skills gap in the u.s. this is according to careerbuilder.com. employers say the most significant skills gaps are in engineering and information technology. so how do you prepare for some of the fastest-growing middle class jobs out there? joannie rugi is the senior vice president and cleave employment analysts at randstad and ellen gordon reeves is author of "can i wear my nose ring to the interview." we'll get to that great title in a moment. but joannie, where are the jobs available? i know the statistic, there are more than 3 million open jobs in america. where are they? health care? >> everybody is looking. they want to know where the jobs are at. there are a lot of sectors hiring. health care is a lot sector, engineering, information technology, accounting and finance. of there's lots of job opportunities in this sector. but, of course, you need the education. >> right. >> and the credentials to get those jobs. >> look at these. clinical research associate. 65,000 to $80,000 as a salary range. you need a bachelor's degree. what's a quality associate? >> yeah, so a quality associate is really kind of a hot job right now. you see it a lot in health care, in pharmaceuticals. really looking for people that can keep up with the compliance and really look into checking up the manufacturers of the drug companies are sticking with the clinical research. so there's a high demand in this area. and it's a growing field. >> ellen, we know the unemployment rate for someone with a bachelor's degree is 4.6%. that's a lot different than the 9.1% you hear every time there's a jobs report. but just having the education is not the whole picture. you have to be able to seal the deal, don't you? >> absolutely. but also, forget the numbers when you're job hunting. all you need is one job, the right job for you. and you have to prove to the employer that you have got the skills and you bring something extra to the table. foreign languages, knowledge of the competitor, you've done your homework and informational interviewing. so that you go in there, tayloring everything to show your value proposition and what you bring that other people don't bring. >> one person, one job, a job market of one. and you are the one candidate. that's a good point, because i hear a lot of these job fairs, i've been sending out 50 resumes a day, applying online everywhere. you say you're wasting your time. >> absolutely. because you've got to stop looking for a job and start looking for a person. people hire people. and is so you've really got to convince them and know enough to show them. again, you want to do the job. you've got the confidence, you're going to radiate the confidence and the competence, because that's what employers are looking for. and it's so easy to feel vulnerable, not valuable, when you're in this job-hunting position. >> you told me a line one time that i put in my book that i quote all of the time, which is the most important name on your cover letter is not yours, it's the name of the person you have in common with the hiring manager. and that is so true. you've got to be able to network here, too. >> that's it. >> let me ask you about what companies are looking for then. if you're polishing up this picture, you've got the degree, you're able to translate skills into these growing areas, how do you present that? what do companies want to see? >> yeah, you know, i think to ellen's point, too, it is really presenting yourself in a very good light. and what companies do want to see today, not only that they have a great candidate with great skills, they really want to see someone too that is positive. that comes into the interview, has a great attitude -- >> the first line is not "i've been looking for a job for six months." >> exactly. and i think that what we see from our clients at randstad when they're looking for different candidates, they are looking for people that are really going to make a difference within their organization. they want someone that's going to bring a positive attitude to work. and unfortunately, there are some people that are negative, you know, they have been kind of beat up in this job market. maybe they've been let go, they're still kind of down in the dumps. and so, know, companies want to see that someone is coming in and that they are kind of bright-eyed and positive and going to make a contribution at their company. >> make sure that the gap is filled on that resume, something ellen talks about a lot. but fill the gap on the resume with something. don't show a six or eight-month nothing on that resume. >> yeah, so you have to be honest on your resume. i think it's very important to lay that out. i mean, today with, you know, everything that's out there online, it's very easy for someone to see, you know, what someone has done from their resume and their background. so honesty is very important. but if there is a gap on the resume, show what you've done in that area. what have you done? >> make something -- >> exactly. >> organizations -- >> mind the gap. >> mind the gap, yes. >> take a course. you were studying for the course. you're always in the game, you're always perfecting your skills. >> absolutely. >> do you think that people also have higher expectations? they have expectations from 2005 when they're looking for a job. they need to maybe think about being what's called a perma lancer. and i know companies are taking on people on a contract basis. do you need to take a little bit of a pay cut so you can just get in the door? >> get your foot in the door any way you can. any kind of freelancing, anything to get experience. and once do you that, even if it's part time or if it's temp work, only temp in an industry you're interested in so that you develop a network of contacts, you have clients, you're inside the company and the industry that you want to be in. and then make sure, though, that you're not signing any contracts, even as a freelancer, that will impede your ability to get a -- i'm sorry, a full-time job. >> joannie and ellen, thank you so much. have a great weekend, ladies. $92,000 can buy you a lot of things. why a quality education might not be one of them. next. in just 14 minutes. mmmh, orange chicken. great. i didn't feel like going out anyway. [ male announcer ] wanchai ferry. restaurant quality chinese in your grocer's freezer. [ male announcer ] its design inspires. its power impresses. it's thin, light and built without compromise. but mostly, it acts like my personal assistant on set. unlike my real assistant who isn't quite as thin, light or powerful. ♪ he's right there, isn't he? designed with the 2nd gen intel® core™ i5/i7 processors, performance you need, style you want. visit dell.com this week and check out our october signature event for great offers on our best systems. an american public school education is supposed to be the great equalizer, where anyone, regardless of background, can get a quality education. no child left behind, race to the top. these programs aimed to help students succeed in all subjects. diane ravage says they are a failure. she is an education historian and the author of the book "the death and life of the great american school system: how testing and choice are undermining education." diane worked in the department of education under the first president bush, was an early supporter of no child left behind. and diane today you're against it. why? >> it failed. we've had ten years of no child left behind and it's hard to discern any progress. we've had constant testing of kids, we have charter schools. milwaukee has had vouchers for 21 years. no one can claim success for any of these programs. and yet now we're going to do more and more testing. >> race to the top. that's -- this administration is pushing race to the top. >> well, race to the top is actually just a rebranding of no child left behind. it's more testing and now the testing is going to focus not just on the students, but on grading teachers based on their student test scores. this is totally wrong. there's a huge body of research that says that students are responsible for their scores. to test kids. they're not measures of teach s teachers' quality. so we'll be firing a lot of teachers and education will not be better, because education is not a race. education is not about finding winners and losers. it's really about getting every child the opportunity to succeed. >> but how are we supposed to know how well we're doing? how are we supposed to know how well teachers are doing and students are doing if we can't somehow qualify it? >> we have gone overboard with the quantitification. there is confusion between accountability and what instruction. i mean, the most important thing that happens in school is instruction. yet we are diverting more and more resources into testing and accountability. i just returned from finland and in finland, they never give a standardized test, ever, until the very last year of school. and that's about applying to college. but in the grades from the first year of school until the last year of school, there is no standardized test, because the teachers are highly professional, they make up the test, and they know exactly how their kids are doing. and they make sure that they get the help they need. >> it's very different in finland, too. and i want to get your -- sort of your thoughts on what we can learn from finland. because finland does very, very well on these -- these international rankings of science and reading and math. and you point out that one out of ten applicants for the teaching profession in finland is actually accepted. it is a very competitive process to become a teacher there. >> right. the finnish government. this is not historic, but the finnish government, they -- it hasn't always been this way. they started their reforms about 30 years ago, and they decided to focus on helping and improving and supporting and getting the best teachers. now, we're going about this process by saying, let's find teachers and fire them. well, finland didn't do that. instead, they raised the entry level for getting into teaching. they made it very difficult to become a teacher. and they now have ten, sometimes more than ten applicants for every place. and they get the very best students. and teachers are highly respected. they're treated as professionals. and i've seen many teachers in america, by the way, teaching in very poor schools who are just as good as the finnish teachers. and yet teachers here are so disrespected. >> there are those reformers and some parents who would say the reason why there is that image problem for some is that bad teachers can't get run out of the system here. that the union protects bad teachers and so the competition to get in is because it's not the elite profession that it could and should be. >> well, the only part of that that's correct is that the standards for entry are very, very low in this country. people are going into alternate routes and have very little teacher preparation or in the case, for example, of teach for america, they get only five weeks of training. in finland, you cannot become a teacher -- >> do they make more in finland? >> not in comparison to other salaries in the country. they're not paid wildly more. they don't have merit pay. they pay more to do more, which is what teachers should be paid. in this country, 50% of the people who start teaching are gone within five years. it's not that we are not getting rid of teachers. we're bringing them in and throwing them out, bringing them in, throwing them out. anyone who is hired who is a bad teacher should be removed. anyone who is a bad teacher should have an opportunity to improve. and then be told get out of the profession. it's not that the unions are protecting them. it's that way in a right to work state and it's that way across the board. which is we don't have some vast army of people out there standing in line trying to be teachers, waiting for somebody to get out of wait. we have a problem just getting teachers. and what we should be doing is cultivating the best and helping the weaker teachers get better. >> let me ask you about spending then. how we do that within the constraints of the money we have. when you look at where the u.s. does rank very highly, it's in spending. we spend more than $90,000 per student between the ages of 6 and 15. only switzerland spends more. but teachers that i've spoken to, when i ask them on the ground, how do you fix things, do you need more money? they say, well, yes and no. we've got twice as much money per student today than they did in the 1970s. and it doesn't look like politically there's more money coming. >> well, a lot of the money -- almost all of the new money has gone into special education. we spend more on special education, way more than we did 30 and 40 years ago. we have -- we have students with immense problems who require more money. the money is not going into teachers' salaries, because the average teacher's salary in this country is around 45 to $50,000. in most communities, that's not considered high income. so the money is not getting the classroom. we have -- seem to have unlimited amounts of money for assessment and accountability. this country is now spending billions on testing. so i think we need to look hard at where the money is going. but i'm going to argue that we're not spending enough. >> you are. >> i don't think we spend enough. because when i -- thinking of what i've seen in the finnish classrooms, where everyone has the arts, everyone has the opportunity to be in music and in art, and the teachers are -- have the resources they need. and yet i hear from teachers all of the time they have to pay for the basic supplies out of their own pock. ask they're not overpaid. >> can a public school system today create another steve jobs, for example, someone who is lie onized this week for what he accomplished. are we able at $90,000 per student from the ages of 6 to 15, are we creating that? >> no. absolutely not. we are so focused on standardized multiple choice testing that if steve jobs were in a school today, he would be told to choose one out of four boxes and get the right answer. whereas a steve jobs would say, whoa, what's the right question? and he's not -- he would not be permitted to do that. he would be told, pick a box of four. and we have a system started under no child left behind and reinforced powerfully by arne duncan's race to the top to make standardized testing the measurable things, the measure of children, the measure of teachers, the measure of schools, close schools, fire teachers, fire principals, destroy public education. all around these four boxes. steve jobs will not emerge from this system. >> a passionate position that you hold. and you are very -- stick to your guns on it, diane ravage, author of "the life and death of the american school system." thank you. >> thank you for inviting me. thomas edison might be a thing of the past when it comes to getting our kids excited about technology. we're going to explain, next. emily went right on living.s, but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. which meant she continued to have the means to live on... even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. this is what we can gather from an ordinary crash test dummy. two million data points. this is what we can gather from a lexus crash test genius. 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[ female announcer ] new fiber one 80 calories. yes, you can actually love breakfast. ♪ all right. for most kids, doing their algebra and chemistry homework is like eating brussel sprouts. but subjects in the science technology, engineering and math fields, they are what will nourish this generation. so how do we as parents and teachers get kids excited about the stem field at an early age? mario armstrong is a digital lifestyle expert and the founder of a small biz go mobile.com. he joins us from baltimore. welcome to the program. >> hey, christine. how are you? >> i'm great. you know, you're working with toshiba's stem pourment program, talking to teachers and students. what do you hear about why kids just aren't interested in the geeky fields? >> it comes down to a couple things. number one, stereotypes need to be diminished, they need to be destroyed. a lot of kids at very early ages are getting stereotypes of what science and tech looks like. and that's bad. number two, lack of relatability. kids can't seem to relate to technology the way it's being delivered in most cases. so we need to do better ways of connecting it, which this tour does. fuel you'll find more kids interested in tech. >> i don't know why it should be so hard. when we were in grade school, teef jobs was just barely becoming an icon. the mac and then was very big or the apple 2e, right? >> yep. >> when you think about stem, i mean, it's people who are changing the world, it's their ipad, video games, web applications. >> that's right. >> things these kids are wired to at birth. so how do we connect to that? >> yeah, this is why i say we should be using popular technology, just like steve's example here. i mean, he is legendary. he revolutionized industries. changed the music business. changed the cellular phone business. this guy had vision, and he is a true innovator. and so we need -- you know, many people will get mad at me by saying, we don't need to focus on thomas edison. i'm sorry. we don't. i don't know a kid yet that i've gone to in the past two years that says to me, hey, mario, i want to grow up and be thomas edison. >> he's my childhood hero, but i was an old lady when i was 10, so don't take that to mean anything. but what about teachers who say we don't have the time or the money to have this technology in the classroom? >> yeah, so number one, role models are key. so -- but the time and the money is an issue. time, i'm not buying. teachers, i understand. strapped. they do more than they are asked to do. i love them, i grew up in a teacher's household so i get it. however, money -- i get that. but time, you need to step the kids out of the classroom. and you need to push your schools and push the local community. we don't see enough public/private partnerships where kids should be taking field trips to tech companies. going to the zoo is cool, but going to a tech company is hotter. >> you know, it's interesting. we spoke to sal kahn at the kan academy. and he said it's a branding problem. it's how to speak code for the future. >> he's right. >> right? you say we need to ignite kids' passions in tech from, you know, from football to fashion. their stem. right? >> that's right. >> and is sometimes kids need to understand that technology they have at home, they already understand it better than their parents do. so what's your advice to parents out there? >> so really quickly, advice to parents is do not be a dream-killer. you may have missed the tech curve and i get that. but it's your job to support your kid. put them in programs like explora vision for a science awards or intel science competition. or put them in robotics clubs, like first robot i cans. and then show them how popular technology, stuff like they use -- this is an adidas tennis shoe, christine, it's an intelligent shoe, though. inside are sensors, a chip, a mother board. sensor b, a chip, motherboard. this is a computer in a shoe developed by adee da engineer. kids should start thinking about engineering differently. people don't think, well, i could work for adidas an an engineer. kids love these headphones, but if you say to them, you know what? what is sound engineering? could you re-engineer those headphones? how would you design it? what would that mean? lastly, if a kid is into fashion, don't talk to them about nanotechnology. they aren't going to hear you. but if you say, look, there are smart shirts that are now computerized that have sensors in them that can read your pulse and give you other details about the wearer, that's nanotechnology inside of fashion. now you have a student interested in nano. >> i think we agree, mario, that it's going to be stem, stem, stem. what's going to drive jobs of the future? we have to do a better job of teaching it and parents need to encourage your schools, encourage your kids to embrace it. mario armstrong, thank you. have a great weekend. >> dream, create, go! this is my dream shirt. >> thank you. 25% of americans cheat on their spouse financially. we look at why they're doing it, that's next. i got that wrong didn't i? 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