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the booming part-time job market
By Sandra Ewing
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Part-time once meant entry-level jobs, your first job, low pay, Moms who want
to be home by 3 PM, no benefits, no employee/employer commitment, no career
opportunities. Not any more!
The part-time market is booming and changing. Part-time is everything from
entry level to professional. Organizations needing accountants at tax time
and the nationwide nurse shortage pushed an increase need for part-time
professionals.
Demographics have also pushed an increase in the part-time job market. Baby
boomers are starting to retire and in the next decade will retire in droves.
The generation graduating from our schools is smaller in numbers and
obviously lacks the experience of their predecessors. The American labor
market just doesn’t have enough workers to replace those we are losing. Some
baby boomers are willing to continue to work but they want to do it on their
terms. And their terms include fewer hours.
If you decide a part-time employee can fill a need within your company,
questions follow. How do you find them? How do you define their job? How will
they work with full-time employees? What about benefits? Who you gonna call?
That’s what Jayne Woolf and Marina London wondered. Acquaintances, they ran
into each other at a business function and started talking about the changes
they were seeing in the part-time job market. Woolf headed up her own
recruiting firm and London was an employee relations consultant and corporate
trainer. They realized while the market was increasing, there were no
Internet job boards dedicated to this market.
They saw an opportunity and they did their homework. Market research
confirmed that the part-time job market “would easily double in size over the
next 20 years.” They gathered an advisory board, wrote a business plan, hit
their family and friends up for seed money, and launched their website in
February 2000.
Today, Jayne Woolf is CEO and Marina London is President of ePartTimeJobs and
life has been a whirlwind ever since. ePartTimeJobs was featured in a
nationally syndicated column that appeared in over 100 national papers. The
New York Times and Fortune Magazine now call upon them as “the experts” in
the part-time job market. Their company has formed strategic alliances for
online education, relocation services, and web-based evaluation tools for the
workplace.
Besides offering job postings for part-time or flexible jobs and employee
resumes for those seeking such jobs, ePartTimeJobs offers advice to employers
on how to get e-job postings to work for you.
They advise:
Use qualifications to narrow your applicants not salary.
Link to your home page. It allows applicants to learn more about your company.
Set up a separate special address for e-mail inquiries. Creating a special
account such as jobs@yourcompany.com keeps the e-mail out of the way until
you are ready to view it.
If you accept electronic resumes, specify the format. Your best bet is ASCII,
which can be read by any PC, Mac or Unix based word processor, database, or
spreadsheet program.
Be sure your virus software is up-to-date.
Indicate a closing date. Jobs can remain online for weeks, even months after
they are filled.
Track the cost-effectiveness of your ad. Include a special code in your
mailing address to help you track the quantity and quality of the responses.
This helps you find the job board that works best for you.
The part-time job market has made a major difference in Woolf and London’s
company. Can it do the same for your company?
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Sandy Ewing is President of SandyEwingCommunicates!
She is a professional speaker, a free-lance journalist, and
management consultant who works with organizations to
retain valuable employees, to change managers into leaders,
and to put smiles back in your workplace.
Sandy is considered an expert in the field of employee burnout
and employee retention. She speaks and writes extensively on
career burnout and has recently been quoted by Monster.Com,
American Express, and Traveler Counselor magazine.
Sandy is a regular contributor to Connecticut Business Magazine;
writes a weekly business column for the Norwich Bulletin, a Gannett
newspaper; writes a monthly e-Newsletter, Doing Business Better:
How to increase Employee Retention, Avoid Career Burnout, and
Rejuvenate your Business and Employees; is the author of
Detecting Burnout Before You Are Burnt! (audiotape with workbook)
and Your Point Is? 101 Communication Tips To Get Your Point Across.
Sandy is a professional speaker, an active member of the National
Speakers Association and a Board member of NSA New England.
Her clients have included
CORPORATIONS: Chicago Trust, ITT Hartford Insurance, Litchfield Insurance,
Lucent Technologies, Whitehall-Robins, Inc., Wiremold, Inc.;
ASSOCIATIONS: American Dietetic Association, American Society for Women
Accountants, Connecticut Hospital Association, Network of Benefits Professionals,
Washington State Physical Therapy Association;
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: EPA, FAA, and IRS.
e-mail: sandy@minddata.com
The opinions expressed in articles by this author do not necessarily represent
the opinions of MindData. These articles are provided as a means of informing
you of current events and opinions that impact employers and the workplace.
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