National Employment Law Project
This site can help the long-term unemployed keep track of relevant legislation, particularly concerning unemployment benefits and COBRA subsidies.
Fistful of Talent
Reading the posts on this blog is like listening to a lunchroom full of HR professionals, hiring managers, and recruiters talk about their likes, dislikes, and strategies. You’ll learn things like how recruiters find candidates online, or the kinds of questions they like, or their own worries about the recruiting process.
JobBound
The folks behind this career consulting firm were kind enough to share some free advice. Get rock-solid, up-to-date advice on how to write and style your resume and cover letter, and how to handle yourself in an interview.
Brazen Careerist
A necessity not just for the Gen-Y audience it focuses on, this site offers boatloads of insight into how young up-and-comers view and critique the workplace. That’s crucial if you’re going to be interviewed by a twentysomething, which will likely happen at some point.
It's simple: You should be on here and your profile should look sharp and fresh. Your goal is to make it easy for people to find the very best side of you.
Seeking Alpha
This website graciously transcribes public companies’ earnings conference calls. That allows you to brush up on all the crucial, timely details about the public company you really want to work for (or its competitor), giving you the kind of insight that can elevate a cover letter or interview.
Careers at Alltop
This aggregator of topical RSS feeds puts an army of well-known careers bloggers right in front of you. Career expert Anita Bruzzese might give you a lesson in how to network without hating it. The folks at Careerbuilder’s Work Buzz blog will keep you updated on companies that are hiring.
CareerDiva
Eve Tahmincioglu describes her site as “the thinking man or woman’s career blog.” But even if you’re not much of a thinker, her advice will make you smarter because she has her nose in the news and her eye on solid career wisdom.
Presumably, you have (or could have) hundreds of Facebook friends all over the country and most of them have listed their various employers in their profiles, or “Info” tabs. If you use an application like those offered by SimplyHired or Indeed, you’ll be able to search for jobs where your friends work and ping them for extra information on the company, or ask for the name of the person who’s hiring so you can contact them directly.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
This site is a bit of a beast, but it’s incredibly useful. To start, hover your mouse over the "Employment" tab on the left and click on “Employment Projections” in the drop-down menu. The most straightforward data is in the tables that start at the middle of the page. Back on the homepage, you’ll see a tab indicating resources for job seekers on the left. Click it.
Indeed's Job Trends
Indeed's Job Trends screenshot
Wondering what kind of positions are growing in demand? You can search any term to see the growth in percentage of posts that include the term. Bonus trend charts: job postings per capita, job market competition, and industry employment trends.
For those who like to deal with people the ideal employment area is that of Sales Jobs. Almost every employer in the world needs at least one salesperson if not thousands of salespeople. While some companies are experiencing layoffs, others are now hiring for the Top 10 Sales Jobs. Image is courtesy of Lusi-sxc-hu.
