No Luck With Job Search :(

We eat only when we are hungry. Not because someone else is eating.
Likewise, we work only when we want to, not because some person is commenting.

 

Your fears are nothing but a collection of your current thoughts. I have been through this, I very well understand you.

 

Dear @anika987 ,

I can understand where you are coming from. My elder sister who is in her early 40s also has gone through this. After nearly 12 years of gap, she started her career again. As @nuss said USA is great for opportunities. At any age, you can start your career. There is no age limit here. One of my former colleagues started again at 43 after 10 years of break. One guy who was a real estate broker started his IT career at 45 as a junior developer, I used to train him. He was so enthusiastic, he never hesitated to ask me for help to complete his tasks. Seeing him a lot of time I got inspiration, the other one nearly 51 retired navy veteran started his job as a QA analyst. Like this, there are a lot of people around you who started their career late. I know for me it's easy. Don't give your ears people's discouragements, let them judge you, their job is to shatter you. You standstill. If anyone asks you what you do the whole day at home and spend time, tell them politely how your parents spend time the same way. I do the same . Analyze what went wrong in previous interviews, decide and pick one field and try only in that. Maybe try to speak with DH when in good mood then try to find a job within your 5-mile radius, he may agree. Once you start going to a job you will have to deal with a lot of stupid office politics, jealousy uncooperative coworkers, work stress, and so many other things. So till your time comes enjoy your life with your kid, DH. You never know what is tomorrow. Cheer up, dear.

I don’t know which state you live in. But here are some of the options came to my mind.
1) I know you are constantly learning something to keep your skills current. Can you try learning how the shares market works? If you are interested open a free brokerage account in “Webull” app. They have a paper trading option which is nothing but fake money to practice and get to know the app and share market works. You can play and practice as much as you want. Once you have done enough research and when you get confidence initially invest some small money. Not more Maybe 100$. Do day trading. You can make money in that. Even if you lose it’s not that big money.
2) Trying for a daycare job. As @ProudIndian said right now I do see there are a lot of daycare jobs. You need to do some certification for that which is not that expensive. First, you can join the job then later they will give some time limit to take the exam and submit a certificate.
3) real estate agents (showing the property to prospective tenants, their background checks, taking care of any maintenance works)I see a lot of Indians go for real estate agents to manage their investment property. You can post your ad in Sulekha, Indian grocery stores, temples, or Indian WhatsApp groups in your city. You can do this based on your time. In my city agents take 6-7% commission plus if any maintenance they add trip charge 40$-50$.
4) Trying for bank teller jobs. One of my friend’s wife recently started working as a teller who never worked here before she just had 1-year of work experience in an Indian bank. You can choose part-time/full time.
5) property manager jobs who work in leasing offices and property management companies. Get into this is a bit pricey. If you are a permanent resident/citizen You can take Your State’s Real Estate License. In order to get this certificate, you need to complete some 60-79 hours pre-licensing course. In Florida total cost is application fee + course + exam fee comes somewhere around 700$-800$ I think.
6) If you are ok to work in stores, look in nearby stores. Lowe’s, Home Depot, Target, Aldi these stores I see they hire all year round.
7) Call center jobs. At present progressive insurance and Geico are hiring call center agents ( work from home). They will provide training. Geico’s management development program in customer service is also good. All you need is a bachelor's degree and some leadership examples. This is also wkh and good pay.
8) In another post you mentioned you do yoga. If you are a regular yoga practitioner you can teach beginner/moderate yoga. You can teach online yoga classes. Go to meetup.com and create a group. 3 years back I took some advanced yoga through this. The lady who was teaching the mother of 2 toddlers. She used to charge 12$/15$/18$ per class based on beginner/moderate/advanced.
9) If you know driving you can do Uber Eats food delivery, amazon, walmart package delivery. You can do this 2-3 hours in a day.

 

@anika987 I tried to send you a PM but not going thru. You please send me from your side.

 

anika - You are NOT interested ! Then why do you have to do it. Don't look for a job! Don't listen to people who are jealous of your "free time" ! What works for you works for you!

Please just enjoy your hobbies!

Being a topper, degrees from most premium tech institutes, international corporate work experience, extreme high salary, I have lived your life too for about 10 years till my son started high school.
Check out this thread Extras by Women to see what I was doing during those years.

My passion is to teach, guide, advice, help. I slowly started with story telling, converting maths education to games and stories, now I even teach maths and memory techniques to high school students. I also mentor and guide them regarding education and career choices.

You don't HAVE to be what your relatives want you to be.
Believe me! The minute you start working, even if you handle ALL the work + home on your own, your co-sis and relatives are going to say - "You are enjoying life outside, your poor DH is doing all the work at home. Why do you need to work?"

Truth be told - you do have the choice to be what you want to be! As long as you and your family are contented, there is no need to make your relatives happy! They will NEVER be happy with you because they don't respect you, they are just judging you to make THEMSELVES feel better!! So WHATEVER you do, it DOESN'T MATTER to them! They ACTUALLY DON'T CARE about you!
So DON'T make the MISTAKE of caring about THEIR opinions and comments!

Now some real thoughts

1) Your point about looking for meaning in life after kids grow up - is bang on. I see many women - well read, educated, fearing that they might not have anything once kids grow and flow - it is called "Empty Nest Syndrome"
Currently your kids are young. So keep it in mind, research it, see what are the things you can do to prevent it. Google Amma will give you lots of answers for this.

2) Especially the moms of the students I teach and mentor - they are moms of high school students - they come to me with the same questions!
I tell them to find their passion, not just learn something because it might fill their time! It should be something they actually enjoy

I have been away from indusladies for a long time, so I dont know much about you yet.

So, your first step would be to check which forum in indusladies have you posted the most - in terms of advice (not problems) - you will know what you know well and what problems you like to solve for the world. That should give you some action points on what to teach, what kind of people you can guide. what sort of content you can write, what are the skills and knowledge you are expert at, what are the skills and knowledge you can work and improve upon.
You have dance, yoga, spirituality, nutrition - maybe you could add healthy cooking, behaviour counselling for kids.

3) Connect to me on "Conversation", I can give you a format or test to find your passions, knowledge, strengths, skills too - there are many free tools available too. I usually use them to find a students' aptitudes and interests and guide them for their education path and career paths.

4) Attend a few courses on writing, image and video recording and editing.
Content is the king today. People like you and me and many others on this website have a lot of wisdom.
Information is something we can find on internet, knowledge we can find by reading books. Wisdom comes with experience of dealing with many problems and finding what works for a new problem and new situation.

5) Create content enough for a few weeks at least - article, infographic, image, video - whatever format you're comfortable with. Copyright it first.
Then start a whatsapp group and send nutrition/yoga/dance content to people (copyright with your name). Put it as your whatsapp status, instagram or facebook stories.
Start a blog with the same name.
If your content and material is good, you will definitely get the right "Reputation"
This will bring struggling people to you - and you will forget YOUR struggles while advising them.
A lot of them will private message you with questions. Keep the questioner anonymous and create new content answering that question.

6) Once this group/blog/channel grows people will come to you asking you to take classes etc... At that time, if you want, you can charge them, take a few classes etc .. but no compulsions.

7) You will also build a lot of wisdom in the process of creating this in the fields that you're actually interested in.

8) With your topics of interest - one more subject would get added inherently - and during this lockdown, so many people have learnt it . I personally know at least 15000 people who learnt it...
I already know it very well, yet attended a few classes because of my own passion for it and there were so many free classes and webinars on the topic.

You can also learn it - it will keep you away from negative thoughts. And it will be fun for your kids and you to learn it together and do group activities .....

Bharatnatyam, yoga, nutrition, spirituality - what do they all have in common? What are all these based on? What is it that you can learn to understand your favourite subjects in a deeper and better manner? Guess!! Guess!!

Any Guesses?? Would like to see what topics you can come up with. Will let you know my answer after that and share some free resources for it.

Keep Smiling
HR

 

One more point! Every teacher in India says "Improve your weakness" But as a teacher I tell my students "Work on your strengths"

So when you think about your self-esteem and blah blah - think deeply about this distinction! And identify your strengths...

Again, you need some free tests and formats to find your strengths - let me know - will share in PM