A Tennessee blogger is being threatened with a lawsuit by a job placement outfit over a post she made about her and her husband's experience with them. Nashville is Talking [1] has the background and a roundup. Newscoma has an extensive catalog of links [2].

Free speech does not mean freedom to libel, but...

I read her account and I'm not sure what the beef is. It seemed like a pretty straightforward if somewhat colorful account of her experiences and her impressions, which were not favorable.

What I found interesting is that they charge the job seeker (in this case a lot of money), and if I understand it correctly they don't guarantee a placement.

I've been extremely fortunate to not have to look for a job in quite some time, so this was a surprise to me. From experience on the hiring end, I thought the employer always pays the placement fee. The Mrs. said that charging the applicant a fee is a common practice that has been around for a long time. That was news to me.

Anyway, it reminded me of our earlier years when we would go downtown and spend hours looking at microfilm of job listings at the Tennessee Department of Employment Security office. Now they have it all online and you can search the listings from the comfort of your web browser.

For all you job seekers out there, don't overlook this free, taxpayer funded resource [3]. I checked this morning, and they have 743 professional, technical, and managerial jobs listed in Tennessee (74 in the Knox/Blount/Anderson Co. area), 775 clerical and sales jobs, 797 service industry, and 588 construction jobs listed. There are several other categories, and a total of 4272 jobs listed for all categories.

They're not all the greatest jobs, of course, and not all list a salary. But there was a software engineer job listed at $82K in Oak Ridge that only required a B.S. and five years experience. That's pretty good.