Question:
Hi, I am a kindred spirit, career advising is my passion, specifically with university students (undergrad and grad). Luckily, I have good experience in the field but left after my daughter was born and my university could only offer me a part time position for 6 months. I have been away from the university for about 6 months now and am pregnant again. I had a difficult first pregnancy although I was able to work all the way through by sitting at my desk all day and getting rides back and forth to work. Now that I am job hunting to return to career advising part time, I feel limited knowing I may only have a hard time getting around again pretty soon as my pregnancy progresses. Therefore, I started researching if there are opportunities for me to work from home doing virtual career advising. I have a Masters in Social Work and about 6 years experience working with university students and about the same years doing career advising with mu ltiple ages. I am great at advising students who are navigating career exploration and the job search, but I am not certified for M-B or Strong, etc, but am familiar with them. Do you have advice for me as I attempt to conduct a job hunt to find a virtual career advising position?
Answer:
You need to submit your resume to as many Career Advisor job openings as you can find regardless of location. When you submit your resume state in the "Objective" field very clearly that you are looking for a Par-time work from home position. This option will of course not work for most colleges or universities, but you only need to find one that will be interested. I would think that Online Universities will be most open to hiring you since it would not matter where you work from. Focus on the big schools like University of Phoenix. http://www.apollogrp.edu/careers/Default.aspx#Job Postings
Please also state that you have a home office already set up and ready to go. If you get an interview, be prepared to offer to work for free for a certain period to prove your worth. This may be enough of an incentive to a hiring manager to overcome that natural reluctance to hiring someone that works from home.
Here is a link to some job openings to get you started, good luck!
http://www.indeed.com/q-Career-Advisor-jobs.html
http://www.indeed.com/q-Career-Counselor-jobs.html
