Moving from Berkeley/San Francisco (Portland: lease, unemployed, school districts)

[ryanwclark]

Hello! I've been thinking about moving to Portland from Northern California, but I've been having a tough finding a job there, and I wanted to test the waters here.

I'm wondering what options are out there, where I should be looking, and how long I should expect to look before I find something. I'm unemployed right now, and I can't afford to sign a lease in the SF Bay Area.

A little about my background. I graduated from Berkeley with a BA in English, I finished a master's a few years ago, and I'm still living like a recent grad. Other credentials are a CA 30-day substitute teaching permit, and a paralegal certificate, which would allow me to work as a legal assistant. In terms of professional experience, I have three internships in social media marketing, publishing, and nonprofits. One of the internships led to a job with a nonprofit website in San Francisco. Before that, I spent a few years teaching at the college-level, and I worked as an ESL teacher in Asia for a summer just after college.

I decided to apply to law schools this fall, so a temporary year-long position might be ideal.

[VelouriaPDX]

Your best bet may be contacting some temp agencies here in Portland and heavily and shamelessly utilizing your alumni network. Portland is over saturated with people with your credentials and many of them end up slinging lattes or scanning groceries for awhile/indefinitely. When I worked at one of the more prestigious nonprofits here we would get 200+ applicants for administrative assistant positions, some of whom had PhDs.

Do you have early childhood experience? If so you might be able to find a family to nanny for for $12-$15/hr.

[Yankeemama]

Originally Posted by ryanwclark

Hello! I've been thinking about moving to Portland from Northern California, but I've been having a tough finding a job there, and I wanted to test the waters here.

I'm wondering what options are out there, where I should be looking, and how long I should expect to look before I find something. I'm unemployed right now, and I can't afford to sign a lease in the SF Bay Area.

A little about my background. I graduated from Berkeley with a BA in English, I finished a master's a few years ago, and I'm still living like a recent grad. Other credentials are a CA 30-day substitute teaching permit, and a paralegal certificate, which would allow me to work as a legal assistant. In terms of professional experience, I have three internships in social media marketing, publishing, and nonprofits. One of the internships led to a job with a nonprofit website in San Francisco. Before that, I spent a few years teaching at the college-level, and I worked as an ESL teacher in Asia for a summer just after college.

I decided to apply to law schools this fall, so a temporary year-long position might be ideal.

You could come and do temp work for a while as well as part time work on the side. You could also apply at the several school districts as an EA since a teaching position requires credentials in Oregon as well as a masters though I don't know if the masters degree has to be in education. I know U Of Oregon has an excellent Masters of Education program but many of my kids' teachers completed programs at University of Portland, Pacific University, Portland State University and Lewis And Clark.

[Yankeemama]

Originally Posted by VelouriaPDX

Your best bet may be contacting some temp agencies here in Portland and heavily and shamelessly utilizing your alumni network. Portland is over saturated with people with your credentials and many of them end up slinging lattes or scanning groceries for awhile/indefinitely. When I worked at one of the more prestigious nonprofits here we would get 200+ applicants for administrative assistant positions, some of whom had PhDs.

Do you have early childhood experience? If so you might be able to find a family to nanny for for $12-$15/hr.

Also, I know as a parent of an autistic son, there is a huge need for caregivers for disabled people and pays around $15. an hour. It is very important for many families yo get respite care. You can contact different counties such as Multnonah and Washington.

[pdwpdx]

Originally Posted by ryanwclark

I graduated from Berkeley with a BA in English, I finished a master's a few years ago, and I'm still living like a recent grad.

You could very easily find yourself joining the thousands like you in Portland. Some even have decent jobs and still live like students (in shared housing, etc.) because wages can be so low here and housing costs so high. In general, people get paid a lot less here than in CA.