough to have gotten into the top schools at all. Continue reading →

Can startups save America’s flailing job market?

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As monthly job reports continue to present a painfully stagnant job market, more Americans are pushing for innovative entrepreneurship as a solution to job creation. President Obama addressed this trend in a speech on Thursday, Sept. 8 when he announced details of the Americans Jobs Act. Reactions to his plan and to the idea of entrepreneurship pulling America out of an economic recession are presented below using Storify.

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Finding Work Isn’t Easy– Even for the Educated

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It used to be pretty straightforward for young students: graduate high school, go to college, find a good job. But in today’s economy, it’s not such a sure thing.

These stories shed light on some of the attitudes and coping mechanisms current and former college graduates face in a declining jobs market: Continue reading →