Long on experience but short on availability -- how do I find a half-time job?

Q: I have family responsibilities that preclude full-time employment. How do I find a half-time job? I have 20 years of marketing experience.

Nick's reply: If you give up because the economy is bad, you're missing many opportunities because you expect "jobs" to be what they always were: simple and secure. Start thinking differently.

Temp agencies might be a good idea, but then you're relying on someone else to find you work. Sign up with a good agency, but then forget about it. If it pans out, great, but don't rely on it.

You could work at Wal-Mart if you like, but your greatest potential value lies in what you're good at: marketing. Why waste your value?

Sharing jobs was a fantasy that personal-growth magazines wrote about a long time ago. Today, more people are sharing apartments to save money while they look for work.

The good answer to finding part-time jobs is to seek work as a consultant. It will require a lot of creativity and research, but in today's economy, companies are ripe for solutions that save money. Paying for top-notch, highly skilled workers only to the extent they need them is a great solution for well-managed companies that are in a financial crunch. Your challenge is to identify your targets carefully.

You must start by understanding the needs of companies you're interested in working for. That is, you must answer these questions first: What companies can profit from 20 hours per week of marketing work? Is there work you can do that can be done effectively in 20 hours a week?

You won't answer these questions by scanning ads or sending out resumes. You've got to select companies and research their needs carefully.

Here are some things to think about as you consider your target companies:

-- If they're in the middle of a crucial project, they may be glad to hire "cleanup" help on a part-time basis. Itemize your basic marketing skills. Which ones could you offer piecemeal to help on a big project?

-- Does a company have a significant number of junior staff in marketing who need oversight and guidance? A company could quickly amortize the part-time cost you represent if it could spread your help among several junior staff members, to make their work more profitable more quickly.

-- Consider stable start-up companies. They need to keep their fixed overhead as low as possible. Become their solution. If the company has the additional problem of limited space, they might welcome having you work from home. Work backward. Identify a start-up's venture funders. Approach them and offer your expert help at a part-time cost.

These kinds of situations lend themselves to what you want to do. But here's the key: Companies aren't likely to go looking for part-time professional help. They don't know someone like you is available to help them solve limited, well-defined problems. You must go to them and explain how you can help. And that requires research and planning on your part. In fact, it requires creating a brief business plan for each of your targets, showing why you would be a profitable solution whether you were hired on a permanent basis or as a consultant.

When you want an unusual deal, you've got to highlight a company's specific problem then show how you can solve it profitably for them. That's what consultants do.

Copyright 2009. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate

Nick Corcodilos is author of "Ask The Headhunter: Reinventing the Interview to Win the Job" and the host of www.asktheheadhunter.com. He can be reached by e-mail at seattle@asktheheadhunter.com or at North Bridge Group, P.O. Box 600, Lebanon, NJ 08833. Sorry, no personal replies.