Balancing act: Having flexible hours doesn’t mean abandoning professional work

Long gone (if she ever existed) is the model 1950s woman who stayed home with the kids and spent her days cooking, cleaning, and chatting with the neighbors. Today’s working women are a diverse group of active professionals who want to find the right blend of work, family, and play. Whether you’re married or single, have kids or pets, are caring for aging parents or are going back to school, the 9-to-5 job simply isn’t designed to accommodate a busy, multifaceted life.

Part-time work used to be synonymous with low-skill jobs that provided little or no room for advancement. Mother’s hours were not offered for higher-skill roles that included the opportunity for professional growth.

Fortunately, things have changed, and just because your schedule isn’t wide open from morning ‘til night five days a week doesn’t mean that you can’t do meaningful work. Here are a few options and ideas for finding professional work on a flexible schedule:

Work for Yourself

If you have a specialized skill such as graphic design, software development, or business management, you can set yourself up as your own business and sell your skills on your schedule. Take on as many or as few clients as you have time to handle, and (typically) work from home.

Job Sharing

Know someone who does the same thing you do? Apply for a job as a team and offer to split the job. Or approach a company that posts for a full-time role and see if they are open to splitting up the work. This isn’t always possible, but when it is, it can be an excellent solution for both the company and you.

Become a Small Business’s Best Friend

If you’ve been working in a bigger organization doing something like public relations or marketing, you could make a small business very happy by offering to do Fortune 500-caliber work on a small-business budget by working on a part-time or project basis. Attend some local chamber of commerce events and socialize with businesses in your area. See whose ears perk up when you talk about what you do. In the small and midsize market, everything is negotiable!

Partner Up

Bigger companies use consulting firms to outsource some of their work. Those firms, in turn, hire individuals as 1099 contractors. Network with all of the talent brokers in your area, and make sure you are on their list as a specialist. This is an effective approach for getting a steady stream of project work, and you can always say yes to more opportunities when you want more work, then throttle back if you’re too busy.

Flexible Job Postings

There are a variety of websites that either allow you to filter your search by part-time opportunities or that actively curate based on flexibility. One example is FlexJobs. This site posts listings from companies offering flexibility, either in hours or in location. Positions include everything from writing gigs to travel and event coordination and beyond. The site is not free, but they do offer a free trial, so you can see what types of jobs are available and determine whether the value is worth the price.

Some fields and occupations transfer more easily to a part-time schedule. Most of what falls under the “creative” umbrella (writing, photography, visual design, etc.) is no longer done by employees. Online marketplaces, such as Upwork, Guru, and Freelancer.com, allow companies to connect with suppliers on a piecework basis. The challenge with these sites is that you are often competing with a global marketplace, and some of the vendors are willing to work for pennies on the dollar.

Industry associations such as the ASJA (American Society of Journalists and Authors), ATD (Association for Talent Development), and AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) all maintain job boards for their members and act as referral services for companies looking for professionals in these fields. This can be a better way to curate the available opportunities. It’s also great to network with other people in the same industry, to share ideas, attend seminars, and maintain your professional contacts.

Finding meaningful part-time or flexible work is not quite as simple as just finding a job. Many organizations are still strangely biased toward the standard schedule. But as more talented, professional women actively seek out these types of opportunities, the landscape of what is possible has grown and will continue to expand.