Where to look for jobs

Yes there are jobs to be had!

No, they might not look like what you expected. Or where you expected. But they are out there, and they’re yours for the taking.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/12/148252561/on-utahs-silicon-slopes-tech-jobs-get-a-lift
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/12/148041892/jobs-abound-in-energy-industrys-new-boom-time
These two links to NPR can be read or downloaded as podcasts. They detail the tremendous boom in the western United States in technology fields. Much of what is described in these articles is great news for people with degrees in petroleum engineering or hardcore computer programming. But think about it—these industries will need support services. They need people to write the manuals, the newsletters, the text, to blog and tweet about the accomplishments, to travel around the country as sales reps. There’s other stuff to be done—as two of the companies mentioned in the first article suggest. Skullcandy manufactures niche earbuds, and Backcountry.com caters to the people who ski and rock-climb when they’re not at work.

http://www.aarp.org/work/job-hunting/info-02-2012/north-dakota-boom-town.html
AARP? Are you kidding me—American Association of Retired Persons? Well, yeah, this publication is for the over-50 set. It describes the boom created by new technologies for extracting natural resources, in this case in North Dakota. Living here is not without drawbacks—winters worse than Buffalo’s, a housing crisis that’s got even well-off folks sleeping in their cars for several weeks after arriving in town, and fierce rush-hour traffic. So you’re not an oil-worker. But if you scroll to page three of the article, you’ll also find that schools and hospitals are hiring—and the area is showing a January 2012 unemployment rate of 3.8% (while the Buffalo-Niagara’s rate hovering around 9%).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akarshan-kumar/college-seniors-working-hi-tech-companies_b_1171341.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/uloop/6-jobs-that-did-not-used-_b_1143070.html
http://gizmodo.com/5881291/how-to-get-a-job-in-tech
Do you like video games, Facebook and other virtual pursuits—sometimes, like them too much? There may well be a job for you in that. Here’s a trio of posts that explain how to go about positioning yourself, even without formal coursework in programming. Given the explosion in technology (the recent release of iPad3, the prediction by the Gartner Group that we are moving to cloud computing by 2014), the number of jobs in tech fields is only going to increase.