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Monster.com launched an iPhone version of its BeKnown app on Tuesday but the app offered more frustration than help for job seekers or professional recruiters and showed how out-classsed Monster is in the networking sector.

The app, which builds off of a Facebook app Monster launched in June, looks more like a marketing department's effort to get more Facebook users to use the job search site rather than "a solution for job seekers and recruiters looking to manage just one network of contacts," as it bills itself.

Arunn Ramadoss thinks you should learn COBOL. Admittedly, he's biased. He's the program manager of Micro Focus, a company that sells modernization tools for COBOL (see our previous coverage here).

Young programmers may be wondering whether they need to learn Java, or whether knowing JavaScript and either Python or Ruby is enough. And with computer science graduates reportedly receiving multiple job offers straight out of college, why look even further into the past at something like COBOL?

We've covered the difficulties in doing good technical interviews before. Recently, Jon Evans wrote a post at TechCrunch on how much the old Microsoft brain teaser interview questions suck. "The fundamental problem is that the skills required to pass today's industry-standard software interview are not the skills required to be a good software developer," Evans wrote.

We suggested asking questions that start with "Tell me about a time when..." and drilling down from there. Is that the best way to interview? How do you prefer to do it?

Yesterday we reported that Data.gov and several other Web-based public data outlets may be closed as a result of proposed budget cuts. The Sunlight Foundation is trying to save these sites you can learn more about that here.

But as Clive Thompson points out in an article for Wired, these public data sites were never living up to their promise or potential in the first place. "Bureaucrats still snooze atop mountains of public data, with no political imperative to release it," Thompson writes. "It's not something senators and congresspeople fret about while nursing martinis with lobbyists."

What could both save Data.gov and make it more useful? Thompson suggests that we hammer home the potential open data has for job creation.

Node.js sponsor company Joyent launched a Node.js job board today.

The inaugral listings include jobs from Adservice, TWAR, Voxer and Yammer.

The board is powered by SimplyHired. It costs $350 to post a job for 30 days, but as part of the launch promotion you can post jobs for $100.

Today Jobs Rated released the results of its annual rankings of various jobs. Software engineer came in first. The organization ranks jobs based on physical demands, work environment, income, outlook and stress. You can find out more about the methodology here. Last year, actuaries beat out software engineers.

Other positions that scored high are mathematician (#2), statistician (# 4) and computer systems analyst (#5).

What do you think?

At DEMO08, a new type of job web site launches today: PaidInterviews. Unlike today's traditional (ahem, boring) job sites like Monster.com or HotJobs, PaidInterviews combines social networking with a more sophisticated job matching algorithm to deliver a Web 2.0-style web site that will appeal to today's youngest career-seekers: Generations X and Y.