With the sluggish economy right now, it's not a surprise to see many stay-at-home moms like ourselves wanting to supplement our family income by looking for a part-time or seasonal job. Additionally, if you have older teenagers, you want to help them with their part-time job hunting as well. They will definitely be happy with the extra spending money, and you'll be glad that they're gaining more work experience for applying to colleges later on.
During holiday and summer seasons, many U.S. companies are actively hiring new part-time or seasonal employees to accommodate the need of their full and part-time staff going on vacations and personal leave. Especially with retail stores, the need for additional help due to holiday shopping naturally requires more personnel. Before knocking on temp agencies' doors or browsing through the classified ads, you might want to explore these three personal resources for securing a part-time job.
Families and friends:
Your informal network of friends and families is often the least explored place to discover new job opportunities. Don't think of it as asking for a handout, you might be surprised how proud your friend or family member feels by recommending to an employer someone they can vouch for. For example, my teenage daughter has always been praised by friends and family that she's very good at taking care of her baby sister. As soon as I put the words out that she's available for babysitting during the holidays, my friends with kids fill up her availability calendar right away.
Social network sites:
We all have seen social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace being used as a laundry list for people with really boring daily activities. But these websites can be a great resource for finding part-time job opportunities. You could post your job searching activities and casually mention any help would be appreciated. Additionally, some of these sites have job search engine you can search for jobs in your local area. For example, Twitter has TwitJobSearch which extracts the job postings from Tweets.
Busy small independent local stores:
As a mom, we have seen our share of very busy small independent stores but the owners are always short of staff. There might be nothing wrong with the store or the owner for the fast turnover of employees. Reasons might be teenagers going to college, owners not able to offer full-time hours, or job benefits are not so robust or nonexistent. But if you already have benefits through your spouse's job, and only available for part-time work, the environment of a small independent store might be perfect for you. Additionally, you probably already know the owner on a first name basis since you have been a regular shopper there anyhow.
Once you have decided to look for a part-time job, keep your eyes and ears open for any opportunity being offered. Always carry with you several copies of your resumes, even better if has been customized to the position you plan to apply. Carry a small notebook filled with data regarding your job history in case you must fill out job applications on the spot.
This data includes your current address and contact information, your education information, previous employment information, including addresses, phone numbers, supervisor names and titles, salary and dates, and last but not least, your availability to work.
No comments:
Post a Comment