Help me find a job

[mccallister84]

Ok, I’m kind of embarrassed to post this but here goes.

I’ve been staying at home since DD1 was born almost 7 years ago. My resume has not be updated since I got hired for my last job back in 2014. DD2 starts kindergarten next month.

I spent a decade teaching math and was a department chair for 4.25 years before leaving. I am not looking to go back to the classroom. I have a BS and MS in mathematics, with secondary education concentrations.

I am looking for something that I can do from home, 15-20 hours a week. I don’t even really care what the pay is. Ideally I would like something where I can flex the hours, but I can flexible on that. It can be entry level. It does not have to have anything to do with education or math.

The embarrassing part is that I feel like I have no idea as to where to even start looking. I have been on indeed, but I honestly cannot tell if jobs or legitimate and then when I filter by remote it will say fully remote but then in the posting it will turn out to be in person. I have only ever worked for one large school system and I went to a job fair while I was student teaching and walked out with an open contract. I’m also slightly scarred by a friends recent experience where she went through the whole job interview process, gave them her social and bank details after being told she had the job and then found out the entire thing was a scam.

Any advice you can give me would be appreciated.

[Aloe Vera]

I would look on Flexjob.com or LinkedIn. A lot of data entry jobs would fit your criteria. They pay well too ($20-25+/hour).

[mrspez07]

You could also go to an employment/temp agency and they can fit you in with companies that need short term to hire or long term help. Maybe on data analysis or bookkeeping.
Math folks I know also work for state or government agencies, there may be some part time work in those roles as well.
Have you considered working for the school your kid attends, maybe as a learning specialist, tutor or similar? The hours would be about what you are looking for and in the right times.

[wildrice]

This is so random, but I have been getting ads for crossing guards and the pay is $18-20 an hour I think. It's a part time job and while it's not mentally challenging, I bet it would be pretty fun if you like kids. I think it stuck out to me because it was one of those "I've never thought of that but that's kind of a sweet gig" jobs.

Now if you want to restart a career I'm not sure that's the right direction!

[shortstax]

Is your goal to eventually go back full time to a new career? If so, you may want to look into Returnships. They’re gaining traction as a hiring trend to tap reach/train a lot of untapped talent.

Something like these: pathforward.org/returnships/

[mccallister84]

At this point, I am only looking for 15-20 hours work from home positions.

I do appreciate all the other suggestions. We are privileged in that I don’t really need to work but it would give me something to do.

[mccallister84]

Aug 11, 2023 16:28:32 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

You could also go to an employment/temp agency and they can fit you in with companies that need short term to hire or long term help. Maybe on data analysis or bookkeeping.
Math folks I know also work for state or government agencies, there may be some part time work in those roles as well.
Have you considered working for the school your kid attends, maybe as a learning specialist, tutor or similar? The hours would be about what you are looking for and in the right times.

How do you got about finding an employment/temp agency? Is it just as simple as googling? I have found when I google I get a lot of sponsored results and I am struggling to tell what is legit or not.

[IndiaInk]

Ditto the LinkedIn recommendation. It's a great place to find jobs. It's worth setting up your profile and adding contacts too - it's becoming a primary social media and connection platform for professionals. If you make a post about what you're looking for, your contacts might have some suggestions. Good luck! There are so many great remote job opportunities these days!

ETA:  I found my current position when I wasn't even looking to change jobs, because the posting was shared with me on LinkedIn by someone who thought I'd find it interesting.  It was a fortuitous, random opportunity that highlights the fact that job postings are frequently shared around LinkedIn through the social network. 

[IndiaInk]

I thought of another one. My friend, who has a degree in mathematics, supplemented her income by doing online math tutoring for a while, and she said it paid very well and she could work it in flexibly around her full-time job. I can't remember which site she was on, but it might be worth looking into.

[tarajane]

This is reading tutoring online but there might be a similar one for math

www.hootreading.com/

[definitelyO]

What about 'gig' work? short term projects that you can yes/no to. I don't know a ton about how to find them. My friend has a start up where she connects moms returning to the workforce to jobs under the "gig" brand. but I know there are more out there.

[mrspez07]

Aug 11, 2023 16:50:18 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

Aug 11, 2023 16:28:32 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

You could also go to an employment/temp agency and they can fit you in with companies that need short term to hire or long term help. Maybe on data analysis or bookkeeping.
Math folks I know also work for state or government agencies, there may be some part time work in those roles as well.
Have you considered working for the school your kid attends, maybe as a learning specialist, tutor or similar? The hours would be about what you are looking for and in the right times.

How do you got about finding an employment/temp agency? Is it just as simple as googling? I have found when I google I get a lot of sponsored results and I am struggling to tell what is legit or not.

Try searching staffing agency or employment agency and your area name. I had decent results in looking for that with a quick search. Express is one I used years ago that I know is still around.

Re PP about crossing guards, our district is also short-staffed on kitchen help and bus drivers. Randomly I’ve wondered what it’d be like to be a bus driver.

[macmars45]

When my sister was returning to work after a break for school she went through a temp agency. She had a positive experience with that.

GL. I hope you find something that is a good fit for you.

[indianchica]

Check out colleges and universities for adjunct remote teaching positions. Your MS in math should qualify you in many places. You can probably teach a handful of various courses and sections of students.

[erbear]

You could tutor or create online curriculum

[countthestars]

The Mom Project may be able to help you! We found some candidates there recently.

Not sure if there is anything you can offer on Fiverr, but that’s another website my company uses if you have a talent that you could sell via “gig” work like someone else mentioned.

[bee20]

I see lots of customer service and call center jobs, for well-known companies like the local hospital network or Apple, posted on Indeed. Not sure if they'll do part-time or full flex, often entry level jobs are less flexible, which is why uber/doorDash/etc are so popular.

[ellipses84]

There’s a few administrative WFH side gig companies, that could help you get some updated admin skills to pivot into a different industry. Bookkeeping is the first thing that comes to mind for you. There may be a short training course and I know a few SAHMs who’ve fell into opportunities to do that part time from home.

Upwork (www.upwork.com), Freelancer (www.freelancer.com), Fiverr (www.fiverr.com):
Guru (www.guru.com), PeoplePerHour (www.peopleperhour, TaskRabbit (www.taskrabbit.com) (the last one has more out of home stuff but maybe you could find someone local who needs a personal assistant and occasional errand runner).