Hello everybody!

It looks like Diigo has eliminated their discussion boards (I'm not surprised.), so I'll be posting our monthly update using "Topic".

Fist, as always, I would like to welcome our new members. They are:

Alok Sahu
Chiwapan Chatsuthipong
Thomas Sullivan
Amanpreet Kaur

Please give them a warm Career Development welcome. To become their Diigo "Friends" go to their profiles and click on…. No, wait! That changed to "Follow Me". That's rather Twitterish of them. OK, let's start over, to follow someone's Diigo posts, go to their profiles and click on "Follow Me".

Lastly, November is Career Development month. The National Career Development Association is sponsoring a poetry contest. For more information, go to: http://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/21351/_self/layout_details/false.

Happy bookmarking!

Leslie

In this economy, you need to take advantage of every available resource to propel your career. Finding a mentor-and preferably a network of mentors-is an easy and smart way to get started. And, it won't set you back financially the way hiring a career coach would. Here's how.

In October 2007, Susan Guldenschuh lost her job as a human-resources supervisor for Circuit City Stores Inc., which shut all its stores earlier this year. She landed a professional human-relations position elsewhere five months later. But when the downturn deepened, she got laid off again last December. The Louisville, Ky., resident pursued more than 100 openings, including a receptionist's spot. Mrs. Guldenschuh was finally hired again a few weeks ago. She is now an hourly worker, taking online orders for Guess Inc.

Sheila is a claims processor at a major automotive company. Due to recent declines in the economy, she has recently been given notice that her position will terminate in two weeks. A despondent Sheila makes an appointment with the career consultant employed to assist with terminated workers. Upon hearing Sheila's story it might not surprise you to hear that the counselor plans to consult various websites during her work with Sheila. As professional career counselors, we are practiced at using career-based websites to assist clients with finding resources for taking interest inventories, engaging in job searches, finding occupational information, and creating resumes. However, Sheila's counselor is not looking at these types of websites. There are other beneficial websites that may not be as apparent or as frequently used. There are many websites that have information on career development theories that may be useful to counselors who are working to resolve the dilemmas of their clients. Below are several websites on the theories of cognitive, sociological, trait-factor, and on diversity issues that Sheila's counselor, and many of you, may find useful.

Writing a will in your 20s might seem premature. But even young workers with meager assets should consider preparing a will and other legal documents -- such as a health-care directive and durable power of attorney -- to make sure their personal, financial and medical wishes are met if they become disabled or pass away.

Penelope Trunk knows something about risk. A nationally syndicated columnist, Ms. Trunk shocked the business community when she revealed intimate details of her personal life on her blog. At the time, many weren't sure this was the right move, but the blog shot up in popularity and eventually garnered over 30,000 subscribers.

For many companies, tough economic times inevitably end up pushing the work environment to the back burner. Benefits are slashed, innovative programs are dropped, employees get shut out of big decisions. Employees are lucky to have a job, many bosses figure. Anything extra is unaffordable.

Your written plan describes your business, outlines your goals and serves as a road map for future activities- everything from handling unforeseen complications to repaying borrowed money. It's a document that should grow with your business, undergoing constant tweaks as your big idea evolves from a concept into a successful company.

The internship, in which she worked 15 hours a week researching and blogging about corporate workplace benefits, was virtual-she needed only a computer and Internet access. Ms. Roig, a senior at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, never even met her boss, in Atlanta.

The Morning Journal brought a lot of bad news to the residents of Lorain, Ohio, this past December. Layoffs at a major steel company, at a trucking company, and throughout the county government. And, of course, Ford Motor Company, a major local employer, was in turmoil.

MLA Tutorial created at Hunter College - CUNY

It was 4 p.m. on a recent Friday-a time of the week when I usually relax and leave the rest of my to-do list to finish over the weekend. But as this recent weekend approached, I kept pushing myself, heart pumping, to get to the bottom of my list of planned tasks for the week.

According to Stephen M.R. Covey, author of "The Speed of Trust," trust is the confidence one instills in others based on character and competence. Mr. Covey says that a lack of it has a major impact on performance. "Everything slows down in a company with low trust. You see an increase in bureaucracy and redundancy, and excess policies and procedures. Organizations are becoming painfully aware of how expensive this is, and they are taking steps to become trusted players from the inside out," he says.

When unemployment is high, job-seekers may need to go where the jobs are, "to make ends meet, to get on with their lives," says John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Growing up in Florida, Mr. Gould enjoyed working in restaurants as a waiter and bartender. But he also liked working with numbers, and after graduating from the University of Florida, he went into finance. He got a job in New York as a fixed-income trader in 2000, and later raised money to invest in new markets and help develop avenues for investments.

After earning his degree in Russian linguistics, Jamie Hyneman worked a number of odd jobs, including animal wrangler, building inspector and Caribbean charter-boat captain.

The recession is complicating job hunts-and the lives-of two-career couples, particularly when one lands an offer out of town. The search for employment is forcing more couples into long-distance relationships.

As the $787 billion federal stimulus package was being deliberated by Congress in February, the White House estimated that the act would increase employment by 3.5 million jobs, including 24,000 combined in New Hampshire and Wyoming. So far, though, those states say the stimulus has added fewer than 1,000 jobs.

Q: I worked in the health-care industry for 15 years as a geriatric nursing assistant, but I recently decided that my career wasn't paying the bills and went back to school for a B.A. in organizational management and communication. The problem is, I have never worked in an office setting and I'm not sure how to go about learning etiquette, how to speak appropriately, etc. I thought that once I got a degree, everything would be self-explanatory, but it really isn't. Can you help?

So many working people out there feel frustrated and stuck in their careers . They feel trapped in jobs that don't fit, unable to make a change. Eventually, a negative perspective starts to permeate everything.