There are many paths a graduate can follow once they’re thrown out into the real world to look for and pursue the career path they want, but it’s no secret that the path is never straight and narrow.

How many changed their majors? What percentage of graduates actually move out? What percentage moves back in with their parents?

What’s the typical amount of jobs one has to apply for before finding one that they get their foot in the door with?

The following infographic compiles data from a 2011 graduate survey to show you what you can expect.

click the image to expand the graphic

Use The HTML Below To Embed This Graphic
<br /> <a href="http://www.businesspundit.com/2011-college-graduates-are-you-ready-for-life/"><img src="http://www.businesspundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/2011-College-Graduates-Jobs.png" width="600" height="2360" title="2011 College Graduates: Are you Ready for Life?"></a><br />Source:<a href="http://www.adeccousa.com">Adecco USA</a><br />

All data for this infographic provided by Adecco USA.

Corrupt Charities

In times of need, we love to think about the charities who give of themselves in time, money and effort to better the lives of those less fortunate. In an ideal world, money would pour in, and it would go where it was needed, when it was needed, in order to do the most good.

But the world in which we live is far from ideal. Charity has become trendy. For many, giving as much as you earn is as much a status symbol as the car you drive or the watch you wear.

But what about those charities who don’t turn your hard earned money into food, water, shelter, school books or clothes? Take, for one, The American Cancer Society. This charity is the flagship for research into causes and cures for cancer. But back in 2005, the Arizona chapter came under scrutiny, when they spent almost 95% of their income on in-house expenses, like paying employees, keeping the coffee machine a-brewing and decking out the office.

A meager sum actually went into the cause for which the charity is known. Then, back in 2000, the head of the Ohio chapter was indicted on charges of embezzlement to the tune of $7 million. That’s $7 million that might have gone a long way to developing a cure for breast cancer, brain tumors, prostate cancer, etc. But that wasn’t to be.

Puppy Mills

When you went to the pet store as a kid, doubtless you saw all the fish, birds, kitties and puppies, just waiting to be taken to their new forever home and loved endlessly. Yet if you were to look closer, you’d find something darker. But, as they say, shine a turd until it sparkles, beneath the shine, it’s still sh*t.

Puppy mills, the ‘millers’ who run them, and the animals that make up the industry’s bread and butter are endemic in the United States. Puppy mills are a distressingly lucrative avenue for the unscrupulous breeder. 98% of puppies sold in pet stores are from millers by this estimation. Most pet stores don’t care where that ‘doggie in the window’ came from, as long as they get a decent markup for their purebred (read: inbred) specimens after giving the breeder his or her due.

Not only are the physical conditions of a mill horrendously inhumane, with a lack of sanitation, proper shelter, and socialization, but the dogs themselves are kept in perpetual states of malnutrition, ill health and readiness to breed. Pups are weaned far too early, and packed off to stores to be sold to well-meaning but uninformed parents whose children spy the ‘adorable’ balls of fur in the kennel.

How does your typical breeder thank her cash cow–err, dog–for all of its hard work when it doesn’t sell at auction or to a store? She takes it out back and shoots or euthanizes it. And then the cycle continues, as animal cruelty/murder regulations don’t carry nearly the same penalty as they would if she did those things to another human.

Animal Fighting Rings

In human events like mixed martial arts (MMA) or boxing matches, the combatants are generally well cared for (excluding the occasional stint of steroid use, in which case it’s the user’s own fault). They are fed, clothed, treated humanely, and ultimately, to engage in a match is their choice.

The combatants in animal fighting rings, however, don’t enjoy the luxuries of choice or humane conditions. Dog rings are the most prevalent, but there are setups involving roosters and boar (pigs) as well, wherein trainers reap huge incomes from money that goes back and forth on bets for each fight, similar to promoters and managers in human fights.

The animals are often bred and raised to be aggressive. A poorly socialized dog, such as a fighter, is often tortured with beating and an influx of drugs to heighten its ‘killer instinct’. Additionally, much-loved pets are sometimes stolen from their homes in order to be used as bait in training matches.

Mill breeders are heinous, but dog fighting ring organizers/trainers are especially despicable, because they are compounding the issues from low breeding standards with the manufactured stresses of torture and abuse. Whipping a dog into the ultimate canine killing machine means that, even if these dogs are rescued, they are either too sick, hurt or beyond saving from a social aspect, and usually have to be put down.

Sex Trafficking

Whatever your moral stance on prostitution, it is at least regulated in places like Nevada, where it is sanctioned by the government, which functions as the ‘pimp’ in that business relationship. This does not necessarily improve the lot of the women who work in the state’s brothels, as many of them still suffer abuse at the hands of their johns, or they suffered abuse as girls that drove them to it in the first place.

Sexual trafficking, however, is far worse. Sex slavery is defined as “[t]he status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, including sexual access through rape or other forms of sexual violence,” according to the United Nations Slavery Convention. While it is technically illegal in most parts of the world, it is typically ignored and laws governing it go unenforced in developing areas.

Furthermore, adults are the not the only victims of sexual slavery. Children, sometimes as young as six, are sold to perform acts on/with a paying adult. For many officials, child trafficking is business as usual, especially in those aforementioned developing countries. Authorities tend to look the other way, for example, if a child over the age of 12 does not press charges, and if the family benefits from it.

In countries where the order of the day is to work or die, this compels families to get their children to work as well when education is lacking, and income is so meager. Far from the Dickensian images of cherubic-faced tykes in sweat shops (which still takes place here and there), you end up with children stooping to satisfy some adult’s more base desires. Several countries in Asia are among the world’s top providers of child prostitutes, including India, where an estimated 40% of prostitutes are children. At least an adult can say ‘no’ and try to get away. This is just deplorable.

Prison Inmates

They’re not going anywhere. Why not put them to use? This seems to be the prevailing thought at some prisons, and increasingly the justice system as a whole.

If you thought the United States’ prison system was in a bad way, you aren’t wrong. But it gets so much better. Not only is it over packed to the rafters all across the country, costing taxpayers roughly $9 billion a year, but back when phones were installed for inmates to use on a wide scale, price gouging ran rampant, with providers like MCI (acquired by Verizon) routinely charged an extra $3-$5 per call. The supporting rhetoric is that prison phone systems have built-in transcription systems and cost more to operate, but there was plenty of pocket padding going on, too.

On top of this, the market for everything in a prison – from the prison itself to the toilet that the multi-lifer in Cell Block 2 squats on, to the bullet-resistant camera in the mess – has expanded exponentially into its own cottage prison industry.

But the worst way in which prisons pull in the dough is by exploiting their inmates. Amidst all the hard cases, there are truckloads of other sorts, too, like the folks who are otherwise decent humans, caught breaking the law to feed their family or keep warm during winter. Then, you have illegal immigrants who are jailed to keep them off the street, when their crime was trying to make a better life for themselves, so that they could return and help their families.

What to do with all of these prison feeders? In the case of the illegals or wrong place at wrong time sorts, there’s a tendency to hike up their bail. The bail bond industry loves this, and the prison industry does, too. What’s a few hundred or thousand bucks when the money that taxpayers put into the prison nets them so much more?

Many people think that mind mapping is a process best used by creative individuals. But there are many ways that mind mapping can help in a business setting as well. It’s important to remember that a business is nothing more than a collection of individuals working together for a common goal. Consider the following ways that mind mapping can help in a business setting.

Find Areas You Can Improve

Mind maps are graphical representations of thoughts. You may not know that you can improve an idea, a product, a service, or a product until you see a road map for that area. If you have a section on the map that seems sparse, it’s time to brainstorm new ideas.

Give Thoughts Structure

Business professionals can use mind mapping to keep track of ideas that pop up in random places. That conversation at the water cooler may translate into your next great marketing strategy when you add it to what already exists on your mind map.

Design a Flow Chart for Change

Any time your business implements a change, you can expect problems to arise. Mind mapping can help your business design a flow chart so that the change is implemented more smoothly. You can track what things need to happen in order to notify all staff of the changes, and you can brainstorm potential problems and solutions before you attempt to implement the change.

There are many cloud computing based mind mapping programs (accessible from anywhere), as well as smart phone apps.

Understand Complexity

A business rarely has a simple structure. You may have several departments working together or a series of processes needed to create one product. With mind mapping you can track how one concept relates to another. You can also see how many sub-elements each main concept has.

Track Information

When you use a mind-mapping program, like FreeMind, you have a method you can use to track information. Summarize reports, add a hyperlink to a specific article, incorporate a graphic, or track other important information all in one location. Additionally, you can see how the information fits into your business model.

See Your Business Pipeline

Do you know what it takes to move an idea into a finished product? What does each department need in order to complete a task? Mind mapping allows you to create a graphical image of your business pipeline. You can track what Sally needs to do in order for John to do his job so that Peter can finish his task.

Enhance Recall

The mind works by connecting ideas to one another. Children learn how to read by being able to associate letters with sounds. When you use a mind map, you are making connections similar to the ones that your brain will make. This process can help expand your mental cognition about your business. You may be able to know the workers in an office by thinking about your mind map and its breakdown of departments.

Mind mapping isn’t just a tool for the creative individuals of the world. Businesses can take the same process and use it to understand the complexity of the company’s model better. With mind mapping, a company can gain the necessary tools to surpass the competition.

As if a venti weren’t enough, Starbucks will roll out its trenta cup today, 31 ounces (that’s about a quart, folks) of latte, frapppuccino, or whatever else customers want to Big Gulp down. From the Chicago Sun Times:

Starbucks will begin a phased-in nationwide rollout today of its Trenta cup size that can be filled with just shy of a quart’s worth of iced beverages such as coffee, tea and lemonade.

Starbucks says Trenta, which means 30 in Italian, will be 31 ounces and cost about 50 cents more than the 20-ounce Venti. The new cups will be introduced today in 14 states, but not yet Illinois. The nationwide rollout should be complete by May 3.

A venti frappuccino has about 510 calories. Assuming 25.5 calories per ounce, that makes a trenta around 790 calories. They should limit these things to construction workers and professional athletes.

It occurred to me that it would be nice if Starbucks counteracted its massive caffeinated missive with a tiny drink for people who don’t crave quarts at a time. Turns out they already have this off-menu. From the chain restaurant Examiner:

The sizes the “mainstream menu” gives you are “Tall,” “Grande” and “Venti,” but if you say you want the “short” size to any Starbucks drink you can receive a less expensive and smaller sized drink. Although this size is in their cash register, they don’t put it on the menu as a marketing strategy to make customers buy larger and more expensive drinks.

Starbucks may be forcing customers to buy pond-sized drinks, but I’d argue that during a recession, touting the “short” might also be a viable marketing strategy. I imagine, however, that somebody already did the math on this and decided that more customers paying less wouldn’t pull in the same margins.

That said, now that I know about the short, I’m all over it.

Sometimes you have to be hard on yourself in order to save money. Anna Newell Jones should know. At the beginning of 2010, Jones, fed up with her prodigious spending habits and mountain of debt, decided to go on a “Spending Fast,” which she documented on her blog, And Then She Saved.

That meant no spending on anything except necessities, including her mortgage, car payments, and utilities, for an entire year. She denied herself new clothes, hair cuts, eating out, movies, and more (see her full list of self-negation here). The only luxury Anna allowed herself all year was hair dye–she is a professional photographer and needs to look good for clients.

What did Anna get for her 365-day foray into financial asceticism? More than $13,000 in savings. No more credit card debt. Much less student loan debt. And, perhaps best of all, a better way of managing money.

Despite her pain and suffering–or perhaps because of it–Jones serves as a personal-finance inspiration for 2011. I caught up with her to talk more about her project, her accomplishments, and what she plans on doing next.

BP: Can you list your five biggest accomplishments for your year of saving in 2010, starting with the biggest?

Wow! There have been so many accomplishments this year.

#1 is definitely that I met my main goal of eliminating all of my consumer debt. I never thought that would actually happen and it was the driving force behind deciding to go forward with the Spending Fast in the first place.

2. Paying off my parents. They took out a college loan for me years ago and I had been trying to get it paid off forever and I could never seem to make a dent in it until this year when I did the Spending Fast. Actually getting them paid off is such a huge weight off me emotionally and mentally that I’m just beyond overjoyed to have that debt wiped out.

3. Learning to say “No” to myself and that learning that just because I have money doesn’t mean I should buy whatever I want.

4. Learning the concept of “Enough”. Before the Spending Fast I was never satisfied with what I had or did because I was always trying to have and get MORE, MORE, MORE… my wants were completely insatiable. I would compare myself to others and could never be satisfied since there was always something new that I needed to make me and my life perfect. Because of the Spending Fast I’ve found that I can get by with a lot less and be okay with it.

5. Lastly, starting and actually completing the Spending Fast for an entire year is pretty huge accomplishment. I’m kind of shocked and amazed that I actually did this for an entire year! Did I really just not spend money, except on necessities, for a whole year?! It’s crazy to think that I really pulled this off.

BP: What was the hardest part? What about the easiest part?

The hardest part of the Spending Fast was the beginning. I had to force myself to get used to a completely new and foreign way of thinking about money and spending and saving and debt re-payment.

There were some rough moments there for a while, and I knew I would’ve given up on the whole idea if I wasn’t being held accountable by the blog I had started to document my year with the Spending Fast.

Knowing that I had to write about any failures made me work even harder at doing well because I didn’t want to write that I had messed up. It was also surprisingly hard at certain points to decline on some things because of the Spending Fast and then have people offer to pay my way or pay for my dinner so I could participate. Those situations were a little awkward. I had to explain that I chose to do this and I was going to deal with the good, the bad, all of it.

On the other hand, the easiest part has been that after I got the hang of the Spending Fast and got used to telling myself “No,” the Spending Fast has actually been okay. More okay than I ever anticipated it would be. At this point, at the end of the Spending Fast, I’m feeling far more comfortable with not spending money and I’m way more comfortable with finding creative ways to do things that need to get done rather than automatically going for the quick fix of buying something new.

BP: What are the main things you learned? Will you take any of them with you into the future, or do you think you’ll eventually just revert to your old habits?

I’ve learned so many things. I found that I had to want to be out of debt more than I wanted whatever item I had my eye on. As I mentioned earlier, learning to say “No” to myself has been very powerful and I learned that I can be okay with having less. I’ve also learned that having everything I want is not all that amazing and that I’d rather be doing other things than maintaining, managing and caring about things that I own. I’ve got better things to do with my time! I have learned throughout this year that I am very industrious and that once I set my mind to do something I will do it. I learned that I can make zombie portraits and people will actually pay me for them (www.etsy.com/shop/annanewell). That is very awesome.

I’ve also learned that getting that first credit card paid off was an amazing feeling. Getting that first card knocked out encouraged me to keep going. There is no doubt in my mind that I will take what I’ve learned this year with me into the future.

There’s no way I could go through an experience like this and not have it affect me. Though, I have to admit I have been panicking that once the Spending Fast ends I will become possessed with some wild spending craze and go buck wild again. I hope that doesn’t happen and doubt that it will.

Throughout this whole past year, I have been creating new habits regarding money and spending and my financial life. Now my finances are in the best spot they’ve ever been in before. I won’t let myself get into trouble with money like I did in the past. I can’t go down that road again. I won’t let the year long Spending Fast be for nothing.

BP: What’s your plan for 2011 in terms of saving money?

In 2011 I plan on doing a modified version of the Spending Fast. It will be a Spending Diet and it will be quite a bit less extreme. I still have a college loan hanging over my head and I plan on wiping that out as soon as possible. Getting funds into a savings account and investing are some of my other goals for this upcoming year. I will continue to write on my blog And Then She Saved, since I’ve found that accountability so beneficial.

BP: Can you share any advice for people who want to get out of debt?

I would recommend starting by cutting out one thing a week. Maybe it’s making a gift rather than buying one or wearing something to an event that you already own. Change one thing per week and just keep adding healthy spending/saving habits in there. It is a process.

Money and spending and saving have so much symbolism for so many people and it taps into the priorities and values that we each hold for ourselves. Changing those ideas about money is not something that happens overnight.

I also highly recommend going on a Spending Fast for a couple of months or for even just a month, if not for a whole year. In a lot of ways my life has been re-calibrated because of the Spending Fast.

My style has changed, my financial life is in order, I feel empowered, I appreciate the hours of my life a lot more and I am no longer willing to sell the hours of my life for things. The Spending Fast has literally changed my life.

Anna Newell Jones is a freelance photographer based in Denver, Colorado who shoots a lot of conceptual gallery work. She’s married to a fellow photographer and they travel all over the United States shooting weddings. She started a year-long Spending Fast in January 2010 along with an accompanying blog to document her progress and setbacks throughout the year. Because of the Spending Fast, she has managed to save $17,911.89 in one year and get completely out of consumer debt.

Social networking for small business took off about 6 years ago. If you’re like me, and you didn’t know that, then welcome to SaleSpider. This all-encompassing, small biz-specific social network touts its ability to make you money instead of–or in addition to–just friends.

SaleSpider helps you find leads, jobs, contracts, hundreds of thousands of other members, and most of the other kinds of contacts that you’d need as a small business owner. I caught up with CEO Russell Rothstein to learn more about what SaleSpider does, who uses it, and how it is evolving.

BP: How fast has SaleSpider grown?

We grow pretty much steady. At this point, we get 5,000 to 7,000 new members a week, and that’s been steady for years now. We are non-venture capitalist, so we did not try step on the gas and spend $20 million at all costs. We actually grew with the concept of let’s be profitable the entire time. We were a real business if you will. So we’ve had steady growth at 25,000 new members a month.

BP: You sound like kind of a rarity in being an online business that is making steady money and has been without venture capital. Can you tell me a little bit more about how you monetize so effectively?

I had a previous background in finance and in being an entrepreneur. I decided not to take venture capital money. I was offered it in the Valley four years ago by a number of different well-known venture capitalists. I turned them down because I saw their term sheets, and it seemed too diluted.

What we did is we tried to monetize as much as we could while balancing our two main stakeholders: the members and the advertising clients. The concept was simple. Large companies and enterprises want to reach small business owners. They are a very difficult group to reach, they are complex, there are multiple verticals. There’s many of them, and they want to be treated like large companies, given customized service. But they are like small companies, consumers, in that there are so many of them.

What we did to monetize is we really went after the advertising model . We did not just offer display advertising, we had newsletters, we had text notifications. Every time I send you a social message on SaleSpider, you’ll be notified “Russell has just sent you this message.” It will say at the bottom “Brought to you by Campaigner.“

We monetized through links, text messages and advertising. That has driven the growth of the company and allows us to be profitable.

We’re also very focused on automation. Every time we’ve taken on a project to make the site better, we constantly add value to the users to make it better without costing the users money. That’s been a philosophy. For example, as opposed to having 50 people in the corner collecting government opportunities, writing them down, and entering them into a database, we actually have an automated library system that we’ve built.

We’re really a bunch of engineers who have automated as much as we could. It means a lot of development, but once you finished the development of it, it’s very much a maintenance game. That’s really how we’ve monetized it.

It’s been good. Growth is always something we’re looking at. We are taking more and more steps. We just released mobile a couple months of go, we’re looking at going out of North America in January. We’re increasing our growth to get the market share.

BP: You mentioned that small businesses are notoriously hard to reach. Could you tell me more about that? You said big enterprises want to get in touch with small businesses but it’s hard to do. Why is that besides there’s so many?

Have you heard of Geoffrey Moore, who wrote Crossing the Chasm or Inside the Tornado?

BP: I haven’t.

His first book came out 15 to 17 years ago. I attended his keynote presentation at a Sales 2.0 event a few years ago, and I think he really nailed it. There’s always been two types of models in sales in North America generally. One was the grocery chain model where you walked into a grocery chain, you pulled out the cereal, and it was self-served completely. That was targeted towards consumers, meaning no one is going to sell you cereal boxes, you’re going to have to choose your own and they pull you in the store by commercials.

Then you have the other model, which is the older model, where you have expensive sales reps whose job it was to go target large companies and enterprises and sell them multimillion dollar solutions. They have to be multimillion dollars in order to justify the resources resources–the sales reps, engineers, and sales engineers involved in customizing the solution to an enterprise.

The problem is the small business owner is in between. So what if he or she wants to receive the personal handheld holding to say “well I know you’re running a company with 7 or 18 people, I know you need an accounting system and a CRM system, here’s how we can tweak it for you, here’s how we can specialize it for you. By the way, it’s going to be $1800 or $100 or $1,200 a month, but we’re not going to be able to fly someone in to meet with you.”

That’s why we’re so challenged. The costs were too expensive to have direct sales, but the market was so large that it was the most untapped market in the United States.

The enterprise market became fatigued with purchasing. They were public companies and they had to cut down their numbers and were expensive. When this happened, the small business market became the most open and lucrative available that had not been tapped.

BP: If I’m a small business owner and I go onto SaleSpider, can I just put up a profile and will people find me? Or do I have to be more proactive and engage with the site?

If you join SaleSpider, you have to put up your profile. If you don’t put up your picture, or who you are, then you’re a silhouette with a blank and obviously no one is going to try and contact you. But if you put up your profile, upload your resume, your company profile–it takes 20 minutes–I bet you that within 4-5 hours you’ll have messages and connections

It’s a very active community. Small business owners are active. They are looking to connect and leverage relationships. When you’re a large company you may be able to afford to have offices in 25 different cities, but when you’re a small company you’re looking to leverage partnerships in order to compete.

In order to make it easier for people, we put a keyword search in where you could put your keyword in, whatever word it is, you could say iron, or widget, you could set your location, state, multiple states, whatever you want, and you press go and within half a second you’re connected to opportunities which have those keywords in it.

That includes thing like 35,000 government open contracts which are those open contracts anywhere in the states, Canada, or the European Union. That included 730,000 members and their profiles, that includes classified ads for probably 70,000 classified ads, and about 500,000 job opportunities—instantly.

It’s like a Google Alerts when it arrives. Same kind of popup feel as that.

In a survey we recently handed out, we found that 3/4 of small businesses told us that they are going to be putting more effort into social networking as a way of marketing their business. It’s low cost, they’re able to do it, it’s easy, and that’s where the customers are also.

The question is how to do it. If you’re a local business or restaurant, I imagine you may be interested in having a Facebook Ad, although it’s tough to know whether people would use Facebook to choose their restaurants.

If you’re a small business, you’re going to want to be able to vet for some social networking and connect. That’s why we have this keyword search and opportunity matching, because you’re going to want an easier way to connecting. The whole idea of that keyword search is just to make it easier for people.

We copied the Google bar, if it’s just a search term, and you press go, it makes life so much easier. Our mobile app is completely based on that search. Put your keyword in, press go.

BP: That’s a very convenient way of using social networking.

We learned it the hard way. We constantly learn the same things over and over again. You listen to your users, your members, ask them the questions, they tell you what to do, and you deliver it.

It took a lot of engineering to make it fast enough. The biggest challenge of our keyword search was the speed issue because you’re searching three quarters of a million members profiles, 35,000 government RFPs and open contracts, hundreds of thousands of classified ads, and 500,000 jobs, and it’s just a lot to search and you do it by keyword. So there was a lot of engineering that went on to that. It took us eight months of testing.

BP: What kinds of opportunities could you find on SaleSpider easily that you couldn’t easily find elsewhere? Or is it kind of a mix?

It is a mix. Let me give you an example. Most of the information we’re getting is public information but it is scattered in thousands and thousands of sites. Some of the most convoluted sites you can imagine.

For example, California opportunities and Colorado opportunities, in terms of government opportunities, are completely distributed differently. Every state does a completely different job of how they are going to show their open contracts.

We take this information, we scrub it, and we make it available and complete for every member. That includes ever state, the Canadian provinces, the federal government, and the European nations. That’s a perfect example that you can’t get anywhere else. We have a patent pending on that.

Another example is just our membership. With 730,000 small business owners and being able to instantly connect with them by keyword, that’s just unique, because you can’t do that otherwise. I mean, LinkedIn has six degrees of separation, and you’re looking by a company name. LinkedIn is more a resume place. To be frank I use it a lot. I was just with the CMO of LinkedIn and their business model is based primarily on recruiters and HR people.

Facebook is more for my eleven-year-old or my sixteen-year-old, who are on it all the time.

BP: I know plenty of 40-somethings who are also on it all the time.

It’s amazing, isn’t it? There’s no business to be done. Just a lot of just idle chatter. It’s fun to listen to a little bit but you can’t go on it every day.

The one thing you’re going to remember is that if you’re in your office, you’ve got SaleSpider on, and your boss walks by and sees you, he’s going to know that you’re driving business. He doesn’t want to see you on Facebook.

BP: Is there anything else that you’d like to share?

Really, it’s exciting times, because with the economy it way it is, people want opportunities. The truth is, we’re so much cheaper than a trade show. It will cost you $5,000 for a show, you walk through, you get a hotel, you meet 500 people and 30 would be good, now you can do it online and that’s a big thing.

Honestly, our biggest challenge is unless we want to raise $20 million dollars in venture capital, we just want to get people to try it. Go to the site. Put a keyword in. There’s no cost. Press go and see if it gives you value. It’s free, and you’ll get leads and opportunities, and be connected every day.

Official bio: Russell Rothstein is the President and Founder of Sales Spider. A business social network, Sales Spider was launched in March 2006. Prior to the development of Sales Spider, Rothstein was the President and Founder of NorthPath, a Sales Outsourcing company offering lead generation and field sales outsourcing to leading technology companies. Previous to NorthPath, Rothstein served in numerous sales and application capacities for Oracle. Before Oracle, Russell was the Managing Partner and Founder of Bizware, a software supply chain for retail petroleum and major convenience stores. He successfully built Bizware into the industry market leader before selling to a Nasdaq listed public company in 1995.

We’ve compiled the 50 highest paying jobs in America. All annual salaries are based on mean annual salaries as recorded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Health care

Ten of the 20 fastest-growing occupations are in health care. Aging Baby Boomers and increased longevity deserve a lot of credit for this boom. Predictably enough, doctors and dentists are the highest paid practitioners.

10. Dentist
Annual salary: $156,850

9. Pediatrician
Annual salary: $161,410

8. Psychiatrist
Annual salary: $163,660

7. Family and general practitioner
Annual salary: $168,550

6. Internist
Annual salary: $183,990

5. Obstetrician & gynecologist
Annual salary: $204,470

4. Oral & maxillofacial surgeon
Annual salary: $210,710

3. Anesthesiologist
Annual salary: $211,750

2. Surgeon
Annual salary: $219,770

1. Cardiologist
Annual salary: $274,000

Business

Being a manager or executive in the business world pays handsome dividends. And unlike the medical field, it takes less than 10 years of schooling. Just nab that MBA (or a good set of connections), work your butt off, land that corner office, and collect, baby.

10. Purchasing manager
Annual salary: $96,910

9. Actuary
Annual salary: $97,450

8. Advertising and promotions manager
Annual salary: $97,670

7. Public relations manager
Annual salary: $101,850

6. Human resources manager
Annual salary: $105,510

5. Operations manager
Annual salary: $110,550

4. Sales manager
Annual salary: $111,570

3. Financial manager
Annual salary: $113,730

2. Marketing manager
Annual salary: $120,070

1. Chief executive officer (CEO)
Annual salary: $167,280

Engineering & Technology

Even in engineering, management is where you need to land in order to start raking in six figures. Specializing in fields like computers, oil, or nukes definitely doesn’t hurt.

10. Electronics engineer (except for computers)
Annual salary: $91,540

59Chemical engineer
Annual salary: $91,670

8. Aerospace engineer
Annual salary: $96,270

7. Computer Software Engineer for systems software
Annual salary: $96,620

6. Nuclear engineer
Annual salary: $100,350

5. Computer hardware engineer
Annual salary: $101,410

4. Computer or information scientist
Annual salary: $105,370

3. Petroleum engineer
Annual salary: $119,960

2. Computer or information systems manager
Annual salary: $120,640

1. Engineering manager
Annual salary: $122,810

Science

What is it with management? Even in the sciences, being a manager is the way to go if you want enough money for that vacation home in Breckenridge. Other appealing fields include physics, astronomy, and good ol’ math.

10. Medical scientist (except epidemiologist)
Annual salary: $84,760

9. Atmospheric or space scientist
Annual salary: $85,160

8. Biochemist or biophysicist
Annual salary: $88,550

7. Chemical engineer
Annual salary: $91,670

6. Geoscientist (but not hydrologist or geographer)
Annual salary: $92,710

5. Mathematician
Annual salary: $93,920

4. Physical scientist
Annual salary: $94,880

3. Astronomer
Annual salary: $102,740

2. Physicist
Annual salary: $111,250

1. Natural sciences manager
Annual salary: $127,000

Other

We couldn’t leave lawyers off this list–they make bank, as you probably know. Other types of jobs that rake it in represent a smorgasboard of industries, from financial services to aviation. See where else you can make the big bucks below.

10. Personal financial advisor
Annual salary: $94,180

9. College or university education administrator
Annual salary: $95,340

8. Economist
Annual salary: $96,320

7. Political scientist
Annual salary: $101,050

6. Industrial/organizational psychologist
Annual salary: $102,570

5. Judge, magistrate judge, or magistrate
Annual salary: $103,990

4. Air traffic controller
Annual salary: $106,990

3. Law professor
Annual salary: $109,150

2. Airline pilot
Annual salary: $117,060

1. Lawyer
Annual salary: $129,020

Additional sources: Payscale, CNBC, and Salary.com.

Gild, a new kind of job search and recruitment tool, aims to smooth the process. Besides matching you up with jobs that fit, Gild lets you certify your skills, showcase your skills through competitions, and see where you rank among peers in your profession. Unlike traditional job search websites, Gild also lets you see where you are in a company’s application process.

It benefits companies, too. By reviewing job seekers’ skill ratings and certifications, companies can find the best potential employees more quickly.

CEO Sheeroy Desai calls Gild “social gaming meets career advancement.” We caught up with Sheeroy to learn more about how Gild works, the benefits of testing, and the role that games play in landing a job.

BP: What industries and nationalities comprise most of your user base?

Everything we do today, across the board, is focused on what we call the information technology space. Clearly, a lot of technology companies are our clients. We also have clients like United Health Group that aren’t technology companies, but do recruit a lot of technology talent as customers.

In terms of nationality and geography, our largest user base is India. That’s where we started our beta and did initial targeting. As such, about 80% of the population is from India. We did have a global launch last month, so now we’re seeing people from other parts of the world such as the United States, Philippines and the U.K. Our goal is to make Gild a global property.

BP: Are there any particular contests or tests that have had the greatest user response?

That’s a really interesting question. When we were building Gild up, we decided we were going to have different types of contests for the competitions. One of the contests was going to be the hardcore coding competitions. We thought that alone would be too limiting and people said they wanted something more light-hearted, so we also decided to do competitions that are really topical (Ed.: like Riddles and Inventions That Changed the World).

The main point at that time was to find the competition that would draw the most audience and so everyone would want to participate. The hardcore coding competitions are the ones that draw in the crowd. So that’s pretty much about our user base.

BP: Are some companies accepting Gild test scores in place of doing their own testing now?

The exams we’ve created are definitely accepted by some companies as a standard. An example of that would be Oracle across the JPAC region, which is Asia Pacific. If you want to get hired by Oracle, you have to do a test. We actually run and host those tests on our servers.

Similarly, if in India you get hired by SAP, or if you get hired by HP, you go through a testing process that has our tests. There are certainly organizations in parts of the world that are standardized on our assessments.

BP: Are there talented programmers who just don’t test well or are bad test takers? Or does that not really apply to the technology field?

When we think about who’s taking our skills test, they want to a job as a programmer and received a programming certification. What we are doing is putting coding on a challenging level. Each question is composed of some piece of code that you have to define or a piece of code with something wrong in it and you have to figure out what’s wrong or how would you improve it.

A lot of folks are thinking back to a testing days, back to the SAT days, it’s really not like that. These are questions designed to replicate the consequence you face in your job and the problems you have to solve when you’re working. From that standpoint, we don’t see that people don’t test well. It’s mostly about if you’re good at your job, then you should be able to do this stuff.

BP: As far as formatting your tests, it looks like they are timed and you have to do them all in one go. So you can’t do one section and save your test for another day?

Correct. That’s really from a standpoint of two things. One is the fact that you really have to do the test all at once is because we think that’s evening the playing field. Everyone should have to take the test under the same conditions.

The time thing is important because obviously the two people that get all the questions right, but if someone is able to do it in half the time than they better. So the timing is a way to distinguish who’s really better than the rest of the crowd.

BP: Can you tell me more about Gild’s gaming component?

The most prominent place you can find it is under Competition (Ed.: Gild’s Competition page). It gives users the ability to take an online competition for a prize. We’ve given out iPads, iPod touches, cameras, we’ve given a trip to Vegas. That’s where the gaming element is most obvious.

But gaming is built into everything. We take your test and tell you how you compared to everyone else in your city, your country, and around the world. You apply for a job and we tell you how you’re ranking compared to everyone based on the requirements and everyone that’s applied. We say OK, 50 people have applied for this job and you’re ranking number 3. Here are some things you can do to improve your rank. Gaming is built into everything, but most obviously in competitions.

BP: The whole concept of using gaming and gaming mechanics to allow these workers to apply for work is interesting. Could you talk more about that?

I think this is one of the things that really is critical to Gild’s success. What we’ve seen today which is you can take things like managing a career or finances and even your health. These are very important things. But you don’t see people going on the Internet and engaging in those tools a whole lot.

Our viewpoint is that it’s not our fault it’s not interesting. We really wanted to bring those gaming mechanics into those important tools. If you look at things like Facebook, they are all playing games. So we thought what if you bring some of the gaming to a very important topic like your career?

That’s what we’ve been trying to develop and we keep building on the concept and we see that a lot. I’d say about 20 or 25% of our audience are very fanatical users. They keep coming back on a regular basis and engage in an online community. You can see that behavior where they get upset if they score low and they don’t win a prize. They say “how can I win a prize next time?” So we think those elements are important, because it’s human nature.

BP: What’s your vision for Gild’s expansion?

We really want professionals to take control of their careers. If you look at the world today, and the technologies that we have, we see how far the Internet has advanced. Yet people seem very helpless when it comes to managing and looking at managing careers.

It’s amazing how even the most qualified person has trouble finding a job. It’s a very paralyzing thing and a humbling experience. And a big a part of it is because of all these tests are just geared for employers. When you go to apply to a job on Monster.com or Career Builder, you have no control over your resume and who’s going to get access to it. As a result, there are really qualified people using these limited avenues.

Our whole intent around Gild is we want to create a place where people and professionals can take control of their careers. They are the ones who are in the driver seat. We want the people who are really good to be able to make themselves more marketable. We want it to be a condition of a company choosing them.

From that standpoint, as a global standard, we want our initial focus to be on the technology space. We want technology professionals from around the world to build a community here. We want them to use Gild to not just learn more about themselves, but help them get better jobs. Once they have jobs, we want them to use Gild to help them go back to their employers and negotiate a better salary for themselves based on how they are doing. That’s our vision.

Official bio: Sheeroy Desai joined PAC Labs as the Chief Executive Officer in July 2007. He brings more than 20 years of experience in technology and technology services markets. Sheeroy was the second employee at Sapient Corporation, and began his career in technology as an early member at the Cambridge Technology Group — the predecessor firm to Cambridge Technology Partners — which was later acquired by Novell. Sheeroy graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1987 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a minor in Economics.

Can you take two years off from work, or do you need your MBA to be part-time? On-campus or online? Where can you get in, given your qualifications? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, can you afford it?

Popular publications like the US News & World Report, The Financial Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and BusinessWeek compile business school rankings to help you determine what business school you want to attend. While informative, such rankings aren’t perfect. What, for example, makes an analytically-oriented business school with financial industry connections better than a business school specializing in case studies and teamwork? Subjectivity, probably, which is why these rankings often fall short.

Still, rankings help. That’s why we analyzed the top picks from the publications above to give you a list of the 10 best online and traditional business schools. Regardless of location, these MBAs will cultivate your skills, sharpen your network, and give you the title you need to bring your career to higher ground.

The Best Traditional Business Schools

Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago

Image: josh.ev9/Flickr

One of the first business schools established in the US, the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business lets students study commerce in direct proximity to the famous Chicago School of economic thought. Whether that makes you a neoclassical businessperson by default is unknown. Either way, Booth is one of the best business schools in the world. Unlike many other schools, Booth gives students a lot of control over the range and variety of courses they take to complete their MBAs. Aside from one required course, students can custom-tailor their degree, resulting in a specialized and individually satisfying MBA experience.

Famous alumni include Morningstar CEO Joe Mansueto, Goldman Sachs COO Jon Winkelried, Zipcar CEO Scott Griffith, and Domino’s Pizza CEO J. Patrick Doyle.

Harvard Business School

Image: Paul Lowry/Flickr

Harvard practically invented business school by coming up with case studies as a research and teaching tool. The institution’s eminence and deep sense of history continues today, giving Harvard MBA holders automatic access to the most elite facets of the business world. Many of today’s top business leaders, from JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, came off the Harvard MBA assembly line. In short, if you want to be a Master of the Universe, look no further than HBS.

Stanford Graduate School of Business

Image: jeffpearce/Flickr

The most prestigious business school on the West Coast also boasts one of the most coveted MBAs in the world. If you manage to squeeze into the program, you can join the ranks of other alumni and run big companies like Gap, Capital One, or GlaxoSmithKline. Or you can found the next Trader Joe’s or Kiva, both of which were created by Stanford MBA alumni. While Stanford isn’t an Ivy school, it might as well be, for all the inroads it provides.

Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania

Image: souravdas/Flickr

The first business school in the United States (est. 1881) is also one of the most prestigious. A gaggle of eminent CEOs emerged from Wharton, including the CEOs of American Airlines, Estee Lauder, Boeing, Tesco, and Comcast. At nearly $85,000, this data-driven school isn’t for the faint of wallet. It does buy you not only a killer education, but access to a network of students and alumni that will either help you get a window office or get into office.

Columbia Business School

Image: Jorbasa/Flickr

Wanna be a Wall Street mogul? Ever since Wall Street kingpin A. Barton Hepburn, president of Chase Manhattan Bank, founded Columbia Business School in 1916, it has been cultivating financial geniuses, including Benjamin Graham, David Dodd, and Wareen Buffett. Consistently one of the top MBA programs in the US, Columbia even offers select students an education on value investing, taught in part by eminent hedge fund managers. The only thing they don’t give you is access to the lobbyists necessary for any banking mogul to do business, but you can find those easily enough through the alumni network.

MIT Sloan School of Management

Image: Tjeerd/Flickr

MIT’s Sloan School of Business began, predictably enough, as a program for engineering administration. It then evolved into a school that offered a Master of Science in Management. Only after 1995 did Sloan, still renowned for its analytical and quantitative curriculum, finally begin offering an MBA.

The school is still one of the best places for mathletes to train their business muscles, especially in the renowned entrepreneurship program. In an elite university hand-holding arrangement, Sloan students can also take courses at Harvard Business School to satisfy some of their Sloan requirements. Sloan coincidentally matriculated the current dean of the Harvard Business School and Wharton’s former dean, aside from a host of other captains of industry.

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Image: Amy Ashcraft/Flickr

Founded in 1900, Tuck is one of the United States’ oldest business schools. Unlike the variety of MBAs offered by most other business schools, Tuck only provides a two-year full-time MBA. The school claims that this structure, combined with small classes and accessible faculty, makes it the business school of choice for students seeking a true community in their class. With only 250 students and 47 full-time faculty, this Ivy League school swaps out size for intimacy.

Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley

Image: brainchildvn/Flickr

UC Berkeley is one of those rare public universities that offers an Ivy League-level business education. Besides the full-time program, you can take an evening/weekend program and an executive MBA in conjunction with Columbia, where you study at Columbia in New York City during part of the program. Famous alumni include the CEOs of Jack in the Box, Adobe, Intel, and Bank of America.

Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

Image: ejojola/Flickr

With an emphasis on teamwork and group projects, Kellogg is a haven for the more socially-minded business aspirant. Kellogg, a b-school brand that holds serious sway in the business community, is also known for strong marketing and consulting training. Besides a full-time MBA, Kellogg offers part-time and Executive MBAs. Notable alumni run Match.com, Office Depot, Campbell Soup Company, and Seven-Eleven.

Fuqua School of Business at Duke University

Image: Matt Phillips/Flickr

The relatively young Fuqua, founded in 1969, offers a bigger variety of MBAs than your usual elite institution. Aside from the usual full-time and weekend MBAs, you can earn a Global Executive MBA, Cross Continent MBA, Weekend Executive MBA, and three different flavors of Masters in Management Studies. Melinda Gates, Delta Airlines CFO Hank Halter, and Victoria’s Secret CFO Pamela White all made the world their oyster with a Duke MBA.

The Best Online Business Schools

IE Business School

Madrid-based Instituto de Empresa (IE) Business School has one of the world’s leading MBA programs, online or offline. Its 15-month online Global MBA, which you can take in English or Spanish, requires two 5-day residential periods in Madrid, but who can complain? Better yet, the online International Executive MBA requires three residential periods of 2 weeks each. At nearly $48,000 for the online Global MBA–the Executive MBA is closer to $71,000–it’s not the cheapest online MBA you can find. But you get a quality of education, eminent brand, and excellent global network in return.

Thunderbird School of Global Management

Based in Arizona, this 46-year-old private university offers an online version of its world-renowned Global Management MBA, attainable in 1-3 years. Thunderbird, one of the top names in international business, boasts alumni including a former Starbucks president, Microsoft CFO John Rex, and BP CEO Bob Dudley. That international eminence, mind you, will set you back $66,800.

University of Leicester

Thanks to their decision to focus on their distance learning programs more than many other traditional universities, Leicester, one of England’s better universities, also offers a dirt-cheap online MBAs. At £8,165 (or $12,601), with potential to pay it off in three payments, few other online programs can compete with Leicester’s price to quality ratio.

U21Global

Want to know what a next-generation online education looks like? Singapore-based U21Global (formerly Universitas 21 Global), the result of a partnership between 18 universities and Connecticut-based digital education company Cengage Learning, truly reflects a 21st-century education. The online-only U21 offers a global education informed by member universities from more than 10 countries. These universities include Canada’s McGill University, the University of Virginia, and the Universities of Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Edinburgh. U21 launched its first program, the MBA, in 2003.

Although students in India and Southeast Asia comprise the majority of enrollments at U21, the total student body comes from more than 50 countries. The MBA, which generally takes 2-3 years to complete, is heavy on case studies, with all exams being open-book and open-web. The university isn’t accredited (its single accreditation, the EFMD, applies only to technology-based management programs). But if you want to build your global business buddy network, and are cost-conscious, this could be your U.

Walden University

Walden University, a Minnesota-based online university, offers a slew of graduate degrees, including an MBA. The university is one of Laureate Education Inc.’s vast network of for-profit online learning centers. As a result, you can tap into their vast network, which includes Bill Clinton as honorary chancellor.

You can specialize your Walden MBA in one of twelve disciplines, including some that many other top online MBA programs don’t offer, like Healthcare Management. Your MBA will set you back a relatively reasonable $30,000.

Kelley School of Business at Indiana University

Indiana University is one of the leading universities in the US. its business school is no exception. The IU distance MBA, “Kelley Direct,” gives you access to the school’s quality education without the need to move yourself to Bloomington for longer than the school’s two 1-week on-campus sessions. Famous alumni include the CEOs of Nestle, Whirlpool, FedEx, and Cisco Systems. Oh, and Jared Fogle, the Subway guy who lost a lot of weight. At $1,065 per credit, the school’s costs are moderate, but the excellent network and brand are worth it.

Henley Business School at the University of Reading

The UK’s first business school likes to point out that it’s one of the only triple-accredited online MBA programs in existence. Quality-assured by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS), and the Association of MBAs (AMBA), the Henley Business School doesn’t mess around when it comes to credentials.

Formerly a management college, Henley has been a business school since 2008. Its MBA by Flexible Learning (the online MBA), attainable in 3 years, costs a relatively reasonable $26,000.

University of Maryland University College

The University of Maryland University College (UMUC) is known for serving not only its namesake state, but more than 50,000 active US military servicepeople located in various countries overseas, including Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s also one of the biggest distance universities around.

At $49,602, this fully accredited program isn’t the cheapest MBA around, but you don’t have to take the GMAT or GRE to get in. And with “Curb Your Enthusiam’s” Larry David among notable alumni, who wouldn’t want to attend?

Robert Kennedy College

Robert Kennedy College, founded in 1998, offers you the unusual opportunity to get a University of Wales MBA while studying at a private university in Switzerland. Despite a mere 1-week residency requirement in Zurich, the university claims that “whatever you are called – Richard, Douglas, Apostolos, Karin, Ahmed, Ajay or Francis – we’ll know you by your name.” Students are from more than 90 countries.

Students take between 2-5 years to earn an MBA with one of the school’s many specializations, which include hospitality management and investment management. Faculty and lecturers include Harvard and Oxford alumni. And at around $13,740, this is one of the least expensive MBAs you can get.

University of Florida

In two years, you can obtain a University of Florida Internet MBA with eight weekend campus visits, or polish that MBA off in a mere year, with five weekend campus visits. With those time constraints, it’s not the easiest online MBA, but you do get a degree from one of the biggest schools in the country, with a similarly large ratio of notable alumni. Plus, it gives you an additional excuse to watch Gators games.

If you’re an entrepreneur, the Great Recession isn’t the time to stick your head in the sand. Take Switchflops‘ Lindsay Phillips, who turned her interchangeable flip-flop strap idea into a $30 million fashion company between 2007-today. AOL Small Business’ Jeff Williams has a fantastic story on Switchflops’:

Now 25, Phillips came up with the idea for SwitchFlops at 16, as part of a high school art project. Today, her company — Lindsay Phillips — employs 35 full-time staffers and is projected to bring in $30 million in revenue this year.

The basic sandal itself costs $35, and additional straps are $12. Officially launched in 2007, SwitchFlops are now sold in more than 4,000 stores around the world, and Phillips’ line has evolved into other footwear like ballet flats, wedges and espadrilles. The company also makes shopping bags, scarves and sandals for children. Lindsay Phillips, the company, is currently building an overseas office.

When she launched the company two years ago, Phillips brought in an experienced 50-year-old CEO, writes Williams, a move that helped her company grow and prosper.

Why are Switchflops such a hit among fashion-conscious women? I think the business model hits on a Gen-Y mentality of being fashionable while avoiding waste (being green). Why have 12 different pairs of flip-flops when you can keep the same pair and change out the straps instead?

Switchflops, by virtue of its design, also produces instant brand loyalty. You’ve already paid $35 for the sole. The only place you can get different straps is at the Switchflops store, so, assuming you like the sole, you stick with the model. It’s Apple-esque, in a way.

I love seeing an innovative, practical product from a small company make it, the way Switchflops is. It’s encouraging and inspiring.