Career planning remains an underserved market. There was a land rush in the career management space about ten years ago, but all the players seemed to focus on the classified side of the business. So, Monster, Hotjobs, Dice and others all have taught a new generation of job seekers that the way to plan your career is to blast thousands of emails for jobs you may or may not be qualified for, hoping you'll get lucky.
When I was with Kaplan, they launched a joint venture, BrassRing, which originally sought to help job seekers manage their career paths, but failed to deliver on the plan.
One new site, Path 101, is taking a different approach, focusing on helping people manage their careers. Path 101 has just gone into (open) alpha and has a few interesting features. There's a personality test that aligns your personality style with appropriate jobs. One interesting feature is their resume genome - they have compiled several million resumes and are using that to map out what careers are actually like.
While it's early for the site (did I mention it's an alpha version?) there are a handful of useful tools up there and the promise of much more to come. The team has bravely posted its product roadmap, which I expect will change a few times before they officially launch, but it gives you an idea of their direction. Path 101 promises new social media tools in addition to the forums and resume genome are forthcoming, including the ability to compare your personality to your Facebook friends.
The Path 101 team is led by Charlie O'Donnell, better known as @ceonyc and the author of the This is Going to be Big blog. Charlie, an avid cyclist and Met fan, is one of the strong young tech leaders in NYC and previously worked as an analyst for Union Square Ventures (disclaimer: Fred Wilson is an Alacra board member). I anticipate good things to come from Path 101. Go check them out.
