Career Information Technology: There’s Something Wrong Here, Folks!

Why is my toolbox empty? https://www.firstclasstools.co.uk/images/VS2113%20OPEN%20&%20EMPTY.jpgA few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Megan Fitzgerald, Career, business and personal branding coach, with the following:

Wow – you are really taking CIT (Career Information Technology – my term I use) to the next level!

I LOVE that term! Career Information Technology… that sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it?

But wait a minute. I shouldn’t be taking it to the next level. Career issues have been around since Adam and Eve – why is something as simple as JibberJobber taking it to the next level, and why is it only happening in the last year?

When I was doing research on who was doing anything close to JibberJobber I searched on “career toolbox.” Know what I got? Not much (although my good friend Dan Sweet’s site, Fracat.com/blog, comes up in the first few results).

Guess what I come up with when I search on “career information technology?” Not much – just a lot of information on careers in information technology.

Want to know why there aren’t technologies out there to help with your career? Because that isn’t where the money is.

How come there are 40,000+ traditional job boards? Because that is where the money is.

Please, prove me wrong. Here’s my running list of things in “career information technology” … note that I want to identify things that are FOR THE JOB SEEKER or CAREER-ORIENTED. I’m not talking about a recruiter’s applicant tracking system (ATS), or a job board that makes it’s money by selling ads and job postings… I’m talking about technology for YOU to manage your career. Here’s my list:

  1. JibberJobber.com – of course I list it first – it’s my website 🙂 🙂
  2. …. I’m at a loss … what else?

Hopefully you can help me flesh out this list – what would you consider to be a part of Career Information Technology?

8 thoughts on “Career Information Technology: There’s Something Wrong Here, Folks!”

  1. I like Career Information Technology, especially when most job searching is through online portals these days. You can’t talk about job boards without mentioning Monster.com.

  2. That’s pretty sad. I just think that too many people want to be spoon-fed jobs on job site boards, like they are spoon-fed entertainment content.

  3. I’ve been an outplacement consultant for seven years, and a recruiter for 12 years. I work with a diverse group of professionals raning from 50k to over 500k. I’ve seen a huge pushback against any kind of technology use in job search.

    The most technical tool I’ve seen any of my candidates use to organize their search is a spreadsheet.
    Most do not have any kind of tracking tools. Few set up a signature for their emails. The exception is sales professionals accustomed to CRM’s.

    I introduce every new candidate to http://www.linkedin.com. Only one in about 20 will have heard of social networking before our meeting. I have been recommending your site as a source of organizing technology.

    On the other hand, my candidates love job boards, and spend a lot of time on them. It’s passive and easy.

  4. Ah, Emurse for sure, I forgot about them.

    Demetrius, help me understand how Get Noticed First is a technology in this space (I’ll be doing a blog post on it later).

  5. Hi Laura, very nice to see you here 🙂 I find your comment really interesting, here are my three initial thoughts:

    1. with regard to the pushback and the spreadsheet… I think that one of JibberJobber’s biggest problems is it’s like saying “here’s a better way to balance your checkbook!” It’s not sexy, glamorous, or fun in an addicting way. You aren’t going to meet hot people or show how cool you are… it’s just nitty-gritty work. And it has a long term focus – just like managing a checkbook. It seems unnecessary, but once you start to network with dozens of people all this information gets messy… plus, people want a solution to manage a job search now (which JJ does), and don’t think they’ll use it as a career tool. I call this the checkbook factor and I know that people will have an issue with it.

    2. Thank you for recommending JibberJobber – I have private coaching sessions which you and your colleagues are welcome to join in on, shoot me an e-mail and we can schedule something.

    3. Most people love job boards… they are passive and easy, and this is in line with Joseph’s comments above. They make you feel good because you can “find x jobs in an hour” or “apply to x jobs today.” The question is, are people using them right, and are they finding their jobs. I wonder how many of your $500k clients find jobs on job boards…

    My problem in my job search (one of them) was that I spent about ten hours a day, six days a week on job boards. Biggest waste of time for me. I should have spent about an hour a day on job boards, and then working on other techniques… and when I worked on those other techniques I would have needed JibberJobber to manage all the activity and information.

    Anyway, just some thoughts after sleeping on your comment 🙂

  6. Jason, this is a really good topic. There is a definite distinction between using technology to find a job (i.e. job boards) and managing a career (i.e. JibberJobber, or similar technology). I’ve been thinking about it so much that I’m going to focus my blogging over the next while on the subject. There is a huge deficit in career management.

    And to respond to a comment you made above, personally I hate job boards. I think they are cold and impersonal. the more I get involved with Social Networks the more I want to get to know the company/people/culture and so on before I waste my time even looking at a job posting.

    OK, so I walked away before I finished this comment and deleted about 10 paragraphs, because I got way off topic. So, that’s where I’ll leave it. Not sure if it makes any sense,

  7. Jason,

    Although I do think JibberJobber sets the gold standard for Career Information Technology, there are other examples…..

    JobTrek, which I believe is now MonsterTrek, was my first experience with CIT, and is when I first came up with the term. It facilitates the services that Career Centers provide, amongst other things – like on- and off-campus recruiting and online job listings. Since it has been a few years since I have engaged with MonsterTrek, I am sure there are other features of note I am just not aware of.

    I am not sure if I agree with knocking off job sites from your list. Even if there are companies who financially benefit, they still provide needed services that help job seekers connect with jobs -which qualifies as CIT in my mind.

    Job search boards have also developed features like search agents where you can have job descriptions which meet your particular job profile sent to your inbox is another example of CIT. And now there are networking sites that also have features that help connect job seekers and jobs – LinkedIn being the first example that comes to mind….

    But let it be said, that there is no other single provider that I am aware of that provides more value to the job seeker than Jibber Jobber!

    Keep up the great work!

    Megan
    http://www.careerbychoice.com

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