Gen Y blog network Brazen Careerist launched again today with a new design and a new purpose: as career management tool and social/professional network for young professionals.

In a way, Brazen Careerist has always been both of these things. But new features allow registered users to create a typical resumé-style profile page, including a history of their education and work experience. The resumé is supplemented by what the Brazen crew call an Idea Feed – a chronological list of your blog posts (including those which have been featured on the Brazen homepage), comments on other’s blog posts, groups you’ve joined or created, and changes to your profile.

The homepage is now your Fan Feed, a list of all the recent activity by users you follow on the network. I loved the original homepage and checked out the featured posts daily, so I was a bit disappointed when I heard it was being retired in favour of yet another “social network.”

However, once I was able to dig a bit deeper into the new design today, I realized there is still a collection of featured posts to the right of my Fan Feed. More content can be found by clicking the Blogs tab at the top right of the site. Featured posts come up first and non-featured posts can be viewed by selecting from 13 categories, including Careers, Marketing & PR and Personal Development, to name a few.

For those of you who are wary of joining yet another network, don’t be fooled by what I think is a mis-labelling of the new Brazen Careerist. It’s not a social network in the same way that Facebook or Twitter are social networks, and it’s not a professional network in the same way that LinkedIn is. (Brazen co-founder Penelope Trunk argues LinkedIn is a network for Generation X while “Brazen Careerist is the job site for the next generation, demographically speaking.”)

At its core, Brazen allows young professionals with something to say (or an interest in hearing what others have to say) to exchange ideas and produce interesting content that is relevant to their peers.

I think Canadian students and recent graduates will have a tough time connecting locally with peers in their industry, but there’s no doubt that Brazen Careerist has its collective fingertips on the pulse of our generation’s experiences and ideas in many industries internationally (particularly marketing and public relations).