Check Out These 2 Mind-Blowing Tools for Job-Seekers
Both tools introduced here relate to research. The first enables job-seekers to research themselves to map out career possibilities, while the second serves a a huge resource for researching employers.
by Dr. Katharine Hansen
Both tools introduced here relate to research. The first enables job-seekers to research themselves to map out career possibilities, while the second serves a a huge resource for researching employers.
As author of the best-selling career guide of all time, What Color Is Your Parachute?, Richard Nelson Bolles is the grandfather of the contemporary career world. Now, in partnership with Brainfuse, an online tutoring and career services company, Bolles is offering an online “eParachute” application to millions of students, career-changers, and job-seekers. The app enables users to assess the people, skills, and fields they enjoy working with and see how well careers match what they love to do most.
eParachute is available to Brainfuse users throughout the country from participating local libraries and higher education institutions. Individuals can sign up to use the app for $4.99 annually.
eParachute is an online service that combines the time-tested “self inventory” methods of What Color is Your Parachute? with unique data algorithms to help users discover their strengths and interests, and then to explore potential careers, academic courses, and college majors that best fit their profile.
Bolles says eParachute will particularly help students with important decisions related to their time in school and their time in the workplace.
For a truly effective job search, job-seekers need to research the employers they plan to target and interview with. A one-stop tool to enable them to gather vital employer intelligence is Craft, a free, open-information platform mapping the “Innovation Economy.”
As Craft’s site states, “ We provide data on dynamic sectors, companies, teams, people and open positions. Our goal is to provide context in a rapidly changing landscape and help professionals discover and evaluate different opportunities.”
Users can click on the name of a company and be taken to an all-inclusive page with such information as number of employees, a financial profile, links to news articles about the company, company locations, and more. Users can not only research employers, but also find vacancies among the more than 300,000, open jobs listed on the site.
Craft has information on more than a quarter of a million companies in 120+ Industry categories and 1.8 million company datapoints. Users can search based on industry category, key parameters and metrics, company size and growth, organizational structure (how companies’ divisions and teams are arranged), key people at target companies, and current job openings at target companies.
Final Thoughts
For more helpful apps and sites, take a look at Call to Action: Check Out These Useful Apps! and Call to Action: More Useful Apps to Consider, as well as all the latest additions to QuintCareers. For more on employer research, see our Guide to Researching Companies, Industries, and Countries.
