You’ve heard of LinkedIn and most likely you love it like we do here at The 405 Club.  Just like everything online that turns out to be a good idea, there will always be a new site or service that comes along to top it.

At a recent Brooklyn Pink Slip Party I ran into the founder of a brand new professional network and online resource center called FiredNetwork.com. At first I thought it was just a LinkedIn carbon copy but upon digging a bit deeper I realized there was much more to it. Catering to those who are considering a professional change, FiredNetwork.com offers members both a comprehensive set of resources to plan their next career move and a professional network to support them.  To facilitate career change, the site categorizes information by the following five options: employment opportunities, entrepreneurial pursuits, company purchase for owner operation, fundraising, and post-graduate education (MBA and JD).

In these tough economic times, many people are finding that they want to or have been forced to make a change.  According to founder Matthew Pizzi, “Whether you are fired or you want to fire your boss, you have the same set of professional options.”  For individuals in this position, the first step is to reach out to friends, family and colleagues, who will in turn offer advice, introduce them to new professional contacts, or direct them to resources such as books or websites.  FiredNetwork.com has mirrored this process by providing a discussion board, a recommended reading list, and a resources database for each of the five professional options.

The FiredNetwork team has populated the site with over 1,500 free informational resources, ranging from head-hunting firms to venture capital firms to graduate school test preparation courses.  Nonetheless, the site is designed to be dynamic and member-driven.  The interactive forum format allows members to post book and resource suggestions, as well as participate in the discussion boards.  By posting new information, members can both enhance the utility of the site and interact with other members with similar interests.

Direct connection between members in the forums is only one way that FiredNetwork.com links “change seekers” to “change facilitators.”  Through FiredNetwork.com, job seekers can connect to employers, entrepreneurs and company buyers can find investors, and job seekers can partner up with entrepreneurs.  FiredNetwork’s sophisticated search mechanism offers a particular powerful networking tool, as members can search the entire directory by profession, reason for joining, university affiliation, and location.  “So,” says Pizzi, “if you wanted to find all the entrepreneurs who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania that live in Manhattan, FiredNetwork enables you to do that easily.”  Furthermore, members of the FiredNetwork community can expand their contacts by tapping into their “extended network,” which consists of everyone that is two degrees of separation away from them.

Give it a look if you are proactively seeking change in your professional career.  The site went public earlier this month after four months of intense development.  Rest assure the site will continue to grow exponentially in resources and numbers as the word gets out, but will always remain free to faciliate your professional growth.

-By Garrett Dale, Founding Member, Music Industry Professional, Online Marketing Expert