FreeAgent.com is a new service providing administrative support and job brokering for freelancers. , 1-877-323-6826. [SJM, 29Jun99, 7C.]

I mentioned the "Vault Reports Career Guide to the High Tech Industry" in CW 9.17. It turns out that the website is even more useful than the book of workplace culture reports. You can access over 1,000 corporate descriptions and employee message boards at . There's even a list of key competitors for each company, which could be a big help to job seekers.

Anthony Tomasic tells me that his company didn't have any luck with hotjobs.com or even with the Westech and Softfair recruiting events. The five engineers they recently hired came through personal contacts and university recruiting. Some of the online jobs services are "terrible." [, 02Jun99.]

For Silicon Valley and South Bay jobs, don't forget the JOBHUNTER.COM listings and advice from the San Jose Mercury News. Mercury Center also helps with apartment hunting, home buying, car shopping, maps, news, and 16M business listings in the Bay Area Yellow Pages. . [SJM, 29Jun99, 10C.]

----- "Most of us are educated to think like [experts]. We were all born to be spontaneous, creative thinkers. Yet a great deal of our education may be regarded as the inculcation of mind-sets. We were taught how to handle problems and new phenomena with fixed mental attitudes (based on what past thinkers thought) that predetermine our responses to problems or situations. In short, we were taught 'what' to think instead of 'how' to think. We entered school as a question mark and graduated a period." -- Michael Michalko, "Cracking Creativity: The Secrets of Creative Genius." [NewsScan Daily, 28May99.] -----