Member Finds Virtual Instructional Designer Job

This week’s job seeker success story comes to us from Tara S. in Colorado! When we heard her story, we knew we had to tell about how she found a virtual instructional designer job with Abbott. 

When Tara first contacted us to let us know that she had found a position, she had this to say:

“This is a great service and I found a lot of good opportunities through your site. Very happy with the experience! FlexJobs is a great site. It helped me find exactly what I was looking for—a full-time, work-from-home position in my field. Without FlexJobs to aggregate the telecommuting search results, I doubt I would have ever come across this job listing. I will (and have already!) recommend FlexJobs to my friends and colleagues.”

We reached out to Tara and asked if she would be willing to give us a few more details about her job search and landing a virtual instructional designer job:

When you started looking for work, did you have a specific type of flexibility in mind or where you open to exploring telecommute, part-time, flexible schedule, or freelance?

I was looking specifically for telecommute, full-time positions and I wanted to be a company employee with benefits rather than a freelance contractor. I really appreciated the search options that allowed me to narrow down my search to those specific requirements. It let me keep my job search more targeted.

What was your #1 reason for looking for flexible work options?

I work full-time and I have four young children. And the job I’m finishing up now is a three-hour (round-trip) commute every day. Spending three extra hours commuting every day meant that I had less time with my children and less time to keep up with things around the house. Being so far away meant that it was harder to make it to things like school programs or to arrive quickly if one of the children was sick or injured at school or daycare. Being a mom and working outside the house is a juggling act, and I needed some help to keep all those balls in the air. When my current company was unwilling to work with me and provide a telecommute option, I had to go looking for someone who would. I was so happy to find someone who was looking for my skill set and providing the work arrangements I needed! I’m thrilled that I will now be only five minutes away from the school and daycare if my children need me…but I can still get everything done for work from my home office.

Do you have any advice to share with other job seekers?

Keep looking. It can be frustrating to put out your application and get rejected—or even worse, never hear back at all. I put in a lot of applications before making a match with Abbott. Check the website often. I checked in almost every day looking for new postings so that I could be sure to see anything that fit my skill set. And use the search filters to really help you narrow down the listings to find just what you’re looking for. When I started searching for full-time, telecommute positions, my husband was skeptical that I would be able to find such a thing. And since I got this new job, I have had people say: “I didn’t think jobs like that existed! I thought all the work-at-home jobs on the Internet were scams!” I’m so happy to be able to tell people about FlexJobs and let them know that there are legitimate work-from-home jobs out there-you just have to know where to look!