Thursday, October 23, 2014

Career Advice - That helps you break through the door or the ceiling...

As many of you know, I recently decided to go back to work full-time at my area community college. While it is a full-time position, I am fortunate to have a boss that believes in work life balance and is goal oriented versus time oriented. As I explore my career paths, I ran across an interesting video that explains why women may not move up the career ladder like men do.

Conventional advice has failed us. We think breaking through the glass ceiling is tied to confidence or leadership skills but one expert believes that a key part of that formula is our inability to understand and master "business strategic financial acumen" aka understand the numbers and speak numbers to influence others.

Don't get me wrong, the soft skills (working well with others and the ability to get things done) is important but is not the most critical. Men are naturally coached and required to understand and be strategic about the business aspects in order to move up. For women this is secondary. We must ask for mentors and take the initiative to continue developing our financial skills.

Take a moment to review this video. For those just starting out on a career path check out the video at 7:22. Our expert has provided a great list of valuable skills that any business will be seeking regardless of their industry.

We naturally understand the business aspects of running our homes. Even when starting out in a career entry position, why do we shy away and act as though we don't have the business financial confidence? Running a home is running a business.

  • Budgeting, balancing the checkbook and managing income are all examples of managing financial principles on a small scale.
  • When you do an evaluating on the cost of hiring support (maids, nannies, child care, yard maintenance, camps, SAT Prep) it is in the same realm as reviewing profit and loss.
  • Your mastery of tracking bills, paying bills (A/R) and understanding your total expenses is a great foundation.
  • Forecasting your household income 2-3 years out against expenses to get you there is a skill that employers will value.

Share your financial experiences with an employer in terms that they will understand and watch the door open.

If you think this post would be helpful for a friend, please share it.

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Work From Home Job Listings - Interactrv

InteractRV is an web services provider to the recreational industry. There are 3 listings that are all telecommuting and full-time. They would great opportunities for parents seeking work-life balance. Based on my research this company is legitimate with a long-standing reputation. This company has a presence on LinkedIn and maintains its own individual website.

The 3 jobs are:

Graphic Web Designer
Paid Search Specialist
Customer Care Specialist

Recruiters and Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are looking for resumes submissions that speak to the job. Your submission should include your experience that is a match but with keywords and phrases that match the job description. Don't send a "canned" response. Make it meaningful and relevant. Good Luck!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Where Are The Jobs?

The second part of this series is to identify where the jobs are and why they are important.

As a entrepreneur in this line of work, it has not been easy to find legitimate jobs with decent pay. We averaged 20-36 great Smart Moms jobs per year. Many employers found us but we were able to uncover the best jobs by spreading the word through the business community that there are millions of mothers throughout the US who are ready to work. We spread the word by speaking at conferences, job fairs, women's networking groups and advertising and incentivizing our existing client base.

This strategy is required for any business owner to build their business plus some. Truth be told, this marketing and sales work has tired me in the last 2 years. However, education still calls my name. I am still in the business because this message about this "amazing untapped workforce" still needs to be communicated to THE WORLD. This passion is in me and I will probably continue to spread this message until I die.

Moms are not able to find enough flexible work that allows them to be peaceful, patient, loving, encouraging parents AND be a contributing part of the workforce. Our next generation is molded and developed by our mothers (fathers too!) If moms are stress because they can't find flexible work or their existing work is too stressful, the children are negatively affected. Smart Moms' mission is to make it easier for parents to maintain a foot in the work world while performing their mission of quality parenting.

From the job seekers' perspective, many moms found jobs by spreading the word about opportunities among themselves. They talked to their girlfriends (especially those that were working), they asked their husbands or significant others for introductions, they reach out to friends and acquaintances in their social and political groups They even talked to their children's principals and teachers for job leads and advice. They used their network!

There are some amazing sites that post jobs that match the moms needs for flexibility. Here are some sites that you can browse and bookmark. If you are able, set up job alerts so you can be notified when jobs are posted that match your needs.

http://momcorps.com
http://tentiltwo.com/
http://wahm.com
http://flexjobs.com
http://elance.com
http://www.wahve.com/

Feel free to make comments to this post and suggest other job boards and sites that you know to be reputable. I will delete anything that is self promoting and cannot be verify as legitimate. So please save me some time and don't make recommendations you would not recommend to your grandmother.