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Things are starting to heat up here at CareerEagle. You may have noticed that we’re getting 1-2 job videos up every day!

Alex and I have spent a fair amount of time pounding the pavement in San Francisco, interviewing people in a wide variety of jobs. We just ask people to answer three simple questions:

1. 1. Tell us about your job

2. 2. Tell us about the career and educational path that took you to where you are

3. 3. What do you wish you knew when you started your career

The results have been amazing. People have opened up in a way we didn’t expect. They’ve been honest, putting their proverbial arm around the viewer and telling them the way that the world is. Their stories are powerful and contain tough, compelling wisdom about how to pursue your dreams. Send us your feedback or reply to this blog. We look forward to hearing what you think.

Written By Monica Page

Any student who has entered college in the midst of the 2008 financial crisis can collectively agree on one thing: the blissful ignorance of being an undergrad is gone. The traditional university remains a testing ground for many “not-so-scientific-experiments,” but everything now comes with a price tag. The “time is money” philosophy holds true when the scenario of spending one extra semester trying to find yourself could make or break your future credit rating.

As tuition costs rise and student fees are tacked on the minutest things, spending the least amount of time required to graduate is of the upmost importance. It may be a stretch, but perhaps it is wrong to think that all students just spend a lot of time in college just to have something to do. What if, and this is without any scientific citation, the average student spends so much time in college because they don’t know what to get out of college? You may answer that they receive a “degree,” but that is simplifying a very complex situation.

As college students pursue this mythological “degree,” there is still step zero: choosing a major. An elusive creation that is interesting and actually provides the student with a glimpse into a promising (or at least emotionally happy) future is like catching a Quidditch snitch. Most students do not have the opportunity to hop around to every major offered in the course catalog to finally find that “fit.” If a student wants to explore and learn more about a career or major, they need to do it on their own time. Although some colleges have the option of “career” or “major exploration” courses, they can sometimes be so unbearably boring or broad that nothing useful comes out of them.

With the technological progression in recent years it is easier to get a feel of a career or major. Videos, articles and the basic human activity of talking to people can keep a student on track to graduate not only on time, but in a career path they are actually interested in. There are those who are ready for the world in kindergarten with their five-year college plan mapped out in crayons; and then there is the rest of the world who are blissfully clueless of life’s next stage.

The basic human emotion of not knowing what’s next is expected, and will just require you to work a little harder. Spending a little more time when it comes to exploring and learning about various paths can provide insight into a world outside of the highlighted yellow pages of re-used textbooks. Hearing directly from someone satisfies the other person’s basic need: people enjoy talking about themselves, especially about what they like doing and, more generally, being. Absorb knowledge gained from various channels to make a clear, informed decision. College is too expensive and life is too long to be stuck in a dead-end job paying off student loans and eating Ramen all night.

Some of our users have asked why we are not a non-profit. We seriously considered it. But our view is that the most sustainable way to stay around for the long term is to incorporate as a for-profit company. We want to offer job videos to everyone, ideally without charging the people who watch them, for many years to come.

We’re on the board of various non-profits. We know how difficult it can be to kept them running! As a for-profit company CareerEagle can generate sufficient revenues to stay afloat and expand – raising money to market the site and let a wider audience know that we have the best (and only) career navigation videos on the web.

But we may eventually create a non-profit arm. If you have experience with a joint for-profit/non-profit organization, let us know. We’d love your input!

Things are looking up for teens seeking summer jobs between school years. According to a report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., teen employment was up by 13% this summer as compared to 2010. Between May through July of this year, teen employment grew by 1,087,000 vs. just 960,000 one year ago. Granted overall summer employment for 16-19 year olds has not yet rebounded to pre-recession levels, but we still think the 13% increase is reason to celebrate.

Summer employment is a great way to gain important professional skills and build your resume. Colleges and employers look at summer jobs as an indication that you are responsible, have direction, and know how to manage your time. Plus, if you’re able to land a summer job in an industry that you find interesting, it could help you make strong connections that could serve you when you’re looking for a full time job. A summer gig is also a good way to test out a potential job to see if it could be a good fit. Not sure if you want to be a hair stylist or graphic designer? Try to spend half your summer working the front desk at a neighborhood salon and the other half doing a graphic design internship. You’ll be surprised what you learn!

We know it’s not always easy to find the perfect summer job at the perfect company, but start thinking about your goals now and start the search process early to give yourself the best chance. Come February or March of next year, tap into friends, family members, teachers, local business people, etc. to see if they know of any openings for the 2012 summer. And be sure to clean up your resume and brush up on your interviewing skills to help you land the right job.

We considered a wide variety of business models to serve job videos to people who are making difficult career decisions. While we might make more money by offering the videos for a fee, we made the decision to make the videos as widely available as possible.

Indeed, given that the videos are intended to help both socioeconomically disadvantaged high school students as well as college students, we needed a way to give access to people who don’t have the money to pay. We also believe that the best consumer facing websites give their content away for free.

So our videos are free. All of them. For now. We’ve brainstormed various ideas to monetize the videos without directly charging our users. But to make this work, we need people to upload videos, lots of them, without being paid to do so. They need to make videos about their jobs out of altruism – because they want to help kids make better career decisions. If you want this project to succeed, without charging our users, then we need you to make a video today!

Also, we welcome your ideas/suggestions/criticism. Please email Aaron at amichel@careereagle.com with any feedback that you have.

Today most Americans are in jobs they dislike. A poll a year ago suggested that only 45% of Americans are satisfied with their jobs. (http://nyp.st/5BWNzv) And for those people who have chosen jobs in the wrong industry, in the wrong role, their work probably isn't likely to get better anytime soon. Once you choose a career path, it's remarkably difficult to make a switch - particularly in today's economy.

High school students are dropping out and landing in a pool of poor job options that last a lifetime. College students are graduating without an understanding of what their options are. Adults are stuck in jobs and careers in which they have no interest, without a clear way out.

You can help.

You don't have to give a dollar. You just have to volunteer your time, make a career video and you can change lives. That's the power of CareerEagle. With 3 minutes of your time, you can help young people understand whether your career path is the right one for them. Isn't that worth it?

The other day I received an e-mail from a former coworker who had moved on to a new company. She was looking to hire someone in her group and had vetted several resumes to get down to a list of folks she wanted to interview. Her next step? She checked out each of the applicants on Facebook to see what she could learn about them. The reason she e-mailed me was because she saw that I was a friend of one of the candidates.

In today’s plugged in world, there are few private places online – especially when it comes to social media where you have publicly available information that recruiters can easily access. If you are conducting a job search, it’s easy to remember to have a great resume, a compelling cover letter, and to look sharp and be well prepared during your interview. But don’t let Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube slip your mind. According to The Protocol School of Washington, 86% of recruiters are using social media to help them assess candidates.

So what should you do to clean up your act? First, watch what you’re saying. Do not use profanities or post things on your wall or Twitter that you wouldn’t want to say directly to your interviewer’s face. Second, make sure your profile picture is appropriate and professional. That’s not to say it can’t be fun or show off your personality, but just be sure it’s not showing you doing or wearing something you’d be embarrassed to do or wear in the workplace. Third, set up privacy filters wherever possible to make sure content you don’t want public isn’t out there for anyone to see. This of course isn’t a surefire fix since a recruiter could see your private information via a common friend or acquaintance, but it helps. The best solution of course is to just untag yourself from questionable pictures and take down content you don’t want out there.

That was a lot of don’t – but no fear, social media can be used to your benefit. First, it’s a great tool for getting in touch with former colleagues and networking with friends of friends (LinkedIn is a great tool to help with these things). You can also expand your network by being active in communities and on forums that pertain to the industry you’re interested in. Second, “like” the company you want to interview with and start following them on Twitter – it’ll keep you up to date on company news and will let them know you’re really interested. And finally, make sure your profile on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. is up to date with respect to your education, career background, and accomplishments. You never know, a recruiter at a company you hadn’t even considered may stumble across your awesome social media “resume.”

Just last month, 85.6% of Internet users in the U.S. watched videos online – that’s 178 million Americans! According to a comScore press release, there were 6.2 billion viewing sessions, an all time high and the first time the figure crossed the 6 billion mark.

We think there are a number of reasons why online videos are such a popular medium for getting information. The most important one is that you can pack a lot of information into a few minutes of video. Apart from just words, videos reveal body language and intonation. These provide valuable context and information that may supplement, or sometimes negate, the actual words used. Videos are also more personal and engaging than simple text on a page. When it comes to learning about different career options, we think all this is critically important. A bullet point list of job responsibilities provides significantly less information (and is a lot more boring) than a real person authentically and candidly speaking about their own career. Check out our videos – we think you’ll agree.

Recently, I received an email from my alma mater regarding a disappointing decision made by the Regents of University of California (UC) to increase undergraduate tuition by 9.6%. This is on top of the 32% increase passed in 2009. Together this will bring the in-state student tuition to an insane level of $12,192 per year - more than twice what it cost in 2005.

I started to think – Whom should we blame? This year, after Jerry Brown’s final budget cut, the UC will be receiving the same level of State funding as in year 1998 while serving nearly double the amount of students 12 years ago. In a situation like this, here’s really only two things they can do – cut classes and teachers or increase tuition fee. Comparing the two options, a fee increase might be the better decision since cutting classes will keep students in school longer and cost them more money to earn their degree.

Nowadays, not only the students at UC have to suffer, public universities around the country have been announcing their tuition increases. For example, University of Wisconsin announced to increase tuition by 5.5% yesterday and Penn State made the decision of 3.9% tuition increase last Thursday.

The students are powerless to fee hikes like this and the only decision they have is to choose either graduating with more debts or not going to college at all. Here’s why students should use CareerEagle as a tool to understand their options and explore their future:

Option #1 - Going to college

• If you know your ideal career ahead of time, you won’t repeat the same mistake a lot of people make – switching your major half way through your education. Each time you switch to a different major, you will be spending more years in school and accumulating more debts. Therefore, it is important to know what you want to become, take the right classes, and plan to graduate college in four years.
• Watching the career videos on our website will help you understand what it takes to be successful in the field you want to enter. Our videos provide free career information, education information and advice from working professionals. You will find out what class and/or internship will be beneficial for you to help you get a job upon graduation.

Option #2 - Not going to college:

• Not having a college degree doesn’t mean that you will never get a good job. If you work hard, you will be become as successful as everyone else. There are many companies offering management training that only promote from within. Our videos will help you explore the different career paths you can take with your current degree and show you paths to success.
• If a four-year college is not for you, have you thought about going to a technical school (trade school)? A little bit of training can bring you to a different path and transform your life. In many cases, a tech school can match with you a job in your field upon completion. For example, a friend of mine completed one-year of training to become an Emergency Medical Technician and he was offered a full-time job right after he earned his license.

While the universities are making their decisions to keep the schools running, the students should start making decisions about their future.

Our team at CareerEagle works hard to provide free career information to the students to help them make the right decisions. There might be many career websites out there but there’s only one place to find real career advice from real working professionals – www.careereagle.com

~Alex

We’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about why people would upload a video on our site.

We work with colleges and trade schools to get videos of their alumni on the web. It gives the schools an opportunity to help their current students determine an optimal career path by giving those students the best possible career information –straight from people who were in their shoes and faced their decisions. It also helps the schools put their best foot forward to prospective high school students looking for colleges and vocational schools.

But we want job videos from everyone. Not just alumni of our partner schools. We’re building a massive database and we’re impatient to reach our first 1,000 job videos - and our first 10,000 job videos. So we’ve come up with the 3 Minute Campaign. It lets people know that with just 3 minutes of their time they can help young people make wiser choices. It doesn’t cost them anything to make; equally important, it doesn’t cost the students anything to watch. We’re helping people find a way to be altruistic with their time without having to give a dime to do it. This is the first note about the rollout of the 3 Minute Campaign. More to come!

Aaron