I have been self employed (ISP owner, consultant, business owner, writer) for more than six years. But with the tanking of the economy, my options are running thin and I am out to sell my soul to The Man once again.
Two part question; what is the best resource these days for job postings? Craigslist? Monster? Some other site I am not familiar with because I haven’t done this in so long? Are there still head-hunters and where does one locate them?
For any of you in Human Resources, how do you look upon someone who has not worked for another corporate entity for such a long time and is there some way I can present myself (via my résumé at first, obviously), that would make me a desirable candidate?
It’s very hard to do. Most employers think you were unemployed. You know self-employed = unemployed.
First thing you must do is get references from your old jobs. They are going to want to talk to people from jobs you had. If they call H/R, H/R won’t have your records or have them handy and it will look bad.
This is the real key have references that from your former jobs, ideally the people should still be working at that company.
It’s tough now and unlike the past you are going to be on a list. Other people will have the same identical skills as you with a recent work history. That means they will be above you on the list. Unless you can take less pay or some other cut, you’re gonna have to sweat it out.
Obviously this is not fair to legitimately self-employed people. However, I’ve seen a lot of people claim “self-employed” or “consultant” on their resume and when you question them about it, they never had any paying customers or clients.
“Self-employed doing a bunch of seemingly unrelated things” may raise even more red flags. When you manage to get through to actually talk to someone, be ready to explain your self employment history in a way that makes sense and doesn’t make it look like you have a short attention span or were just throwing things against the wall to see what stuck. Make it clear that you were truly in business, working hard and being paid (by someone other than friends and family). Write your resume similarly – you don’t want it to look like you were just slacking or doing whatever random things struck your fancy for the last six years.
That is very helpful. Yes, I have been legitimately self employed and am quite frankly tired of it (I haven’t had a date in over a year because all I do is work!).
But what about the other part of the question; Monster.com? Head hunters? I have had six years of self-employment and I would like to believe there is some better resource for job hunting after all these years - or perhaps not?
The answer to this is Yes. Having recently gone through a period of unemployment your best bet is to constantly look without burning yourself out. There is the wide variety of web sites. Monster.com, careerbuilder.com, simplyhired.com, hotjobs.com, and any other national/local help wanted websites. Don’t forget to look in the newspaper either. Sometimes there are ads or classifieds listing positions available. It’s also important to look at company websites and view their job listings. Most of the time I have found the jobs listed here would not be listed on job hunting sites like monster. Head hunters are another route to take, just make sure you are not paying them, that’s something the company that hires you will deal with. I would not put 100 % faith in them, but they are a useful tool and can help when it comes to negotiations of salary. The best bet is to find out if they have any jobs you qualify for that they are currently in need of filling. This is how I landed my current job. I had a three month “trial” period and was then brought on full time.
In short, use all tools available in searching for your next position.
See if you can find some clients of yours who would make good references. These would be people who are professional in their own right, who worked with you for a long time and who were significant sources of your income. While they may not have supervised you like a former employer (nothing’s going to quite compensate for that), they can at least attest to the quality of your work, your professionalism, and the fact that you really were productively self-employed.
That said… most of the success stories I’ve heard from people who went form self-employed back into the workforce involve going to work full time for a former client. You should try that approach yourself.
I’ve approached my former clients for references and they are great with that, but working for them would involve relocating to another country (Panama), which is not something I’m interested in doing.
I’m willing to move anywhere within the U.S. or even possibly Europe, but not Central America!