Since this past summer, MomsToWork has been offering a niche job board for our readers and the larger Internet population. We’ve focused primarily on non-traditional jobs – such as jobs that are part time, flexible or telecommute. The response we’ve seen has been overwhelming.

Here’s what we’ve learned during this time.

For prospective job applicants:
1)A job board should only be one of the tools you use to find a new position. That being said, many people start looking for jobs online.

2)Learn how to use keywords before using a job board, since a query like part time home depot will give you a different result than using quotations such as “part time” “home depot” or even “part time home depot”.

Top tip: To get the most accurate results, use quotes around each phrase not a sentence. “part time” “michaels” OR “work at home” “data entry”

3)If you’re doing more than just curiously looking around, you should have a cover letter and resume proofread and in electronic format as most employers require electronic applications these days.

4)Do research before blindly applying for an open position. For example, visit the Web site of an employer to understand what the company is all about.

5)If you don’t see your dream job listed online, why not contact the Human Resources department of a company you are interested in? Many jobs go unlisted online or are only posted internally. You never know.

For prospective employers:
1)A job board should only be one of the tools you use to recruit new talent. That being said, many people start looking for jobs online.

2)Niche job boards may give you a better bang for the buck in terms of fees as they already have a interested readership.

3)If you’re posting a job online, you should provide a method for prospective employees to apply to your position electronically. Even if it’s an email address.

4)A surprising (to us) amount of candidates search for jobs geographically via search engines, using terms such as “Sales Executive Los Angeles CA” or “Seasonal Jobs Michigan“. Try keywording your job postings accordingly to attract quality search engine based traffic.

We hope this guide has helped – to all, good luck!

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Oh what a difference a few years of a recession make. Back in 2009, during the initial shock of the downturn, we first wrote about layoff trackers in the sense of “company going under, don’t bother to send your resumes.”

Today, however, the unemployment landscape has changed. Parts of the economy – depending on geography and skillset – are booming, while other areas continue to be hard hit.

We’ve seen companies expand and contract in the past few years, we’ve seen layoffs occur to one group while another group grows. And last but not least, while layoffs can be unimaginably painful for those involved, we think it’s important to list a few services available online which can provide insight into trends and benefits to those affected.

2011 Layoff Trackers

Hallway.com – Layoff Tracker: Think company gossip site Glassdoor.com meets, well, a conversation about layoffs.

Vault Employment Tracker: The optimistically named “Employment Tracker” tracks employment trends (i.e. layoffs).

www.DailyJobCuts.com: A daily roundup of layoff and other business economy news.

Each of the sites above have their strengths and weaknesses, so you’ll probably do best if you check out all three. The one piece of good news discovered while researching this post? A good number of the “layoff tracker” Web sites created during the early part of the downturn have not been updated in a while.

Related Posts:

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• Ask For Performance Reviews Before Crying If Laid Off
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• Unemployment Insurance Rocks! 40 Days Since Layoff
• Obama Makes COBRA More Affordable For Families

photo credit: mollyollyoxenfree

What kind of work are you searching for?

On MomsToWork, we’ve written extensively about women and work – how to find a job, write a cover letter and resume, interviewing tips and more. But I’ve always hoped to take this a step further and to start connecting people with the jobs they really want to do.

In the spirit, this post is an open job thread. Post your (anyone can post, not just Moms) experience and what you’re looking for and let’s see if we can connect you with someone who can help.

Note: We’ll be tweeting – and otherwise promoting – this post periodically throughout the coming weeks, we’d appreciate your help too!

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photo credit: carianoff

Are you a mom who is thinking about going back to work? Are you looking for a new family friendly job? Or are you curious about career development? On MomsToWork, we write about women and work, and we realize that job boards are just one tool to be used during a job search. In this vein, MomsToWork has partnered with Simply Hired to bring you a Job Board that fits your needs as a working mom.

On the MomsToWork Job Board we feature:

Family Friendly Jobs, Flexible Jobs, Working Mother Jobs, Telecommute Jobs, Virtual Office Jobs, Hourly Jobs and more.

If you’re an employer, you can post a job on the MomstoWork Job Board and reach an audience of talented, entrepreneurial women.

Let us know what you think!

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photo credit: Seattle Municipal Archives

We talk a lot about women and work here, and we’re very much aware that working mothers are in all sorts of job functions and positions – including hourly work.

Hourly workers are what make up our economy and according to the US Department of Labor, the 20 most prevalent occupations for employed women in 2009 were:

1. Secretaries and administrative assistants, 3,074,000
2. Registered nurses, 2,612,000
3. Elementary and middle school teachers, 2,343,000
4. Cashiers, 2,273,000
5. Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides, 1,770,000
6. Retail salespersons, 1,650,000
7. First-line supervisors/managers of retail sales workers, 1,459,000
8. Waiters and waitresses, 1,434,000
9. Maids and housekeeping cleaners, 1,282,000
10. Customer service representatives, 1,263,000
11. Child care workers, 1,228,000
12. Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks, 1,205,000
13. Receptionists and information clerks, 1,168,000
14. First-line supervisors/managers of office and administrative support workers, 1,163,000
15. Managers, all other, 1,106,000
16. Accountants and auditors, 1,084,000
17. Teacher assistants, 921,000
18. Cooks, 831,000
19. Office clerks, general 821,000
20. Personal and home care aides, 789,000

As you can see, the majority of jobs listed for women are hourly jobs, which is what makes the Working Mother 2011 Best Companies for Hourly Workers list that much more powerful. The following companies help with significant benefits such as workplace flexibility, health insurance, tuition reimbursement and more.

The 2011 Best Companies winners:
1. Best Buy
2. Bon Secours Richmond Health System
3. Capital One Financial
4. Carlson
5. Cricket Communications
6. Marriott International
7. McDonald’s
8. Sodexho
9. University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
10. UNM Hospitals
11. USAA
12. Valassis

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Everyone has gone through it. You’ve written…and rewritten…and yet again rewritten your resume. You’ve read our tips on resume writing. You’ve added action verbs, spell checked and grammar checked, but you need some quick feedback.

Here’s where RezScore can help. RezScore is a recently launched service that scores your resume based on brevity, impact and depth. (A note: I think the service could be improved by adjusting the grading depending on industry, for example.)

Getting a top level grade is free, while other services such as detailed reports, resume distribution and resume rewrites are paid.

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photo credit: imperiousimages

The report, Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being, released yesterday, is said by the White House to be the most comprehensive report on the state of women in 50 years.

There is nothing surprising really in the report. Most of us know the data. What is surprising, shocking and appalling is that it is 50 years since the last major report on women like this.

Are we only 75% as important as men? (see data below on women’s earnings compared with men)

It is only fitting that the report was released on the first day of Women’s History Month, with the theme: “Our History is Our Strength.”

We need more accounting of how we are changing and how we are not. And someone needs to be held accountable.

In a statement, Valerie Jarrett, chair of the White House Council on Women and Girls, said:

“The Obama Administration has been focused on addressing the challenges faced by women and girls from day one because we know that the success of women and girls is vital to winning the future. Today’s report not only serves as a look back on American women’s lives, but serves as a guidepost to help us move forward.”

Let’s hope this report, showing where we are right now, will lead to real change for our daughters and friends.

Because there is no real equality in sight in my lifetime or yours … unless you are very young … given the rate of change revealed in the White House‘s major report on women released yesterday.

Even if I live to a ripe old age, as more women than men will do, the report shows women like me are more likely to die old and poor.

Women made 75% as much as their male counterparts in 2009, across all educational levels, confirmed the report released yesterday.

Women are having babies later, getting married less and later and doing better at school but they’re still lagging behind men when it comes to earning power, confirms the White House report. And men and women still tend to work in different occupations, with three times as many women working in administrative jobs than men and few women working in finance or construction.

For my female friends in finance, there is some good news. The number of women has increased from 9% to 14%.

Men and women also have equal access to workplace flexibility but more women work part-time more than men.

Even if you don’t have time to read the entire report, glance down the list of chapters (formatted for the web-savvy reader who likes to skim and bounce ) and you’ll be better informed. The White House will be releasing the report in bite-sized chunks during Women’s History Month.

There’s plenty to read on the report, including by these commentators:

• The New White House Report on Women, and What We Have to Stop Complaining About (blogs.forbes.com) Momstowork commentary: Ali Brown’s account annoyed me. Yes, more women should launch their own businesses, as she suggests, instead of whining about the system, but not every woman is suited to running her own business or wants to do that. But how many small businesses fail? More than succeed each year, and that’s a risky proposition for many women without resources.  She also says the masculine model sucks for us. Yes, but it sucks for many men too. We need to preach that work life fit is something that benefits men and women, those with children and without, to effect a change. We need to stop making this a women’s issue but a people’s issue.

• “White House Study on Women: Not That Much Has Changed” and related posts (blogs.howstuffworks.com) Cristen Conger reports, “From the looks of it, though, the major report finding is that there is no major finding. The outlook for women is a mixed bag, not surprisingly. As we’ve been hearing for a while now, women outnumber men in college — and yet the gender pay gap persists. Women outlive men, but we’re more likely to face a range of healthcare issues, including lack of insurance coverage as well as higher rates of depression and obesity. And though violent crimes against women have dropped, problems with intimate partner violence and stalking persist.”
• Women Gain in Job Market, Lag on Pay, White House Report Says – Bloomberg (news.google.com)
• The Caucus: White House Issues Report on Women in America (thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being | The White House (kingstonaauw.blogspot.com)
• “Women’s History Month 2011″ and related posts (andersonatlarge.typepad.com)
• Women Ahead Everywhere but Pay (abcnews.go.com)
• Women Advance, Still Lag on Wages (online.wsj.com)
• More women go to college, but wage gap remains – MarketWatch (news.google.com)
• The State of American Women (blogs.wsj.com)
• More women go to college, but wage gap remains (marketwatch.com)

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The latest game among my group of friends?

Rating each other on a scale of zero, a pushover, to Tiger Mom, a fierce mom like Amy Chua, who sprung to fame via The Wall Street Journal about her new book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.

“Oh yeah, she’s tough. She’s a tiger mom, we whisper.”

One friend was relieved to find another mother who she knew was tougher than her.

How do you rate your parenting style? Take the survey at SkinnyScoop.

Related articles

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• China calls Amy Chua an American mom and listen to the new Tiger Mom rap (shanghaiist.com)
• Yolanda Reid Chassiakos: A Goal Worth Striving For (huffingtonpost.com)
• “Tiger Mother” Amy Chua Defends Herself to Stephen Colbert [Video] (tv.gawker.com)
• Tiger Mom Amy Chua spawns Tiger Mom meme (inquisitr.com)
• Amy Chua’s ‘Tiger Mother’ Gets New Title In Chinese (huffingtonpost.com)
• Tiger mother or kitty mom? (shanny.wordpress.com)

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Thanks to our virtual friends …

What do you do when you and your kids go off the rails?

It happens to me as regularly as the trains that run on those cliched rails, but I never seem to get the schedule ahead of time. Usually about every six months something goes badly wrong and a happy  family becomes, for a week or so, a horror show.

Angels by day, devils by night

I am steaming through life, and BAM!, it starts.  Like a month or so ago when my kids wouldn’t shut up or go to sleep or listen or go into time out, or do anything because I am apparently a stupid mother!

“We hate you, mom! You are so MEAN!!!! And by the way, you are just a weird Australian who doesn’t get us Americans and you talk funny. Really funny. MOM!”

To start the week, we had one of those nightmare bedtimes that were inches away from a weirdly enough headline like, “Fan chops boys hand off” or “Mom swats boy’s shoulder in half with amazing karate chop.”

I heard a whirring noise from their bedroom, only to discover one of my twin boys trying to stop the fan on the ceiling with his hand.  He said he was trying to reach for the cord. I swatted his hand away from imminent amputation, and got his shoulder instead.

He started crying, accusing me of hitting him, yelling how much he hated me.  With his twin egging him on, he cried and laughed, mocking me for everything I said and did.

It was a swat rather than a karate chop.

For the three hours, or so it felt, both of my twins ranted and raved, jumped up and down, asked for water, milk, gin and tonics (joking … that was me) and screamed and acted nothing like the sweet little boys who had come from school that day. They wanted snacks, they were hungry, they needed to go to the bathroom AGAIN, they hated me, they loved me, they were too hot, too cold, they were scared, he hit me, get him out of my bed and did I mention they were hungry and needed food, milk, water and snacks and more food?

Their poor behavior and mine … I yelled plenty and threatened loss of privileges for a lifetime … shamed me. Made me feel like the worst failure of a parent in the world.

So I sought help from MomstoWork’s growing pearl of a community on Facebook.

I was amazed by how generous people were with their time. One discussed my children’s behavior over lunch with a pediatrician friend, and reported back with tips. Another mom with two kids checked in a few times on the Facebook discussion to see whether things had improved.

Valerie’s pediatrician friend advised:

“Absolutely no snacks after bedtime. It stimulates kids, encourages them to stay awake and is disruptive to sleep. To quote her: “If somebody brought you a snack in bed, wouldn’t that encourage you to stay awake and alert?”"

The kitchen is closed! Really

Kerry told me to be firm, not give in and close the kitchen.

The poor behavior continued that week.

Everyone checked back in. Others encouraged me to urge their dad to stick to the same lines. (Our ongoing argument is over his bedtime technique of rewarding the kids for being still and quiet in bed by saying, “You can have a glass of milk if you are still and quiet for 30 minutes.” I feel that’s encouraging them to stay awake.)

It did improve. And I felt better. And it reminded me that these periodical patches of poor parenting and crazy kids are often a great way to step back and reflect on what’s changed.

In my case, I hadn’t given full credit to the fact that it was Week Four of the new school year. Everyone was tired after getting up earlier for several weeks and the excitement of the new school year had dissipated. And I don’t know about you, but there are days when getting the kids into bed by 8 p.m. is unrealistic.

I pick them up at 6 p.m. from childcare two days a week, often discover the homework not done, despite promises to the contrary, then it is home to cook dinner, eat, finish homework, discuss the day’s news … Some nights it is closer to 9 p.m by the time the teeth, story and bed show gets under way.

I figure it is like this for many working families at the end of the day. Sometimes we all get too tired, give in to inconsistent behavior and we all go to bed way too late.

The following weeks have been much better.

But it made me feel very grateful to my circle of virtual friends and the many friends who email and call to catch up, give support, and just gossip, when there’s  no time to see each other.

I think that’s something us moms do well.

My question: What do you do when you have a bad parenting moment?

I promise if you want to ask a question on our Facebook page, we’ll cheer you on and come to your virtual rescue.

In the meantime, for all the criticism of the time we spend online, it is also worth remembering the upside … the virtual friends who spare a moment to send a supportive tweet although they may be living in a different time zone. The women and men who share a joke on Facebook that makes you smile after a crap day at work. The people on sites like TheSkinnyScoop who make you realize you are not as crazy as you may have thought.

So dear readers, please accept my thanks for being so nice to us at MomstoWork.

Come back again, and hey, remember, we love your guest posts!!!

MomstoWork cofounder,

Julie Power

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Your crazy life with a work-obsessed spouse and loudmouth children could make your family the next Jon and Kate-style reality TV show stars! Read on … I just got this email, which made me laugh. My comments are in italics.

Life-changing new docu-series (is that we call reality TV these days?) that empowers real families to rediscover what family (yes, your family really isn’t a family until a TV expert fixes you up, think Super Nanny) is all about.

This groundbreaking new series (so shockingly different from the other shows cast by the same company like Fairy Job Mother and Shedding for the Wedding) is about people who find it a challenge to maintain a healthy balance between their family and work lives. (Point taken. I am writing this while NOT supervising my children’s homework. My husband is still at work.  Better go.)

If you answer, “YES” to any of the following questions, you are not alone. We would love to speak to you and hear your story:

Is your spouse a workaholic?

Only when he wants to avoid me.

Has your spouse missed major milestones in your kids lives?

Projectile vomit clean up? Yes.

Do you miss having dinner as a family?

We eat dinner together so often it is a relief to miss it occasionally.

Do your kids always complain that you or your spouse is never home or available?

Nope, go out Mom!

Is it hard for your spouse to put the computer or cell phone down and enjoy family time? Are you watching me right now?

Are you ready for your spouse to put your family life first and create the balance you need to raise a happy, healthy family?

That sounds like way too much togetherness.

We are looking for families who:

• Live in Southern California.
• Have a minimum of 2 children between the ages of 7-17.
• Have a workaholic parent that needs a new perspective on life.
• Families with expressive and opinionated children who have a strong reaction to their parents overwhelming responsibilities at work.

EMAIL US NOW AT:

Castingtimeout@gmail.com

Please include your name, address, occupation, contact phone numbers, email addresses, a recent photograph of you and your family, and a brief summary of how the workaholic parent has effected the family dynamic.

For more information, please contact MysticArt Pictures.

818.563.4131 or visit www.mysticartpictures.com.

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