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Let's Discuss: What is helpful for ADULTS figuring out a job/career?


katilac
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I will be reentering the job force in a year or so, when youngest graduates. I thought I'd list a few thoughts and ask for more ideas. 

 

 

For those that have college degrees already, look into your alumni association. I just realized (well, just remembered) that mine offers a ton of job and career services. My yearly dues, $50 for both of us, give me access to everything: career exploration, job database, job fair.  

 

Has anyone used a book or test that was actually helpful in narrowing down jobs you might be interested in? Something a bit more precise than, "Education or training might be right for you!" 

 

Additional education: I know quite a few hs parents have gone back to school for their degree or for a new degree. Thus far, I don't have enough interest in any of the practical majors to get a second bachelor's, or even a two-year certification. I do think I will take some courses to refresh my skills. Maybe something uber practical like bookkeeping to get a foot in the door at a decent company? I think classes would be helpful even without full certification? 

 

Networking: I think classes may help for this also, particularly at the university. Meeting new people is one reason I might go for live classes vs online. I'd much prefer days when dd is already in her DE classes, but an evening class would mean meeting people who are already working and might know of openings. dh can put out the word with his customers once I have a bit more direction, which might shake something out. I don't think I'll have the mojo for the type of volunteering that leads to networking, at least not in the fall. 

 

It's hard to think about starting something new in the future when I'm in the midst of finishing something so big! But I know that even some baby steps now will pay off later. 

 

If you reentered the workforce after a LONG break, how did you do it?  

 

Did you include homeschooling on your resume? How so? 

 

How did you weight the practical versus your interests? 

 

Did you decide on a git-'er-done job that you leave behind at the end of the day, or aim for more of a second career? 

 

I will be 52 when I reenter the work force, but I do plan to work for a long time. I'm ready to get out of the house AND have some jingle in my pocket. Was age an issue? Did you have to convince people you would continue working? 

 

Let's discuss all the things . . . 

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Joining a professional organization is a great way to network. That's how I landed my last paid position and I've been doing a bunch of networking as a student looking to break into a different field.

 

I joined not just my local alumnae group for my sorority but the one for the next county over as well and am making an effort to get out to more of the events now that my DH switched jobs and is getting home at 6:30 rather than 9 or later.

 

 

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I'm in the early stages of this too. Was going to wait until next year but have had a few jobs I'm interested in pop up recently that I've decided to apply for.

 

I am putting homeschooling on my resume, since I'm looking for jobs in education BUT-

It's my experience running a co op, putting out a newsletter, & helping families with special needs kids navigate the homeschool regulation process in particular that I am highlighting.. Not just the actual homeschooling of my own kids.

 

I'm torn between another teaching career, which has a great schedule for still having littles at home attending public school, but is certainly a take home job vs making less money as a teacher assistant but not having the teacher responsibility, at least to get back into education.

I'm also eyeing a job in admissions at the CC & spent the morning today writing that cover letter.

 

I have kept in touch with many teachers & therapists that I used to work with & am applying to positions where they work too.

 

I'm ok waiting another year, but figured I might as well give it a shot for this year.

 

Good luck!

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Hm, I think one of the first steps should be to determine what it is you are looking for:

 

- Do you want a bit of extra money but don't really need it?

- Do you plan on making a living with this?

- Are you mostly looking for something to be creative in (money being secondary)?

- Do you want to make a difference/change the world?

 

Are there any constraints you have to work with (e.g. there is no money to take a lot of classes; you need to make money soon; you live far away from the city etc.).

 

Once you have that figured out I would brainstorm and then just go for it.

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I am putting homeschooling on my resume, since I'm looking for jobs in education BUT-

It's my experience running a co op, putting out a newsletter, & helping families with special needs kids navigate the homeschool regulation process in particular that I am highlighting.. Not just the actual homeschooling of my own kids.

 

 

Have you figured out how to word this? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

Hm, I think one of the first steps should be to determine what it is you are looking for:

 

 

That's a great list of starter questions, thanks. 

 

Volunteering is a great way to explore interests to feel out areas that might become new careers. Many cities have volunteer and information agencies that list such opportunities in a wide variety of areas.

 

I know this is true, but I've been volunteering in the homeschool community for many years and I'm feeling super burnt out as a volunteer. Even though I could try different things, the very idea of volunteering is exhausting me, lol. 

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- Are you mostly looking for something to be creative in (money being secondary)?

 

 

 

This one's easy for me: I've spent 20 years being creative for free, I want some money! 

 

I'm really finding it hard to pin down whether I want to be challenged on the job, or if I want to leave it all behind at the end of the day and have mental energy for my personal interests. Sometimes the idea of a challenging job revs me up, and sometimes I'm tired just thinking about it. 

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For narrowing down of jobs you're interested in, you could do the tests/games at You Science .com. It is not free, but it looks like a good resource. I have not used it yet, but plan to do it, both for my son and for myself.

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Have you figured out how to word this? Inquiring minds want to know!

 

 

That's a great list of starter questions, thanks.

 

 

I know this is true, but I've been volunteering in the homeschool community for many years and I'm feeling super burnt out as a volunteer. Even though I could try different things, the very idea of volunteering is exhausting me, lol.

I get it, and guess I should have clarified that I meant volunteering in areas of your own special interests versus volunteering in kids' activities that are always recruiting parental support!

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For narrowing down of jobs you're interested in, you could do the tests/games at You Science .com. It is not free, but it looks like a good resource. I have not used it yet, but plan to do it, both for my son and for myself.

 

Intriguing. I like that it doesn't use just user reported data. If I knew what I preferred to do all day that I could also do well, I wouldn't be taking job surveys to begin with, lol. 

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I will read this thread with interest.  But can I just say that the word "networking" makes me want to crawl into my bed and throw the covers over my head?

 

I know!! 

 

But dh and I figured out the hard way that it really is important. 

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Actually, I think just giving it a go is not always the worst way. I have more or less ended up in several jobs by "accident" and actually that worked out quite well for me. So you might choose something that sounds doable/interesting and just see where it leads.

 

In my case, I didn't have a very long break without working (about 5 years) but I changed careers completely. Anyway, I used to be in auditing/accounting (originally I wanted to do marketing but I couldn't find the right place to sign up for the marketing seminar in College so ended up with accounging), but that didn't seem practicable with kids (long hours, lots of weeks out of town aside of the fact that I had kind of lost touch with the field). So I started looking for something I could do without investing a lot of money/time up front and that could be done in my own time/from home. So originally I looked into webdesign and/or affiliate marketing. Both sounded fun and might have worked but I started to get some jobs doing freelance writing jobs and translations. The writing was fun but didn't pay that well but translation proved a better option and that's what I have been doing the last seven years or so.

 

Obviously, having a plan is great but sometimes thinking it through too much can lead to getting stuck. It might not work for everyone but for me finding something that sounded like a decent idea and just giving it a shot worked out pretty well. I would hesitate spending a lot of money/time on a new career unless I was certain that it would be worth it.

 

That being said, I am not sure yet what I will do in a couple of years when the kids are done with school. I am torn between working part-time as a translator and doing a lot of traveling or working more intensively and starting a new career.

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For me, what helped was thinking about what I studied for fun, and whether any of that stuff could be pieced into a career or at least into paying work.

When I interviewed, I talked about my volunteer work and leadership positions in those areas while I was a SAHM.  I didn't talk about homeschooling, but I did talk about having a big interest in education, and volunteer and organizer positions in that field.  Although I was not applying for an education-related job, it did demonstrate networking and organization skills that would be helpful in almost any career.

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I re-entered the workforce 4 years ago. I started off by getting two part-time jobs. One of them was tutoring for the company where my kids took their SAT prep classes. They didn't have any openings listed, but I was impressed with how much my kids' scores went up after taking the prep class (and I had worked on prep with my oldest for several months with no increase in score). They usually got me 8-10 hours/week of tutoring and it was all at their office location just 15 minutes from my house, so I didn't have to drive all over the place to different students' houses. That paid $25/hour at first, but they bumped me up to $30/hour the last several months I was there.

 

I also applied for (and got) a job that I thought was going to be a long-shot. It was writing online homework physics problems for Sapling Learning. My degree is in physics, so it wasn't like I was unqualified. I just didn't think they'd hire me without having had regular classroom experience. That was a work-from-home job that was 15 hours/week. It was temporary, just 6 months.

 

Then I signed up for alternative teacher certification through my local educational service center. Texas divided the state into different ESC regions and I applied for alternative certification through my local ESC. I originally applied to teach secondary math and physics, but after my interview, they asked me to switch over to special education because there is great need for special education teachers who are certified in math and science, so that's what I did.  Despite being certified in special education, 7-12 math, 7-12 composite science, and ESL, getting a job was very difficult even in my state that is continuously doing its best to drive teachers away. There are still far more applicants than positions available. Part of that is due to class sizes getting bigger and bigger because of state budget cuts in education.

 

I taught special education for my first 1.5 years and then jumped ship midyear from a truly horrible charter school district to a gen ed position at a regular ISD. I've been at my current school for 1.5 years. I love teaching, but it is definitely a challenge. During the schoolyear, I am easily working 60 hours/wk. Texas is really messing up education, but regular ISD schools are definitely FAR FAR better than charter schools (at least in my experience) unless the charter school is one that is geared specifically for your child's issue. Charter schools do not have the economy of scale needed to be able to provide the services needed by the most vulnerable students and because they are businesses, saving money is the major motivator for them. 

 

 

 

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For narrowing down of jobs you're interested in, you could do the tests/games at You Science .com. It is not free, but it looks like a good resource. I have not used it yet, but plan to do it, both for my son and for myself.

 

I beat you to it. Finished all the tests/games, and should get results within 24 hours. If it sucks, I'll save you some money, lol. 

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I will read this thread with interest.  But can I just say that the word "networking" makes me want to crawl into my bed and throw the covers over my head?

 

If I can learn it, I bet you can. :)

 

(I crawl into my bed and throw my covers over my head before and after. The important part is not doing it during, lol.)

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I re-entered the workforce 4 years ago. I started off by getting two part-time jobs. One of them was tutoring for the company where my kids took their SAT prep classes. They didn't have any openings listed, but I was impressed with how much my kids' scores went up after taking the prep class (and I had worked on prep with my oldest for several months with no increase in score). They usually got me 8-10 hours/week of tutoring and it was all at their office location just 15 minutes from my house, so I didn't have to drive all over the place to different students' houses. That paid $25/hour at first, but they bumped me up to $30/hour the last several months I was there.

 

I also applied for (and got) a job that I thought was going to be a long-shot. It was writing online homework physics problems for Sapling Learning. My degree is in physics, so it wasn't like I was unqualified. I just didn't think they'd hire me without having had regular classroom experience. That was a work-from-home job that was 15 hours/week. It was temporary, just 6 months.

 

Then I signed up for alternative teacher certification through my local educational service center. Texas divided the state into different ESC regions and I applied for alternative certification through my local ESC. I originally applied to teach secondary math and physics, but after my interview, they asked me to switch over to special education because there is great need for special education teachers who are certified in math and science, so that's what I did. Despite being certified in special education, 7-12 math, 7-12 composite science, and ESL, getting a job was very difficult even in my state that is continuously doing its best to drive teachers away. There are still far more applicants than positions available. Part of that is due to class sizes getting bigger and bigger because of state budget cuts in education.

 

I taught special education for my first 1.5 years and then jumped ship midyear from a truly horrible charter school district to a gen ed position at a regular ISD. I've been at my current school for 1.5 years. I love teaching, but it is definitely a challenge. During the schoolyear, I am easily working 60 hours/wk. Texas is really messing up education, but regular ISD schools are definitely FAR FAR better than charter schools (at least in my experience) unless the charter school is one that is geared specifically for your child's issue. Charter schools do not have the economy of scale needed to be able to provide the services needed by the most vulnerable students and because they are businesses, saving money is the major motivator for them.

Is an ISD a public county school? I think it must be different because an acronym is being used.

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My mom worked a bunch of different temp jobs through a temp firm and then applied for a job she really wanted. She liked trying a lot of different things and meeting new people, but she is a huge extrovert. She had taught preschool for 11 years when we were younger but then had a long employment break. (She taught when we were at school so she was always home when she got home from school, it was nice, even in junior high and high school.)

A good way to figure out the best types of jobs you are suited for is to match up your MBTI type to common jobs for that type. I worked several different jobs while in the military before kids and the jobs I liked best fell under those suited for my MBTI type or similar, for example, I am an INTP but also some of the INTJ and INFP jobs match well. I did an ENTJ/ESTJ type job my last assignment in the Air Force and did well but it took a lot more emotional energy than a well suited job. It was a leadership position and I knew my strengths and weaknesses so I was able to delegate a lot of ill suited tasks but it was still harder than my well suited jobs.

Online quick list of good matches:

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-jobs-for-every-personality-2014-9

More extensive list that looks promising:

http://cms.bsu.edu/about/administrativeoffices/careercenter/explore/assessment/typefocus/whatpersonality

 

"Do What You Are," a whole book dedicated to the subject, good but you should read a few MBTI basic books first from your library if you are not familiar with the MBTI.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Do-What-You-Are-Personality-ebook/dp/B00ECE9N2G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501140350&sr=8-1&keywords=do+what+you+are

 

"Gifts Differing," my favorite MBTI book, goes a little into good careers and majors by type, again not a good first book but very informative.  For example, they noted that of the two types that most went on to be lawyers, (I forget the exact two types and an exchange student is in the room with the book) the P's dropped out at twice the rate of the J's, probably realizing that the strict rule nature of it was not conducive to their personality.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Gifts-Differing-Understanding-Personality-Type/dp/089106074X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501140419&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=MBTI+gifts+differeing

 

Two good basic MBTI books to read to understand it are "Type Talk" and "Please Understand Me," most libraries have these or other MBTI books.

 

Here is a good online MBTI test:

 

http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality

Edited by ElizabethB
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Is an ISD a public county school? I think it must be different because an acronym is being used.

ISD - independent school district

 

We have a lot of charter schools here. They often start off well, but then the corporate bureaucrats take over and destroy it.

 

When I say a regular ISD, I mean a regular school district funded by the people who live in the district along with state funds (although Texas keeps cutting back their funding. 

 

Charter schools also get state funding, but they are not tied to a physical area the way that regular ISDs are. They also don't have to follow all the same rules that regular ISDs follow. A regular ISD is required to accept all students who live in the district, but charter schools can pick and choose. 

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