UPDATE! Read the comments! There are lots of good suggestions there too. Feel free to post your own job search tips or sites.
I have lots of friends who are looking to fit some kind of work into their lives - something flexible or telecommuting or part-time.
I started looking in September, but only started sending out resumes in January. I thought I'd share where I looked for jobs since a lot of people have asked.
Flexjobs.com
I joined this comprehensive site a few months ago. All of the jobs in their database are flexible in some way -- part-time, telecommuting, freelancing, etc. I found it to be a great resource. I did apply for a few jobs through Flexjobs, and although none of them worked out, I also found a lot of freelance-type opportunities there. I wasn't interested in those at this point, but I wished I had joined a year earlier, because I definitely would have applied for some of them.
You can create profiles for yourself online and upload all the info from your resume right there. I had two different profiles - a law/librarian one and a social media/blogger one. I could choose the appropriate profile for the job I was applying to without having to re-do my resume. There is a fee to join FlexJobs, but I found the quality of the jobs listed to be worth the price. I joined for three months for $29.95. There are other options here. I would totally use them again if I'm ever searching for a job. (Not sponsored. I just really liked them.)
Indeed.com
I got great hits on my job searches on Indeed.com. They were the most comprehensive free job site that I tried. I didn't pull up a lot of junk and their ads were pulled from major newpaper and job sites around the country. Not everything is flexible like Flexjobs, but it was a better source to zero in on the DC market because I was able to search for part-time jobs only.
Corporate websites
There were a few employers on my list of "Dream Job Locations" and although I didn't have a specific job in mind, I would search their Positions Available pages every week or so. My main criteria was part-time, so I would just look for every part-time job they had listed and see if there were any I wanted.
Craigslist
Don't laugh! I found several really great possibilities on Craigslist, including the job I ended up taking. I went to my local Craigslist site (for me, the DC one) and all the way at the bottom of the Jobs section, there is a Part-Time category. I checked that every few days, doing separate searches for words like LIBRARY, LEGAL, MEDICAL and the name of my suburb.
Craigslist isn't indexed, so your search results are only as good as the people who wrote the job listing, but after trying it for awhile, I got pretty good at knowing how to search for what I was interested in. (And knowing how to spot the scams and telemarketing jobs.)
Word of Mouth
I also told a lot of people that I was looking for a part-time job including some people from my legal and library backgrounds, and other moms who had gone back to work in some part-time capacity. There is quite a local network of flexible mom jobs. I had a few good leads from my word-of-mouth networks, and I think I would have eventually found a job that way, if I hadn't found the one I did on Craigslist.
I will confess... I was worried I'd never find anyone who would hire someone who hadn't "worked" in 11 years, couldn't work more than 20 or so hours a week and needed lots of flexibility, but those jobs are out there. I promise! One of the hardest parts was being confident. I have skills! People need them! And they'll pay me!
I'll do another post on how I handled the gap in my resume and how my cover letters got better as I went along.
