Tag Archives: Online Resources

No Worker Left Behind

The Michigan economy has been terrible for a while now, and one way that the state is trying to improve the situation for workers is through No Worker Left Behind (NWLB). From the website:

No Worker Left Behind (NWLB) is Governor Granholm’s vision for accelerating the transition of thousands of workers into good-paying jobs by providing up to two years worth of free tuition at any community college, university, or other approved training provider to gain the skills and credentials for new careers in high-demand occupations, emerging industries, or to start a business. The program will expand on job training and education services currently available to job seekers through Michigan Works! Service Centers.

You may be eligible for this program if you are currently unemployed; have been terminated or laid off; or are employed but have a family income of $40,000 or less per year. The website offers an easy-to-use map of the state that provides users with high demand occupations and job outlooks by county.

Check out the high demand jobs for professional writers in Grand Rapids, Detroit, and Lansing areas:

Allegan and Kent Counties
- Editors
- Graphic designers
- Public relations specialists
- Writers and authors

City of Detroit
- Computer software engineers, applications
- Computer support specialists
- Network systems and data communications analysts

Clinton, Eaton, and Ingham Counties
- Media and communication workers
- Public relations specialists
- Writers and authors

I am glad to see that there is still a demand for professional writers in a state with one of the worst economies. If you are eligible for No Worker Left Behind, check your county to see what jobs and support are available for you.

Survey for People Who Make Websites

A List Apart has opened its second “Survey for People Who Make Websites“, which is a fantastic opportunity for professional writers, editors, designers, students, and hobbyists who have a role in web design to share their experience with the field.

Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.

There are 44 questions for the survey (which may vary slightly depending on your answers) and it took me less than five minutes to complete. So take a few minutes today to contribute to the field of web design, and then be sure to keep an eye on A List Apart for survey results. In the meantime, you can also check out last year’s survey results to see what was learned.

Freelance resources for professional writers

Setting your own hours, being your own boss, naming your price. These are some of the perks I hear about when people talk about why they freelance, and every time I think, “Wow, that sounds fantastic…but how do I freelance?”

Professional writers have a lot to offer when it comes to freelancing because writing, editing, and design are marketable skills. But freelancing also means knowing how to manage yourself and your business. I know I am constantly working to improve my self-management, but I know next to nothing about managing a business. When I set out to explore the idea of freelance, I found some resources that are helpful for professional writers who want to learn about the business side while maintaining the creativity and flexibility that make it so attractive.

Continue reading →

Best cities for young professionals

Forbes just released its “Best Cities For Young Professionals” list, which ranks the biggest metro areas on economic opportunity and appeal for young professionals.

And the top five are…

San Francisco
Boston
Houston
New York
Minneapolis

Check out all 40 cities on the list. I was excited to see Detroit on there, ranked #33 for the low cost of living and top-quartile salaries for college and professional school graduates.

The ranking takes into account the locations of Forbes’ 400 best big companies and 200 best small companies, along with revenue, corporate practices, sales, earnings growth, and stock market performance. Median salaries are also compared with the cost of living for each city to see how much young professionals are able to take home each pay day.

This list is helpful for those who are job searching and would like a robust young professional community. Forbes also offers other resources for recent grads and young professionals, such as making the most of a career fair, dressing for success, and networking.

Must-read for editors

I enjoy when something on my RSS reader makes me sit up and take notice, and that’s just what happened today when I came to “The Cure for Content-Delay Syndrome” at A List Apart.

Pepi Ronalds, who has studied professional writing and editing, writes about the crucial role that an editor can play when it comes to developing online content. She makes a business case for engaging editors early on in a web project as they can deal with multiple authors/writing styles, help manage the project, and much, much more.

If you are still trying to find the words to describe what you bring to the table as a professional writer, then this article is a wonderful source of language about what editors do and how they do it. Ronalds even touches on “specialist web editors” who have editing skills and knowledge of web issues, which provides even more ways of defining what a professional writer has to offer. Able to save money through project management? Now that’s something that corporations can understand.

How I spent my Friday night: whirlwind web design

I’m a nerd. A serious nerd. I’m so nerdy I will stay up past midnight on a Friday working on a web site.

I recently attempted to [re]design my online portfolio.

My last semester of graduate school I spent an entire semester developing, organizing, and synthesizing to articulate a professional identity and design a web space to present my work from the last three years. I was pleased and proud of the result. That was then.

screen shot of old portfolio homepage.

Despite the long hours and tremendous thought I put into the portfolio, somehow that representation of my work was no longer accurate or adequate for my current professional needs. I’ve been in the workforce for two years now and the way that I think about my work has changed.

About the time I started to realize all of this (a year or so into my job) I took down my online portfolio. I was embarrassed of the pink and grey color scheme and the table-based web design — certainly this was not the way I wanted to represent myself. At that time I was not ready to invest the amount of work needed to make the changes. So for at least a year, I had no web presence at all. Continue reading →