SPECIAL FROM Next Avenue
If you're looking to launch an encore career, here's where you'll find the openings that are right in your wheelhouse
Eager to find a job that matters?
With the economy warming up, now might be a good time to explore potential nonprofit employment opportunities. According to the 2013 Nonprofit Employment Trends Survey, 44 percent of the groups plan to create positions in the year ahead.
That’s especially encouraging news for boomers who want to launch encore careers and serve the greater good.
According to that nonprofit survey, job opportunities look strongest among organizations that deal with health, faith, education, environment and animals.
Broad Sites and Narrow Sites
So where can you find the openings? Big job-board sites, like Indeed, CareerBuilder, SimplyHired and LinkedIn, have nonprofit listings. But if you’re really serious about looking for work in the nonprofit arena, I think it’s best to use sites specifically focused on that world.
Here are my seven favorites; they’re all free, but you need to register on some of them:
Encore.org is the most comprehensive site for anyone interested in starting an encore career. Its Job Listings page includes a link to Encore Career Finder, a service that “scours more than 5 million listings for encore-friendly jobs” and lets you search by field and location.
You’ll also find links to other nonprofit job boards, plus helpful videos and articles about searching for nonprofit work.
Idealist.org is a nonprofit clearinghouse. Its robust jobs board recently featured roughly 10,000 jobs as well as a database of nearly 80,000 nonprofits.
The Idealist Volunteer Resource Center can clue you into places where you can lend a hand, albeit an unpaid one. Keep in mind: volunteering can sometimes lead to a paid nonprofit position.
The Bridgespan Group runs the online Nonprofit Jobs Center, which now has about 350 positions. That includes paid part-time and full-time jobs, plus unpaid board of directors openings.
Bridgespan also has excellent publications and tools for those interested in nonprofit leadership positions.
Commongood Careers is a search firm that places managers into nonprofit organizations. In the Find a Job part of the site, you can apply for positions its clients need to fill.
For instance, Greenpeace recently listed openings for a grassroots director and a director of online strategy, both in either San Francisco or Washington, D.C.
The Foundation Center is the leading source of information about philanthropy. Buried on its site is the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest Jobs Board, which features openings at foundations and nonprofits. Recently, there were 743 listings in the database.
The NonProfit Times is the trade publication for nonprofit managers. Its website houses the NonProfit Job Career Center, where you can search by keyword, field, location, salary, level (entry, experienced or internship) and required education.
This website is also an excellent place to keep up with news in the nonprofit world, including stories about who’s hiring and who’s laying off employees.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy is the chief news source for the philanthropy world. Its Jobs page currently shows about 1,000 fundraising, executive, programming and administrative positions.
You might want to peruse the site's New to the Nonprofit World section -- it's filled with news and expert advice for people who don't have a nonprofit background.
Getting the Most From These Sites
Once you determine which sites can be most helpful, sign up for their free e-newsletters and alerts. Connect with them on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, too.
This way, you’ll hear about their latest job postings. Then, you can raise your chances of getting hired by being one of the first to apply.
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