Ron Z.

Elance is one of the leading sites for freelance workers, but we had never used it until today. We paid $50 to get some updates to our website, which we thought was reasonable. We were also trained on how to do some of the updates ourselves. Next time we won’t need Elance.

Elance has writers, consultants, programmers, marketers and administrative help. We used a WordPress expert named Ron Z.

It’s called “UpMo.com,” which stands for upwardly mobile. The service measures your readiness for your next promotion and helps you get there. New to UpMo.com is the “intelligent job search,” which filters jobs using criteria you supply when you fill out your profile page. It uses salary data from 4,000 jobs at salary.com to show what you might be able to earn, and uses simplyhired.com to scour job boards and company websites for postings. You also get a membership in the UpMo group on LinkedIn.com, which may bring you contacts to help get you that next job. (We are both on LinkedIn, by the way, but are not looking for jobs.)

To us, the role models at UpMo.com were intriguing. You can choose a role model from dozens of suggestions in your chosen field. These are real people with real life stories, though you won’t be able to send them an email unless you already know their address. You can see their career plotted on a graph superimposed on that of your own career. It gives you a good idea of what people did to get where they are. Joy chose Dean Takahashi, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who now covers video games for VentureBeat. You can keep selecting role models till you find one that inspires you.

The service is free for the first 10 days. After that it’s $7 a month, or $30 for six months in advance.

The courses offer certification in Linux/Unix System Administration, Web Programming Open Source Programming, and “.NET” Programming. The courses cost around $300 to $400 each. See more info at OreillySchool.com.

OK, so you are paid to go on job interviews, and you set the fee, typically $500. The idea behind this is that people who are quite happy with their current jobs are often the most desirable candidates for a new job. But these people normally won’t enter the job market without some incentive. (This is where Bob’s cynicism kicks into high gear: Why wouldn’t people just take the fees for going on interviews, instead of taking a new job?)

You have to justify the price you set for showing up at a job interview by listing your qualifications, including your present salary. You can say what companies you would like to talk to about a job change and what companies you don’t ever want to talk to. Your personal information remains private, says NotchUp, until you accept an interview, and then only the interviewer gets to see it.

At this point the defense takes the field and tries to prevent people from gaming the system and just showing up for interviews to collect the fees. People who don’t seem to be serious about their job interviews are given bad ratings; those ratings are given by the interviewer. Too many interviews and bad ratings and no more invitations will come your way.

You have to receive an invitation to join NotchUp, or you can apply at the Web site. (We received an invitation, which naturally made Bob suspicious, as in the old Groucho Marx remark: “I don’t want to be a member of any club that would accept me as a member.” Besides, we don’t want a job.) Finally, if you recommend someone to NotchUp and he goes on interviews, NotchUp says it will pay you 10 percent of that fee for making the recommendation. The site says that companies using Notchup include Google and Facebook. (We contacted a spokesperson at Google, who wasn’t sure about the arrangements, but said it sounded legitimate.)

You can have a resume posted for free at JobKite if you use one of its templates. This includes text topped by a decorative banner selected from a library of choices. When you go to a job site like Monster.com, you can apply for something that interests you, or simply list yourself and provide a link to your resume at JobKite. This prevents scammers from easily acquiring your name and e-mail address.

If you want a more striking resume, you can pay $25, choose a template and let the folks at JobKite design it for you. We did that and you can see how it turned out by going to www.jobkite.com/erez/oncomputers.html We were both amused and impressed by what they did.

The $25 fee covers posting for one year, with five free updates as your information changes. Your resume can include work samples, music, video clips and sound bites. We didn’t add all of these fancies, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t if you feel it helps your presentation. More info at www.jobkite.com/erez/erez_home.htm