Ever notice how it often takes 10 e-mails to accomplish what could have been done in one simple conversation?  I often find this when it comes to scheduling meetings at work.  You know the drill.

Cube Dweller #1: "When do you want to meet?  I can do Wednesday morning or any time on Thursday."

Cube Dweller #1: "How about Wednesday at 11am? But we should probably ask Susie."

Cube Dweller #1: Sounds goot to me.  Susie, will that work for you?

Susie:  "I can't do Wednesday, but Thursday is good."

Cube Dweller #2:  "Hmmmm.  Thursday won't work for me.  How about Friday?"

ENOUGH!!!

There a brand new tool that makes the process easy, quick and painless.  You don't even need to register.

Check out When Is Good.

The Web app lets you create an event, highlight the times that are good for you, and share a link with coworkers.  Coming soon, Outlook and Google Calendar integration.

“You know, like nunchaku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills... girls only want boyfriends who have great skills.”

These wise words from Napoleon Dynamite are the theme of the promoted video on the new Australian website skillsone.com.au. If Napoleon is right, it looks like I’m going to be single for a long time. Luckily for Australians, the Australian government has funded a program to increase interest in trade skills within the country. The funds back the Institute for Trade Skills Excellence. The first aim of the Institute is to “improve the profile and status of trades.” One of the ways they plan on achieving that goal is through the new video-based Website skillsone.com.au site...and it's pretty darn cool! 

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If you're not a part of a social network, you probably don't spend much time on the Internet. The phrase "social networking" has been around so long, it can't even be considered a buzzword anymore. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn... they all take up a large portion of many people's lives. LinkedIn is an example of a site that attempts to link social networking with business networking. A new site called Workology takes a similar approach.  

I decided to give Workology a try. The site seemed easy enough to use, and they let me get started quickly, only asking for a name and e-mail address. Here are a few features that I found useful...

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This past weekend I stayed up until 2am filling out an eHarmony profile.  Regular readers might find this odd considering I am happily married.  The profile was for a friend, and let me tell you, finding that special someone who shares 29 degrees of compatibility' with my buddy was no easy task.  The questions were exhaustive and the process was exhausitng.  After 60 minutes and $175, the system ran a scan for matches within a 30 mile radius of NYC.  Guess how many they found: ZERO.

RealMatch promises better results; and we're confident they can deliver.

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I can be a fairly critical guy. I'm not afraid to identify things I don't like about something. I say this because the latest site I'm reviewing I am truly very impressed with. I have difficulty identifying a major flaw. The site is called JobScore.com. The purpose of the site is to connect job seekers with employers. "So what? There are hundreds of websites trying to do the same thing," you may say.  

What sets JobScore apart is the innovative technology integrated into the site. The innovation is not just for the sake of innovation, but has a clear correlation to increased usability for each party involved. Simply put, the site looks incredible and has some outstanding features that set the bar for the future of job hunting online.

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If you're a bit older, maybe you look fondly back on your first job. You remember that first interview and the cold sweat that broke out during it. You remember the soreness of an honest day’s work. The dismay at that meager paycheck. The hard work it took to get that job in the first place.

Nowadays, young people have this newfangled thing called the Internet to help them out. And there's no shortage of Websites clamoring over themselves offering their services.

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Like a high school career test, but with more ads.


Choosing a career is one of those horribly stressful choices in life that can take a lot of time, energy and thought. And whenever something takes so much effort, human beings have this habit of looking for an easier way. Thus career tests were born. You probably remember these tests from a high school career class. If you're like me you thought they were a waste of time, and manipulated the answers to see what kind of crazy career you could make it come up with. The career test at Project Career is a lot like those tests, except with a ton of annoying ads imploring you to sign up for some online university. The test asks you 105 questions about your interests and then provides an assessment that ranks your interest in certain fields such as Social Services, Finance/Accounting and Health Care. Here are some pros and cons with the test...

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Site: SnapTalent
Slogan: Hire the Best
Pros: Fine-tuned ads; Hire away from specific organizations
Cons: Steep out-of-the-gate price; current jobs are primarily high-tech

Along with the paper resume, the online job boards of yesterday continue to teeter on the verge of extinction.  OK, not really.  But newcomer SnapTalent certainly hopes their progressive spin will lure job seekers and top-notch employers alike.

At its core, the Y Combinator startup operates similarly to Google AdSense, placing customized help wanted ads on participating Websites.  Rather than simple text displays, ads can be customized to include images and video.  This will allow employers to offer a more global view of the job and the organization.  

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Site: The Career Mole
Slogan: Meet. Refer. Progress
Pros: Targeted networking; receive inside information
Cons: Pay per connection; Moles' motives are not made clear

One of the best ways to increase your odds of landing a job is to tailor your resume, interview responses and appearance to the company's culture.  Of course, more often than not, you might not have any contacts within the organization. That leaves you at the mercy of information posted on the employer's Website. Until now.

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This is a guest post by Kate Gatto.

Company: Razume.com
Slogan: Your Resume Review Company
Pros: Resume rating scales; information blackouts for privacy.
Cons: Anonymity; inability to ask follow up questions; weak profile pages

Razume is an online community that lets you upload your resume and get it reviewed by a community of users who have also submitted their resumes. This lets you get comments and suggestions for improvements on your resume in an entirely anonymous atmosphere.

Your privacy on Razume is 100% guaranteed.  As a matter of fact, it's mandatory.  You are forced to block out any identifying information on your resume when you submit them for review.  Which is great if you don't want your boss to know that you're getting ready to go back on the market. However, it's lousy if you're hoping to do your search under the radar while making connections.

Razume might want to consider hiring the Resume Hunter.

The anonymity of your commenter's is a double-edged sword: comments can be really on target, or very vague, either way, you have no way to ask a follow up question.  Also, I have no way of going back to see which resumes I've commented on.  This information should be available from my main profile page. Negative or mean-spirited comments can easily be deleted.

Karma points are earned by participating in the Razume community: by rating other resumes, providing or approving constructive comments for resumes, referring friends to post their resumes, submitting constructive ideas to improve the Razume community and engaging in other community-strengthening actions.

The system seems to be reasonably reliable, as long as you don't try to upload too many resumes at one time or make an excessively long comment.  Razume let's you make comments in bubbles, use a free form drawing tool or black out boxes.  Multiple colors are available to suit your mood or color code.

At the time of this posting there are only 148 resumes in the database.  We also did experience a couple of errors which resulted in our comments not being saved (very frustrating!). However, bugs are to be expected, and we like the concept and encourage you to give it a try.  Professional resume writers shouldn't expect to shutter up their operations, however, they can earn some good karma by helping out job seekers for free.