Excelle releases The 10 Top-Ranked Cities for Women

Excelle, a career and networking site for women, has released a list of The 10 Top-Ranked Cities for Women. There isn't much info as to how they devised their ranking, but these lists can be fun for a person who decides they can really go anywhere once they graduate.

Try searching for opportunities in these cities by combining your keywords and the locale on the SimplyHired Special Searches.

Maybe you should go to Texas... or Wyoming

Wow, according to the numbers on this post from Career Hub, Texas generated 71% of the new jobs in the last 12 month  period (ending in November 2008). For more information you can check the Employment Situation Summary, updated monthly, on the BLS website (and yes, it is grim right now, but it can improve.) If you're interested in Texas, try the Texas State Library Job Line.

CNN also has a list of unemployment rates by state and currently Wyoming has the lowest unemployment rate at 3.2%. (Check out Wyoming Library Jobs, more posting sites at the bottom of the page, if you're curious.)

You can also try these searches in the Career Jet widget in the right hand menu on this blog. Use the keyword librarian or archivist, or combine with a more specific term like academic, and add your preferred state (not deranged, Christmas is almost over, get ahold of yourself) as a geographic keyword.

Job searches away from big cities

Another reason for people looking for work in academia to look beyond the larger centers and "big name" colleges: Searching and hiring away from the spotlight.

If you aren't sure how to look for work outside of the big centers, and can work anywhere, check out the post about working in a smaller city and my article on LISCareer about relocating to find work.

Why where you live is the most important decision

I don't know that where I live is the most important, but Richard Florida makes a compelling argument for how a community can give you more opportunities, despite the argument that interconnectivity is making "real" community an inessential consideration. For a brief sample of his argument, check out the Useful Commute Podcast from BNET
Why Where You Live Is More Important Than Ever.

Who's Your City?

Relocation may be one of your work search options, but where should you live? Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, has just written a new book, Who's Your City?. According to reviews (because my own copy is still in the mail) certain cities facilitate certain lifestyles and careers. On his website for the book, there is a cool little tool called Place Finder that you can use to find out if you should stay where you are or move to the new city (or four) that you can play with on the scale and answer different questions about. Obviously, if you have lived in a certain city you can make better guesses about the cultural life or your ability to "be yourself" and natural beauty may mean nothing to you since library stacks are the only fauna librarians need.