America's Top 300 Jobs, Book Plus CD-ROM is one of the most comprehensive career reference books on the U.S. market today. The editors tell us that the jobs featured in the book represent about 87 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy today. The 250 descriptions of specific jobs in the book are organized in 14 categories.

The descriptions follow a certain pattern for every occupation. First of all, the nature of the work is given. There is a brief description of the occupation and what a typical workday involves. Next we are given a straightforward account of working conditions - number of hours you would typically be expected to work at this job, whether it includes regular daytime hours, shifts, and/or weekends, whether it could be performed part-time, etc. Employment is where we find out how many of these jobs were available in a given year in the United States and whether these jobs are in the public or private sector. The training, other qualifications, and advancement section gives you the minimum required education, certificates, licenses and others needed to enter that particular field, as well as other skills and/or abilities needed. The editors of America's Top 300 Jobs then proceed to give us a glimpse into the future in job outlook, where you could find out whether that particular job is likely to grow or decline in the years to come. Next is the part on everyone's mind: earnings, where we learn how much entry-level, as well as people with various degrees of experience can expect to earn in that particular field. If you want to know what other professions require the same or similar skills, education, etc., you can go to related occupation, where you will get an idea of what else is out there that might interest you. At the end of each description, you also get a listing of sources of additional information, complete with addresses so that you can contact them directly for more information.

The CD-ROM is very easy to use: no lengthy explanations on how to install or use, simply click on whatever you are looking for and there it is! You can see descriptions of jobs, along with color images and lots of graphs. I found "Tomorrow's Jobs" section to be particularly useful. Based on the U.S. Bureau of Labor's Statistics, this feature gives you an idea of what to expect from the labor market in the years to come. Once installed on your computer, you can use the information from the CD-ROM to surf the Internet for more information on any particular occupation.

This book is a must-have guide that you will refer to time and again. The information is honest and straightforward, while the detail-packed descriptions will prove useful to anyone trying to get a glimpse of what it is like to work in the United States today

Dimitrina Korcheva,  the editor of Immigration Times.