Employment for single parents can be a prickly concern. Generations ago, it was taboo for a mother to remain employed even when there wasn’t another parent providing. It was seen as neglectful towards children – even if that nine to five meant food on their childrens’ plates and new clothes on their backs.
Related:10 Tips For Balancing Career And Family
While society is fairer to working mothers these days, individuals without children don’t have to worry about the time constraints that accompany looking after kids, nor do they have to weigh the financial burden associated with childrearing. As such, it’s important for single parents to find a career that both furnishes a decent wage and offers hours flexible enough to accommodate kids. But what sort of careers are those? Luckily, there are several varieties of stable employment that single parents can find an ideal home-work balance within.
Of course, to a great degree all of these careers hinge on the personality and temperament of the worker. For the relentlessly organized, the path of the virtual assistant will likely be a fit, and if you’ve got creative skills or talents you can develop those into something marketable in a freelance career. Those with the gift of gab and a talent for discourse should check out sales and marketing.
Virtual Assistants
The virtual assistant (VA) is great for single parents with a skill for organization. The VA is fundamentally no different from the traditional variety. They are hired by an executive to schedule appointments, make calls, organize a schedule, book travel arrangements and so on. However, the VA telecommutes and does all of this from the comfort of their home office.
Any legitimate work that can done from home is good work when it comes to juggling the responsibilities of home life. Jobs such as this are skyrocketing in availability as conferencing programs such as Skype make the daily commute somewhat arbitrary for certain occupations. If you have the experience and find an opportunity, it can be a convenient occupation to make around $40,000 a year to support your family from the comfort of home.
Sales And Reselling
Sales can often be done from home and depending on the pay structure the salesperson can often work as much or little as they need or want to. Work in sales relies quite a bit on the company one works for. The payment structure differs, the requirement for travel varies, and obviously the product being sold changes the requirements for sales, etc.
Many companies thrive on roots-level salespeople and offer packages to facilitate your startup, but this can be expensive and fruitless if you aren’t committed to making it work. To avoid this risk, consider reselling. Reselling takes two chief forms − the more freeform class involves buying or making items and selling them for a profit on a dedicated site or a resale site like eBay or Etsy. There is also “drop shipping," where an individual buys a product or products at bulk from a supplier and resells them for a profit. This can be lucrative enough to avoid having to take a more official job, though requires intuition and study in order to sell at ideal market prices.
Freelancing And Additional Suggestions
Graphic design and desktop publishing/writing/editing represent another excellent work-at-home opportunity for those with a creative flair. For those with a penchant and skill for design, painting, drawing, or art in general, freelance graphic design (or as a telecommuting member of a firm) can prove a lucrative outlet for that artistic impulse. If someone’s talents incline more toward the literary, channel that skill for editing, writing, publishing, providing articles for a blog or a number of blogs, and so on.
Some of these are common sense, but regardless of someone’s profession, appropriate money management is always going to be an extremely important facet of their financial life. A budget should be established by studying one’s finances month to month, plotted out according to average expenditures, and then followed closely. As important to that financial security is planning for leaner times, especially when working in temporary or seasonal positions.
If a layoff seems likely or possible, and it often is in our shaky recovering economy, the best time to search for a job is when you have one. At the same time, become familiar with the process for filing unemployment benefits and consider a backup like supplemental unemployment insurance. With some research, originality, elbow grease and preparation, there’s a great job and a great financial life waiting out there for those willing to discover it.
Is your job search turning into a grind with no end in sight? It may be time to take a step back and reevaluate your entire approach.
In cold weather climates, the beginning of spring is a time to clean the house and get organized—a practice known as spring cleaning. Through the years, spring cleaning has taken on a larger meaning with people using the time to organize and declutter things in their lives.
For professionals on the job hunt, a little spring cleaning (metaphorically speaking) could be a great way to reinvigorate your job search. Here are a few strategies your job search spring cleaning should include.
Reevaluate Your Job Search Approach
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Make a list of the last handful of jobs you applied for and see if you can identify any positive or negative trends. Consider things like:
How did I learn about this job?
How did I apply for the job?
Did I earn an interview?
What was the ultimate result?
A lot can be learned about your job search approach just by answering these questions and identifying patterns. For example:
Negative Trends
You discovered five jobs through job boards, applied to all of them via the job boards, and never heard back from any of them.
The common pattern here is applying through job boards. This isn't to say that job boards don't serve a purpose in the job search process, but they have their limitations, and you can't run your job search entirely off of them. When you apply through a job board, there's a good chance that your materials will never get past the applicant tracking system (ATS) and never be seen by an actual person.
One simple fix is to research who the hiring manager or recruiter is that posted the position and email your materials to them directly.
The more efficient fix would be to take a proactive approach by putting together a bucket list of companies that you want to work for and start making connections on LinkedIn with people who work at those companies. You may already know some people who work there or have connections that can refer you to some individuals.
This is a great way to network your way onto a company's radar.
Positive Trends
You applied to three jobs via referral, were invited to two job interviews, and made it through multiple rounds of interviews for one of the jobs before being passed over for someone with a little more experience.
The pattern here is that getting referred to a job by a professional acquaintance is a great way to land a job interview. This indicates that you're leveraging your network well and you should continue to focus on your networking efforts.
The next step is to review the interview process and determine what went well and what needs to be improved. Sometimes the interviewer will provide feedback, and that feedback can be valuable. However, not everyone is comfortable with giving feedback.
Chances are you probably have a good idea about areas of improvement and the skills you need to gain. Put together a plan for addressing those shortfalls.
The good news in making it deep into any interview process is that it indicates that the company likes you as a potential employee (even if the timing just wasn't right) and the experience could be a roadmap to a job with that company at a later date, or another similar opportunity elsewhere.
Give Your Resume & Cover Letter Some Much-Needed Attention
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Are you continuously sending similar resumes and cover letters to each job opening with only minor adjustments? If so, your strategy needs some serious spring cleaning.
The reason why it's so important to tailor your resume is that throughout your career, you acquire numerous skills, but the job you're applying for may only be focusing on 6-8 of those skills. In that case, those skills must rise to the top of the resume with quantifiable examples of how you successfully used those skills at previous jobs.
Remember, recruiters go through hundreds of resumes. They need to be able to tell from a quick glance whether or not you're a potential candidate for the position.
While updating your resume, you could also spruce up your LinkedIn profile by highlighting the skill sets that you want to be noticed for by recruiters.
As for writing a good cover letter, the key to success is writing a disruptive cover letter. When you write a disruptive cover letter, you're basically telling a story. The story should focus on how you connect with the particular company and job position. The story could also focus on your personal journey, and how you got to where you currently are in your career.
If your resumes and cover letters aren't unique, now is the time to clean things up and get on track.
Build Your Personal Brand
Just because you're looking for work doesn't mean that you don't have anything to offer. Use previous career experiences and passions to build your personal brand.
Ask yourself, "How do I want other professionals to view me?"
Pick an area of expertise and start sharing your knowledge and experience with your professional network by pushing out content on your LinkedIn and social media accounts. Good content can include blogs, social media posts, and videos.
By sharing content about your experiences and passions, you slowly build your personal brand, and others will start to notice. The content could lead to good discussions with others in your network. It could also lead to reconnecting with connections that you haven't spoken to in years, or making new connections.
You never know when one of these connections could turn into a job lead or referral. The trick is to get on people's radars. So, when you're cleaning up your job search, be sure to build a plan for personal branding.
Maintain Healthy Habits During Your Job Search
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Your job search is important, but it's even more important to know when to pull back and focus on personal health and spending time with family and friends.
There are actually things that you can do for your own enjoyment that could help your job search in the long run, such as:
Grab coffee with a friend - It's good to engage in light conversation with friends during challenging times. And if your job search does come up, remember that most people have been through it themselves and you never know when a friend may provide you with a good idea or lead on a job.
Volunteer - Volunteering is a great way to get involved in the community and help others. In addition, if you develop a little bit of a career gap while looking for a job, you can always talk about how you filled that time volunteering, if you're asked about it during a job interview.
Continue to focus on other passions - Are you a fitness nut? Blogger? Crafter? Continue to do the things that bring you happiness. And if you're in a position to profit from your passion through a freelance job or side hustle, even better!
Spring is the perfect time to clean up and improve your job search so you can land the job you want. If you're struggling to find a job, follow the tips above to reinvigorate your job search—and watch your career blossom!
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This article was originally published at an earlier date.
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