Articles: Job Seeker

You've been drawing and painting since you were a kid, just for the pleasure you derive from the activity. All of your friends and family tell you that you should try selling some of your work. Perhaps you're reluctant for a number of reasons. You think your work may not be professional. You've never sold anything. Professional artists hold degrees in art and you don't have one. Who's going to take a chance on you? Besides, you already have a job and consider your avocation to be just a hobby.

Nonetheless, you must admit art is what you love best. It isn't necessary to quit your day job and launch off into the wild blue, hoping to land a job. You can develop your opportunities over time. When you have enough clients to pay your expenses with freelance illustration jobs, you can quit your day job.

It isn't necessary to hold a degree in art to break into the freelance illustration jobs market. Your work speaks for itself. Businesses that need the services of an illustrator are more interested in what you can do and will usually ask for samples of your work. If they like what you send, you'll get the job or at least be in the running.

Now that we've dispensed with all the reasons you have for not doing so, let's look at some practical ways to land freelance illustration jobs that will get you where you want to go.

First, you'll want to get a web page. Look on artist's resource sites, as you'll often find links to sites which offer free hosting for artists to display their work. Many of these sites provide page setup for a nominal fee. If you can afford it, get your own domain name and engage the services of a web designer. The point is, you want a place where prospective clients can go and view your work. This helps establish you as a professional and gives you additional exposure.

Another good move is getting a myspace page, where you can contact friends to spread the word and gain new contacts. Exposure is what you want.

Join forums and frequent art-related message boards. You can gain lots of valuable information on getting freelance illustration jobs and make other new and more experienced friends, already making a living as illustrators. You'll pick up pointers, leads to legitimate job boards as well as encouragement.

There are many job boards that list jobs for freelance illustrators. Avoid those requiring a membership fee before you can see the listings. You don't have to pay to get a job.

Craigslist has a huge compilation of jobs by category. To make this lead work, you've got to scan job opportunities daily, because there are thousands of applicants and jobs go fast!

Give these tips a try - what have you got to lose? You may well find some good freelance illustration jobs with your name on them!

There are many different types of people that go into nursing. This is a special career that can not be something that everyone is comfortable doing. There can be a lot of pain and suffering around you if you are a nurse, and not everyone can handle that. Some internalize this pain too much, and that leaves them drained and depressed. However, if you can deal with it rather well, you can do any type of nursing that you want. You also have the option of taking travel nursing jobs. They are great for the right people.

If you are up for any challenge in regards to nursing, travel nursing jobs might be very good for you. You could end up working in any phase of nursing this way, and you may just end up anywhere in the world. These travel nursing jobs are great for those that do not have children and are not married, though some families can work around these assignments very easily if these do not take the nurse very far from home. Some can be gone just a few days a week and home for the rest. In some families, this works out very well.

When you apply for travel nursing jobs, you have a few options. What you should know is that each company is different and is going to have different choices as far as where you want to go and how long you are going to be gone. You can find some that have options that are always going to be within three or four hours of your home residence. Other travel nursing jobs can take you to the other side of the country or even to other parts of the world. There is usually something out there for any taste or travel desire.

There can be some great benefits with travel nursing jobs. You wont know what you are going to get until you contact a company to see what they offer. Some actually have medical benefits if you stay with them long enough. Some have assignments that are a week or two, or that can go on for months. You may find that you can get some very generous housing benefits when you take travel nursing jobs. This is for finding somewhere to stay while you are on assignment. You may even get some of your travel expenses taken care of as well. That is not a bad deal for anyone.

Think about how much time you want to stay away from home and how long you are willing to commit yourself to an assignment. You may find that you can work for five days in two weeks, and be home for the remainder of those two weeks. You can work for a week and have a week off. You could work for two weeks straight and then have two weeks off. Each of the travel nursing jobs you find can be different. These can be fun and exciting jobs for the right person, and they can often pay almost double what you would make in a full time static position.

When you're in college, life can start to get a bit tough. Suddenly you're paying for things on your own and the bills begin to pile up. Yikes! Whether you knew it or not, an apartment, a car, insurance, gas, food, classes and books all cost money. You'd better believe that all those expenses can get overwhelming at times. Naturally your student loans won't always cover everything. Fortunately there are a number of great part time jobs for students available. It's up to you to find one that suits your schedule and needs as a full-time or part-time student.

So, where do you begin a routine search for part time jobs for students and employment opportunities while in college? That's an easy one! Even if you don't have a personal computer with Internet access, you can always take advantage of a school computer to seek out wonderful part time jobs for students that can really help you get a handle on the finances. Not to mention have a little cash for the weekends. Now, before you hop online and scramble to find excellent job opportunities for students, it's wise to think about your school schedule and how much you'll actually be available to work. Write this information down and develop an availability schedule. This way when you scour cyberspace for part time student jobs, you'll already know when you can and can't work. This will likely rule some potential part time jobs out of the picture. The last thing you want to do is act like you're available around the clock just to get a specific job. This will come back to bite you in the butt rather quickly. Suddenly you'll be grappling with some major school and work time clashes. Remember, school is priority! You merely need a job to help afford it. There really are part time positions that work quite nicely.

Make use of great search engines and websites like groovejob.com, jobdoggy.com and college helpers.com. These websites are awesome if you're a college student seeking part time employment. Searching online sure beats hitting the streets on foot, going from business to business, scanning for "help wanted" signs in windows. Also, you can better narrow down the type of part time jobs for students you're interested in.

I have been working summer camp jobs pretty much every single summer since I turned 15. I've been a summer camp counselor many time, but I've also worked as an assistant counselor, cook, sailing instructor, and in many other positions. I've worked in summer day camps and sleep away camps of every description, but the most challenging summer camp job I ever had was at a camp for at risk youth about a year ago.

Up until that point, all of the summer camp jobs that I had worked had been pretty easy. I would corral the students, organize activities, hand out discipline when it is needed, and generally act as a 24 hour babysitter for wealthy kids from the suburbs. Most of the time, they were fairly well behaved, and the stuff I would have to step in and deal with was pretty routine I would catch the kids sneaking smokes, getting into fights, or sneaking into the girls cabin every now and then. For the most part, I would be able to keep them out of trouble by telling them my philosophy of discipline. I would sit my campers down on the first day of my summer camp jobs and tell them that I did not want them to get into trouble and, if they did not break the rules in an obvious way, I would not not punish them. 9 times out of 10 the kids got it and kept whatever mischief they planned on the down low.

Working at a summer camp counselor job in a camp for at risk kids, however, was a different thing altogether. A lot of these kids had been getting into trouble for years, and they did things so dangerous that you could not really look the other way. I would have to be on my guard pretty much every moment, and that is no exaggeration. For the first couple of weeks, it was the hardest thing I had ever done.

With summer camp jobs as with any other field of human endeavor, sometimes the hardest tasks are the most rewarding ones. I spent the first few weeks regretting ever taking that summer job, but once I got used to it, I really saw the value. At most of the summer camp jobs I had worked in the past, the kids were just there looking to have a good time, but at this particular camp, there was a whole lot more to it than that. These campers were looking for a second chance and a way to make their lives better. As a summer camp counselor and role model, I could help make that happen. I couldn't get through to all of them, but I like to think I made a difference in at least a few lives.

I've always wanted to travel the world and visit exotic places, but since I'm just a couple years out of college, I really don't have the funds to do so right now. I'm still paying off student loans and trying to save a little money for a rainy day, but it's tough to do with the entry-level salary that I'm currently on. So when a friend of mine announced that he was going to move to China to teach English for a year, I asked him a bunch of questions about ESL teaching jobs and decided I needed to have a similar adventure.

I did some more research online about ESL teaching jobs around the world, just to make sure this was something I could get into. I was encouraged to learn that no special certification or training is necessary to teach English as a Second Language; instead, most prospective employers simply require that the applicant have a Bachelor's degree (any major is ok), a valid passport, and is a native English speaker. Since I qualify on all those points, I began looking through listings of ESL teaching jobs in earnest.

Asian countries seem to have the most ESL teaching jobs available, with China, South Korea, Japan, and Thailand leading the way. But the demand for English teachers is also picking up in places like Spain, the Czech Republic, Russia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and all throughout South America. It would be amazing to spend a year or more in any of those exotic destinations -- all while getting paid good money to teach English for an average of 30 hours a week. Plus, I'd be able to use my weekends and other free time to explore these fabulous countries... Are ESL teaching jobs the best-kept secret out there, or what!

Of course, the prospect of packing up my whole life and moving halfway across the world is a bit scary, but my research into ESL teaching jobs showed me that most employers go out of their way to make the transition as easy as possible. For example, most positions come with a subsidized housing provision so I don't have to worry about looking for a place to stay. In addition, the employer helps with things like setting up the Internet in my apartment, opening a local bank account, and filing the right visa paperwork for employment eligibility. And there will always be other Americans, Canadians, Aussies, and Brits to hobnob with, so I shouldn't get too homesick!

I've already submitted my resume to a couple of schools offering ESL teaching jobs in China and Japan, as well as one in Peru and one in Spain and one in the UAE. I'm confident that I'll be hired by at least one of these institutions, and will be on my way to an exciting overseas adventure very soon. I better start packing now!