"How to get a degree with free or laundered credit", from Chronicle of Higher Education

This is an interesting example of a student cobbling together an associate's degree by taking low cost courses from a variety of providers and placing them into on coherent transcript through the ACE transcript service.

Now, throw the MOOC offerings into the mix (as ACE seems to be implying it will evaluate), while maintaining the no residency requirement, and you can see how a student could put together their own degree at a much lower cost, with less face to face classroom time, than currently available. I could also see other "colleges" using their advisors to map out just such a plan for their students--or entrepreneurial students like Linder creating their own path.

"Any teenager could have done what we did, with no money and better"

The Onion takes shots at TED and social networking gurus. And both deserve it, IMHO.

"Just keep looking like you're doing work, and people will pay you for it."

Maybe it's time to ask for a raise

...Provided that your boss actually reads Evil HR Lady. She summarized a report from the Center for American Progress that suggest that "the average cost of replacing an employee amounts to fully 20 percent of the person's annual salary". So to save 20% of your entire salary, maybe it would be worth it to give you a boost between 2-5%.

Holiday Hiring Infographic

Though I would have loved to have embedded this infographic about holiday hiring, they stuffed the CSS stocking with coal and wouldn't me resize to fit Blogger. Cut that out you guys: it's crappy resharing. Let me resize it and put a link back to your site.

Why you can't compare a household budget to the budget of a country

Paul Solman, writing for the PBS Newhsour's The Business Desk, explains why you can't compare a family budget to the budget of a country. Essentially, his answer is that a country can tax and a family cannot, but it should make sense that lopping off some zeroes to compare the spending of an apple to orange orchard is not a sound analogy.

Social Jobs Partnership

Facebook has launched their Social Jobs Partnership, which is an aggregate of Work4Labs, Monster, Jobvite, BranchOut and, DirectEmployers US.Jobs. This is a parternship of non-profit, government, for-profit and Facebook developers into one aggregator, creating a vertical search engine of the partners' jobs.

Like most aggregators, such as Indeed or SimpliyHired, you can search a variety of job posting services and boards simultaneously from the vertical search engine interface and be redirected to the posting on the originating site's own board. So, no, you can't apply with your Facebook profile.

At this time, the service offers one filter for "veteran-friendly" posts.

Justice Sotomayor explains that "princess" is not a career

iCancer

I am doing research for a presentation I am preparing on crowdsourcing and I became interested in this project, iCancer, which wants to crowdfund research into a virus to treat a specific type of cancer. I wanted to spread the word about the project and I am interested in what others think about this project or crowdfunding in general.

What Happens to a Dream 'Betrayed?' Authors Blame Trade for Middle Class Demise From PBS Newshour

Do you have time for a visual resume?

This article originally appeared in my employer's e-newsletter to external clients.

Do you have time for a visual resume?

Many of our student clients feel a great deal of pressure to stand out from their peers. Creating a distinct resume or portfolio is one of the methods that they could use to make an impression on an employer. But do human resource professionals have the time to view these resumes? Is a visual resume the correct method an applicant should use to stand out?

Websites for creating a visual resume

Though an applicant could create a free online presentation of their resume using a free website hosting service, such as Google Sites, or could upload a slide presentation of their resume on Slideshare, at least three start ups have created a visual resume tool. Visualize.me and re.vu both create an infographic-style rendering of a person’s resume, based on the user’s LinkedIn profile. Visualize.me allows the user to create a badge for their personal website that connects to their “vizualized” resume, as well as uploading the link to the profile on a variety of social networks. The re.vu resume includes candidate’s name, headline and highlights, as well as a career timeline. A link to the resume can be pushed out to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

However, how many new candidates have been discovered by employers clicking on theses badges? If any have turned into interviews, how many of them were new grads?

Resume on a T-shirt

The company Resume T-shirts will print a T-shirt for a person with their resume on the back, while the front of the shirt has the tagline “resume attached”. Each T-shirt costs 19.99 (US), fairly affordable for most students, or possibly a gift from a parent. Personally, I could see myself tormenting my high school age relatives with one of these, but I’m not sure if they would get any summer job offers from the T-shirts. If you saw a person in the line at a grocery store wearing their resume on their back, would you be interested in following up?

Combining visual resumes with career planning

The startup Resumup allows users to create a visual resume and then generate a chart that will show the user the steps they need to take to progress to the next level in their career. You can view a YouTube demonstration of the career mapping process, since while they are still in private beta, you need to solicit three friends to join their service before you can use the career mapping tool.

Not only does the site suggest the steps you need to take to progress from entry-level to supervisor or manager in your chosen profession, it will also scan your connections, either on LinkedIn or Facebook, to see if you can find a mentor or advisor. This augmented visual resume may actually help graduates determine how they could progress in their career, and might be something that could be used at an employer presentation. However, until it is out of private beta and has enough members to generate good career planning advice, the idea may be excellent but the execution may not be effective.

Based on the examples provided, would you be likely to contact a candidate based on a visual resume, would it make a difference if it was an online badge or a T-shirt, and would this method work for your current recruitment needs?

Job Boards, Applicant Tracking Systems and other work search methods from PBS Newshour

I would make a distinction between the employer job postings (specifically from the employer's site) and the major Internet job boards. I also endorse Peter Cappelli's Why Good People Can't Get Jobs, which provides a good explanation of how an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) can defeat job seekers.

Watch Is Applying for Jobs Online an Effective Way to Find Work? on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Why you should learn to code

Though I don't think that the ability to code will save the world (or your career) some basic coding, just like some basic math, should be a requirement for most "knowledge workers". The infographic is courtesy OnlineCollege