We’ve gotten some good feedback from career-related bloggers on the Career 100 so far. Here are a few blog post excerpts:

• George’s Employment Blawg: “The folks at RiseSmart (probably hoping for viral marketing like they’re getting right now from me) created a page showing the ” Career 100 Global Ranking of Top English-language Career Blogs.” I was very pleased to see my #17 ranking. I didn’t make the American Bar Association’s “Blawg 100,” which was the cover story (just about the only story) in this month’s ABA Journal, but I’m positioning this blog more in the general career market and don’t try to appeal to lawyers too much — so this ranking means more to me.”
• Little Red Suit: “What a great way to end the week. Little Red Suit premiered at 37 on the Career 100 … and has now risen to the 26th spot … A special thanks to my readers and blog friends for your support!”
• People at Work & Play: “I am delighted to see my friend, Gautam Ghosh’s blog ranked 24 … Huge amount of good advice on careers in that list, I am sure.”
• Gautam Ghosh: “RiseSmart has compiled a list of the top 100 career related blogs and (wonder of wonders!) this blog has been included in that esteemed list … A lot of my other favourite bloggers are also on the list.”

In comments on this blog, Gautam raised the issue that Bloglines is not as good a measure of subscribers as Feedburner. We completely agree; unfortunately, Feedburner doesn’t make subscriber totals public (it’s up to the individual blogger) so Bloglines is the next best thing.

Heather Hamilton, a Microsoft staffing manager, wonders how she made the list, let alone came in ranked #3. It helps that Heather’s blog has a high Alexa rank by virtue of being a Microsoft Developer Network blog, but even without that, she’d rank in the top 10 or 12 blogs on the list. And despite her modesty, she does offer great career tips.

More than 25 bloggers have also submitted their blogs to our list since we launched, bringing the total number of blogs we’re tracking to 142. We’ve got a ways to go before we reach the 650+ blogs on the Healthcare 100, though — so please, add your blog today.

Or if you’re already in the Career 100, please spread the word with a Career 100 badge. Thanks to Managing Leadership, among others, for already having done so.

George, Gautam, Tiffany and Heather are among those who’ve beaten us to the punch in announcing the Career 100 — so I guess our little secret is out. Many recruiting, HR, leadership and career-advice bloggers have already added their blogs to the list; we’re up to 133 blogs now, and I’m sure we’ll be adding many more.

So, what is the Career 100, and why did we create it?

In preparing to launch the RiseSmart Blog, we wanted to find a useful way to contribute to our corner of the blogosphere.   One of the first things we realized is that the blogosphere is huge, and there’s currently no easy way to sort the wheat from the chaff, particularly in a specific niche like career-oriented blogs.

Technorati is great for ranking blogs overall, but if you’re interested in blogs about a particular subject, Technorati is not that helpful.  Technorati’s tagging system lets users determine in which categories their blog belongs — up to 20 categories. As a result, if you run a blog search for any HR or career-oriented term, you’ll have to sort through a whole lot of blogs that have little to do with career information and advice.

The Career 100 was designed to solve this problem. 

Some background and a few notes:

• The Career 100 ranking system is based on an algorithm used by Advertising Age, which was created by marketing blogger Todd And.
• The Career 100 was programmed by the same team that put together the Healthcare 100, which has become one of the most valuable and heavily used resources in the health and medical blogosphere.
• Since the Healthcare 100 was launched last June, it has grown to include more than 650 different blogs — from the personal diaries of ambulance drivers, to the viewpoints of pharmacists and medical journalists, to blogs documenting the emerging Health 2.0 movement.
• The Career 100 adds one feature that neither the AdAge Power 150 or Healthcare 100 has — the ability for readers to rate blogs (by clicking the “rate this blog” link under each blog’s name).

We hope that, over time, the Career 100 will be an increasingly valuable resource to jobseekers, career counselors, HR managers, recruiters, and others who take an active interest in people’s work lives.  Furthermore, we believe it’s in the interest of all HR, recruiting and career-advice bloggers to help make that happen — because career blogs currently don’t have nearly as high a profile as, say, marketing or healthcare blogs.

We think the Career 100 can increase the collective influence of all bloggers in this space by making it easier for people — including the media — to find us.

So — here’s where we ask for your help:

• If your blog isn’t currently on the list, please add it! 
• Our algorithm includes you; you can impact the results by rating blogs yourself — so please do.
• Complaints are welcome — but be specific, so we can make changes where needed. 

That’s it for now, I guess.   Please let us know your thoughts about this important project.   And thanks to those of you who have already welcomed RiseSmart to the blogosphere with your e-mails and phone calls.

As we’ve conducted research for a little project that we’re not quite yet ready to officially announce (still working out a few minor tweaks), we have been simply amazed by the number of career and leadership blogs we’ve stumbled upon that have been abandoned by their authors.   What happened to that can-do spirit?  That good old American sticktoitiveness?

Fortunately, we still have great bloggers like Penelope Trunk , Eve Tahmincioglu and Joel Cheesman who are working hard to deliver great content and engage their readers.

I think the greatest name for a “career” blog I’ve come across, though, is this one by Earl Boykins:  emo + beer = busted career.   We’re sure it’s not that bad, Earl.

Penelope Trunk at Brazen Careerist has an excellent column on the decision to quit a job.  Penelope warns that it’s important to know if the problem is your job or something else in your life. But when it is time to leave, she writes:

The days of stable jobs and corporate loyalty are over. Today, people change jobs constantly. So the best way to create stability in your career is to depend on your ability to get a new job when you need to.

That is so true. Unfortunately, while many people develop marketable skills in their jobs, they often don’t devote the necessary time to networking for their next job — which is just as important.

Why not? For a number of reasons.

Often, people get trapped in jobs that are unsatisfying — but that keep them too busy to actively search for a better opportunity. When they finally get fed up and quit, they have to start their job search from scratch.

When we’re in a job we like, the problem can even be worse. We’re so dedicated to what we’re doing from day to day, we don’t devote enough time to the future — and that next great career opportunity.

I know about these problems because I’ve encountered them myself.  It’s a big reason I started RiseSmart — to create an avenue for jobseekers to stay abreast of the very best career opportunities, even when they don’t have time to do the searching themselves.

Remember to keep at least one eye out for your future, and the idea of quitting a job you dislike isn’t nearly as scary.