The DOL Challenge
The US Department of Labor (DOL) hosted an online career tool challenge powered by IdeaScale.com where the unemployed submitted and voted on their favorites. Participants submitted 634 career tools in the following categories: general and niche job boards, social media specializing in job postings, career tools, career exploration, and career advancement tools.
The Broke Blog garnered 26 votes in the social media category, and BrokeButNotForLong.org garnered 37 votes in the career tool category of the challenge. We submitted our career tools a bit late in the game but we fared fine against some of the “monster” competitors. The challenged spurred me to add more content to our site, so if you haven’t visited us in a while, take a look at all the updates.
The winners will be featured on CareerOneStop.org. Our blog could possibly be in the top 20, as some sites had multiple listings for each type of social media. For example, Workforce Central Florida listed their various employer and job seeker Facebook and Twitter accounts. I liked their use of Twitter and created an account for our organization: http://twitter.com/Broke4Jobs. If you have an account, send us a direct message @Broke4Jobs.
You may visit the DOL, “Tools for America’s Job Seekers Challenge,” to search for jobs by test-driving some of the 634 tools listed! http://dolchallenge.ideascale.com/ Susan Ireland’s videos and books were featured as tools in the DOL challenge. I liked her career videos on resume writing and added them to our Web site. Ms. Ireland is the author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Perfect Resume, 5th Edition. I just bought the book because chapter 14 deals with “Your Social Network Profile as your Resume” and chapter 15 is titled, “Blogging Your Way to a New Job.”
Sandra Rogers,
Blogging4Broke
Look for jobs: http://www.indeed.com/p/index.php?pid=7080813311402333
P.S. We didn’t win the top spot but we’re still listed as one of the 635 tools on CareerOneStop.org! They only listed the top 10 social media tools in their featured career top-vote-getters. I guess they didn’t realize the power of social media as a career tool. I’m sure their list will grow next year.