How to Find a Flexible Job
If you’re looking for a new job, why not get one that meets
your work-life needs as well as your income and professional development needs?
Is it even possible, you ask? Let me offer a qualified yes to that question.
In general, it's unusual to step into a new professional-level job with a flexible
schedule or telecommuting arrangement.
That said, some paths to new employment
are more likely than others to offer telecommuting or other flexibility. Let’s
look at a few.
Telecommuting | Telework | Work-from Home Jobs
There are scores of websites which list telecommuting jobs, but it's tricky
sifting out the scam sites to find the relatively few legit sites.
Another confounding frustration: some otherwise legitimate work-from-home websites allow
ads from spurious
“employers.”
To cut through the clutter, I recommend
FlexJobs.
Some time back, I had an hour-long talk with its CEO, Sara Sutton Fell. She
has a personal story that translates into a passion for people looking for a saner work life. She's all about offering viable job options with integrity.
Her team searches the web for you and hand-screens the telecommuting jobs they find, checking the legitimacy of the employer and the posting. Only those jobs that make their cut are posted on the
FlexJobs site.
For a modest fee, you get full access to their sizable listing of jobs. But you can read all the truncated listings for free, so you'll have an idea of what you'd be paying for first. There are more than 50 job categories, many of them professional-level.
FlexJobs also offers a free resource called
The Best List of
Companies for Flexible Jobs, which is worth a look.
[Disclaimer: I am an affiliate of FlexJobs, and they are the only
vendor for whom, as a website owner, I've agreed to be an affiliate. They're
that good.]
Flexible Work Staffing Firms and Sites
I've seen businesses in this category come and go since the mid-1990's, but in recent years, I'm seeing more staying power. This is an encouraging sign; employers are recognizing there are more effective ways to work than 8 to 5. Maybe you'll find your next employer through one of these firms:
Flexible Resources started earlier than most (1989) and continues to champion flexible hiring strategies. This staffing and consulting firm has offices in the CT / NYC / NJ corner of the northeast US and focuses in the areas of finance, HR, law and marketing.
Flexperience is a boutique firm that connects experienced marketing, human resources, and finance professionals with opportunities for part-time, flex-time, or project-based work with clients in the San Francisco Bay area.
Flexible Executives offers executive-level project work to seasoned professionals. They operate in 30 states, according to their home page.
MomCorps bills itself as a matchmaker between companies looking to recruit and retain top talent and experienced professionals looking for flexibility. This may or may
not include telecommuting.
That's a start; you'll find several more listed on my
links page.
Self-Employment
Millions of individuals who work from home are free-lancers or otherwise
self-employed. If you go that route, do so out of passion for your work for
which you've determined there will be paying customers on a regular basis.
Avoid so-called work-from-home
“opportunities” that have nothing to do with your God-given talents and usually appeal to a sense of greed.
Even with those which appear legitimate and that relate to something you really have a desire to do, exercise caution and do your due diligence. Do not pay someone for their
“secrets” to self-employment.
Okay, with the warnings behind us, let's look at a few options.
Women for Hire has an extensive work-from-home resource page with lots of job suggestions and links to more information.
You may be familiar with free-lance projects sites on which you can submit bids
to do work being outsourced by various companies. Well-established ones include Elance, Guru and oDesk.
An online business is a viable way to reach work-at-home freedom--it's the path I took--but don't waste your time getting caught up in the get-rich-quick-online mirage. A lot of what I've learned since going online in 1997 came from Web Marketing Today.
Your Current Job
If you're already employed, your
“new” flexible job may be closer than you think. First,
check if your boss will say yes to your request for
workplace flexibility.
In fact, the most common way to be an employee who works flexibility or from home is to restructure your current job
into such an arrangement, followed by making the request with a written
proposal.
New-Found Flexibility
Try one or more of these ways to find a flexible job to enjoy a better work-life fit. Let me know if any of them prove fruitful for you.
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