Time for a little bragging. After being a member of state Press Women and National Federation of Press Writers since 1984, you finally won a first place at the national level. You have earned second and third place awards and honorable mentions in the past, but never the top prize. Of course, if you had not taken a 20 year break from entering the contest, you might have won a first-place award sooner!
This victory was for a news story on the local community college’s efforts to improve students’ math outcomes. The story also qualified for the national contest by getting a first place in the state contest. In addition, you also earned a first at the state level for a feature story on a partnership between two community college programs to make chocolate bars and for editing and design of the alumni magazine.
The prize does not come with any monetary reward, but it is a way to verify the fact that you are actually achieving the goals that you set for yourself when you first graduated from college: to write articles that matter and to continue to challenge yourself to add to the list of the kind of stories that you write.
Independent Contractor Work from Home Allows Many People to Earn Significant Extra Income
Although you have enjoyed all of these years of writing for a local college and a small town newspaper, you are now ready to take your award winning writing skills and find some contract work that will allow you more flexibility.
What may have started as flexible careers for mothers has now become an opportunity for a whole range of people who want to work from home. From the 63% of Americans who plan to work after retirement age to the number of people who are looking for a way to make money from a second job, in home agents and stay at home call center representative jobs are increasingly popular.
Today’s Careers Often Offer a Great Deal of Flexibility
No matter if you are looking for an opportunity to be an in home agent or you are interested in selling life insurance over the phone, there are many opportunities that are available for people who have strong communication skills. Proof that you can write well and effectively communicate to a number of audiences, in fact, is a great skill set that can help you land a job in a number of very diverse settings.
It likely will come as no surprise to you that 86% of customers will pay more for a better customer experience. For this reason there are a number of companies who outsource these important tasks to in home agents who specialize in resolving customer service complaints and concerns. Beginning with a scripted text that allows an online employee to find what the basic needs of a call in customer are, there are also a number of times when these agents have to be able to problem solve and improvise.