With Remote Editing Job, “Empty Nester” Works on Her Own Terms

By Adrianne Bibby

FlexJobs’ weekly success stories offer us the happy opportunity to share details about how our members found great flexible jobs. Our happy story this week is all about a woman who found a great remote editing job when her kids moved away, leaving her an empty nester.

When Ranee K.B.’s family situation changed, so did her strategy for finding work that would give her career flexibility going forward. Ranee decided to join FlexJobs, and used her membership to find a remote job as a freelance, remote editor. She was hired by Enago, a New York-based company that provides editing, proofreading, and communications solutions to clients worldwide.

Family Changes Make Way for Career Change

Ranee’s search for work flexibility was driven by big changes in her family: “I became an empty nester in the space of a year when both my children left home to study abroad.” What’s more, Ranee said, “My husband is soon due to get transferred to another city and I do not want all four of us to have to live in four different geographical locations.”

Working as a remote editor “has already made my life better,” Ranee wrote, responding to questions FlexJobs asks members who’ve used our services to find great flexible jobs. “Every day, I work on something new, interesting, and challenging, and am able to earn a satisfactory amount without being tied to any particular physical space.”

“I now have the ability to better balance my work and other aspects of my life,” Ranee continued. “I have more control over when and how much I can take on at any particular moment. As a self-driven and disciplined professional, I can set myself a target on my own terms and achieve it without being tied to a 9-to-5 schedule.”

New Career Outlook Thanks to Work Flexibility

When asked whether flexible work had changed her perspective about her career, Ranee’s response left little doubt. “Yes. Yes. Yes!” she wrote. “I am 56 and I belong to a generation that thought careers were made over an extended period of time spent working hard for long hours at a workplace. If you didn’t have a permanent job, or if you changed your single-minded perspective and tried new and varied things, you were labeled a dabbler.”

Traditionally, the stakes have been higher for women seeking work and family balance, Ranee said. “Many intelligent and capable women in my generation had to give up potentially enriching careers because ground realities such as children or in-laws or household duties did not allow them to work full-time or outside the home,” Ranee wrote. “I’m sure this is true for many women even today.”

Work flexibility is changing all of that, she said. “With the flexible job option, every person who has a particular skill, capability, or competency can find rewarding work that molds itself to that person’s lifestyle and state instead of a life having to twist itself out of shape to earn a living. I am now all in favor of people giving up traditional ‘careers’ for this flexible ‘dabbling.'”

An Inspiring Job Search Blueprint

Ranee offered an itemized blueprint for other job seekers looking for flexible work. Here’s Ranee’s “mantra” for effective job searching, in her own words:

Do a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis] and find what you’re really good at and the opportunities that stem from your strengths.
From those opportunities, identify the one(s) that would give you the most pleasure and satisfaction.
Gain as much clarity as possible about the company and the demands of the position before you apply.
Always customize every aspect of your resume and cover letter to the particular job for which you wish to apply.
If you really, really want the job, follow up.

To sum up, she said, “Just do it. You’ll never regret this move.”

Greater Freedom with Flexible Work

“If this option had been available to me when my children were small and growing up, I would never ever have gone back to a physical workplace,” Ranee said. “I spent years feeling guilty and trapped—wanting to be home with the kids when I was at work and wanting to work on my deadlines when I was home with the kids.”

I eventually gave up my job as a senior copywriter at one of the most reputed agencies in India for a few years and that had a negative psychological effect on me as I wasn’t earning anything.”

“With the flexible job option,” Ranee said, “no woman needs to feel the way I did.”

No matter what you’re looking for in a job, a FlexJobs membership can work wonders for your job search, too. Take the tour and learn more about how FlexJobs can power your job search.

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