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As you know, I’m all about the gigs. Whether you’re a student still preparing to enter the workforce, a young professional trying to diversify their income/experience, or a seasoned professional trying to get back in the game after a layoff. Gigs are a major part of the new job market reality…but understanding gigs and figuring out how to actually get them are two different stories.
That is why I was so excited to serendipitously connect with the team at FlexJobs, an online service/job board specifically designed for the gig-savvy professional. I was able to sit down with the CEO of FlexJobs, Sara Sutton Fell, and Director of Social Media, Brie Reynolds, to learn more about the company and how all of us can start gigging today. If you’re ready to start getting gigs, you can enter “Finch2013” into the promo code area to get 30% off membership to FlexJobs (thanks for your support, Sara!).
Nacie: What is FlexJobs, and how is it different from other career sites?
Sara: FlexJobs is a unique job search service because it focuses on helping professionals connect with legitimate, professional-level opportunities that offer some kind of flexibility. We are the leading career website for telecommuting, flexible schedule, freelance, and part-time jobs. Other job sites list lots of regular, traditional 9-5 jobs, with some flexible ones thrown in, but we list exclusively those flexible opportunities that help people find work-life balance. Two big differentiators are that every single job on the site is hand-screened by one of our excellent researchers and that we focus on professional-level jobs. 70% of our job-seekers have bachelor’s or graduate degrees, and the quality of our jobs reflects that.
Have you ever experienced the deflated feeling that comes with accomplishing a professional goal, only to realize shortly afterwards it doesn’t feel good enough?
I have – and often. And interestingly, most of the people I’ve met through both The Finch Effect and The Life Uncommon have felt like this frequently as well.
Maybe it’s a Millennial thing – maybe it’s a people-who-care-about-their-careers thing. But all I know is it is an insidious problem that has the power to snuff out fulfillment and professional joy faster than anything else. It has the power to turn an Uncommon Life into a death march toward an ideal that doesn’t exist. Click to continue
After sending out my newsletter this weekend, I got one of those fabulous notices that said someone who had unsubsribed from my list had left a reason as to why. Eagerly I scrolled down the email, to find the following phrase:
“This service has little use in a sea of related sites.”
At first, I furrowed my brow in annoyance. And then I smiled.
Because my intention has never been to be the best professional development site in the vast sea of options. It has always been to be the lighthouse.
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I’ll be honest with you – sometimes I just want it to be easy.
There are days when I don’t want to ask myself if a gig I’m taking has integrity to my professional mission statement. I don’t want to hustle every day to earn my keep while doing something I love. I don’t want to stress something that I love to do by monetizing it.
There are days when I miss writing as a hobby, my blog as a hobby, and my dreams of being published were still dreams. When I wonder if I have any words left in me to put down on paper, or anything of value left to say.
I used to think that these days were signs of weakness, that they were a reflection of something dark within me: that I was a charlatan, an impostor, a fake, a phony. I used to think that days when I felt like this meant that I was full of it – I didn’t believe in my own work. That I was a hypocrite.
But the more I live, the more I talk to other Uncommoners, the more I observe people adapting and thriving in this tumultuous world, the more I realize that these days are nothing of the sort. They are just days. They are just part of the ebb and flow of a working life.
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I am really proud to partner on this post with Quintessential Careers for their Job Action Day 2012 resources.
What are the terms you would use to describe yourself as a professional – or, more specifically, what are the terms you hope people associate with you as a professional?
If you’re like most of us, the terms you think of fall within a core set that includes things like “good communicator,” and “team player,” and “dependable.”
But here’s the problem: we don’t spend nearly enough time thinking about the descriptive terms associated with our professional brand and acting to reinforce and communicate them accordingly.
The result? You lose control of your brand’s message.
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