Here are a few links you may find to be useful tools to complement your career decision making. These are online tools but remember the best method to actually finding a job combines accessing your personal network and using online tools.

To access your personal network simply go to your family, friends, and acquaintances with a question such as this, “Who do you know at The Widget Company?” or “Who do you know in sales and marketing?” or “Who do you know who might be looking for part-time administrative help?” Customize the question to the type of position you are looking for and be sure to follow up with any leads they give after first asking, “Is it okay if I mention your name?” If they say no, you can still follow up with the new lead by reporting that you have heard their name dropped often in your personal networking so you wanted to say hello.

For online job search here are some handy sites you might want to bookmark for when you need them.

Chimby.com – career advice search engine

Fab Job – ebooks with specific insider information on a careers

Best Careers Report for 2008

FlexJobs.com – a job search site for telecommuting jobs

JobRapido.com – a great way to search many job search sites at once; send email alerts to yourself for your fav searches

InterviewUp.com – a good site to check when you are doing interview preparation

PayScale.com – very good site for salary research

You ever fumble around with that “so what do you do for a living” question? Most of us have at one time or another, and not only when looking for a job or interviewing but just with meeting new people or networking in general. Well, there is a simple, free, tool online that you may want to check out. Take a look at the Pitch Wizard at 15SecondPitch.com. Push the green play button when you are on the site to be prompted with questions to help you generate your elevator pitch. You may need to edit it slightly or you may wish to generate several different pitches customized for different audiences.

In fact, let’s make it an Elevator Pitch Fest! My colleague, Susan Ireland, is collecting elevator pitches generated in the comments at her blog — The Job Lounge. You’ll find my elevator pitch at the top of the list. Please consider this a personal invitation for you to join in too. The goal is to reach 100 elevator pitches and, frankly, I think we can blow that one out of the park! Thanks much.