Friday, December 7, 2007

The Second Job Hunt Continues

One of my goals this month was to find a second part time job and or find a way to earn additional income (both earmarked for the new to me car fund).

As I have said before, I live in a section of my state that is not overabundant in evening work and I'm just that much too far from the larger towns/small cities that would enable me to work in a store in the mall or something like that. My local stores tend to close at 5 or 6 PM, just when I would be gearing up to do some night time hours.

Needless to say, it's a challenge and I have to think creatively to get around this.

What I have done so far.

1) I have told most everyone I know that I am looking for some part time work, evenings or weekends. I am trying to find something that will at least use some of my skills.

2) I've been searching the local paper and any and every bulletin board in the area for any kind of a lead.

3) I have a potential lead to work in an animal related field on weekends, but that would not start until late winter and I need to find something sooner. It would be two to three weekends a month and would give me the perfect amount of extra money I need for the car fund. But it is POTENTIAL and not definite.

4) I run into the problem of businesses saying I am overqualified for a lot of the positions. Which in reality, I am, most jobs don't require a post secondary school education, which I have, even with dumbing down my resume and my past work experience. Heck, I just want a part time job to supplement my income. At times I feel penalized for spending all those years getting a Masters Degree (for a field I no longer work in-can you say major burn out at age 36 and now still trying to figure out my next career path).

5) I have been toying with the idea of re-activating my real estate license. I took and passed the test for a real estate salesperson a few years ago, had a Broker who would hold my license, but he went into semi-retirement soon afterwards and my license is in limbo. Still active, but in limbo. You can't hang your shingle out as an independant agent unless you are a Broker. Salespeople need to work for a Broker. The downside to this is the real estate market is very soft, supposedly gets dead quiet in the early winter (like now) and while I think I have some transferrable skills that would work in Real Estate, I know I don't have a lot of other skills that are needed to be successful. The upside is the money, selling a house can net anywhere from $2,000 to $50,000 in commission depending on sale price of house, commission split, etc.

I'm thinking about re-activating and transferring my license to an active broker, but I need to find out what expectations they would have. Lots of the local brokers don't need or want part-time agents, especially part time inexperienced agents. At this point I'm just feeling out a few folks to see if it would be a good investment of my time (and money).

And the job hunt goes on......

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know which state you are in, but in Illinois, houses are not moving at all. Two near me have had signs up for a year and no one even coming to look.

Anonymous said...

I live in New England and houses don't seem to be selling that fast. My neighbor sold his house but it was on the market for over a year and they had a HUGE price reduction.

BB

her every cent counts said...

Good luck on your job search. It must suck to be "over qualified." I'm hesitant to go back to school for that exact reason.

SavingDiva said...

Good luck with your job search! I hope the animal gig works out!