Jobs site speaks from experience

By CHRISTINA REXRODE
Published November 26, 2006

If experience is the best teacher, the Gonyeas should be the gurus of online job searching. In 1989, New Port Richey resident Jim Gonyea was a pioneer when he developed an AOL career guidance service, which operated through 2001.

In 1994, he and his wife, Pam, launched the Internet Career Connection, www.iccweb.com, to offer job information to people who weren't AOL members.

The Web site isn't pretty, but it acts as a portal to some help-wanted databases, reference information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and other information.

Jim Gonyea offers career advice by e-mail: For $45, you can send him three e-mails. He created a Career Focus Interest Inventory, a free online test to help people gauge for what industries they're best suited. (The test's 180 items, though, are almost laughably specific. Among the work that the test asks if you're interested in: installing or repairing air conditioning and heating equipment; studying planets and solar systems for signs of life; leading a group of people in a religious ceremony.)

The Gonyeas don't commandeer the advice dispensing, though. They encourage career guidance experts to submit articles to post on the Web site in exchange for free advertising.

[Last modified November 25, 2006, 21:01:17]