Given that the economy is either in a recession or headed towards one, here are some key areas / spots of growth that are still great places to look:

1. Geography: Europe (especially UK), Asia ( India and China) are still rocking and rolling at 8% and 10.5%. Granted any slow down in the US is going to affect them, but consumption in India and China is taking off.

2. Industries: Financial and Retail are feeling the pain in US, but Organized retail is doing great in India, there's a huge financial revolution also with more people investing in the markets. China's doubling down on technology, in its attempt to bridge the gap with India and has more Internet users than US now.

3. Companies that are still growing:
a) Information Technology: IBM, HP, VMware and Salesforce.com are doing well.
b) Mobile and Wireless are still growing especially in developing countries
c) Consumer staples and Healthcare always do well during a recession


4. Roles that are still being hired for:
a) Community
b) Search engine optimization and search engine marketing
c) Developers (Mobile, PHP, Ruby on Rails)

5. Its always a good time to start your own or join a startup which got funded in 2007. Venture funding is at its highest.