Intro to this Blog and PayScale!

Hello!

I'm a student in State College taking a Social Media for Business class. Throughout my time in this class, I must maintain a blog to learn about using these platforms.

This blog is going to be dedicated to trimming through the massive amount of fat on the Internet related to building and finding careers. I hope that not only will it help me in my post-graduation pursuits, but it will help others at any stage in their lives.

So let me begin by talking about PayScale.com. There are plenty of sites where you can find information on jobs, but PayScale has something especially helpful that a lot of people either aren't concerned with, or keep in the back of their mind:




















....and that is specific skills that increase your value as an employee.

Note: I think it's pretty fair to interpret how much a business is paying you as how much they value you, especially in contrast your peers.

It's hard to overstate how wonderful a resource like that is. Should you oblige by it like it's religious text? Not necessarily. But can it give you an idea what skills you may need to more valuable to a company and better paid? Yes, and that's always a great thing for you and your career.

From reading this, we can deduce from PayScale's data, that nurses with skills in Recovery / PACU often make +8% more than the average nurse, nationally. Having skills in Case Management and Critical Care seem very valuable too, so an RN may want to pursue expertise in those areas.

Knowing these is relevant to job searches because you can
A. Know what skills you may want to develop for a certain career before you're actually in it
or
B. Know what skills an employer may be impressed by while applying.

Not every job's page on PayScale has this, which you may find out the hard way upon searching for your job. But you can always ask people in a career field you're interested in what is valuable to growth in your career, or do independent research.

Please leave comments on this blog, and share it to your friends if you find it interesting. Next, I would like to talk about job opportunities in the armed forces.

P.S. I've shown a bunch of people this part of PayScale, and they've very much enjoyed the information. Do you think they'll pay me for the advertisements? Probably not =( .. Tell me what you think in the comment section.