Hello all,
My husband is PCSIng to Puerto Rico and I have recently completed my Masters of Social Work. There are very few base positions for an MSW position and I can not get my Licensure in Puerto Rico unless I become a resident. I will be starting to submit my Resume to the bases, but how do I expand to those in town where I am currently not located? Any assistance or leads on the Island is appreciated. If you are a recruiter and wouldn't mind taking a look at my Resume I would greatly appreciate it as well.
Very Respectfully,
Robin MInutello
Answers
Robin,
I'm sure I'm not suggesting anything new by asking if you've considered remote work. This site has a bunch of remote work social worker jobs listed:
https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/companies-with-online-social-work-jobs-v2/
I'd suggest you get on LinkedIn and find people to connect with inside any of these companies (or others).) A simple search of "Ableto veteran" on LinkedIn turned up two pages of results for people you could reach out to - the first person listed is a veteran who's a remote social worker with them! Your connection request message could be simple: "Hi, I'd love to ask you what makes someone successful at [Company]. I'm supporting a family member serving in the military and I'd like to learn more about remote social work as we move to a new location. Can I pick your brain for a few minutes?" I hope you'd find very few Americans who would ignore that request for a little guidance.
Relationships are an important tool in a job search. LinkedIn is a great place to start.
Thanks Scott for the helpful tips! I have
beeb attempting to connect with some of the wives from the FB pages to connect through LinkedIn. I appreciate your feedback and suggestions. Unfortunately I need a Supervisor in order to go for the next level of Licensing (Independent) so I need an in person position. Thank you again for the feedback!
Thank you, Chris, I appreciate your feedback. I know Puerto Rico is looking for others with my experience, however, all of the job postings I am running into "require" bi-lingual Spanish speaking for the civilian side. I think it has been a little daunting with not so many Social Worker-Mental health counselor postings or availability listed online.
The whole world comes to the USA for advanced education on student visas because we're great at it. You have an extremely valuable asset.
As an ex coastie myself, all the work I found overseas was within infrastructure, within electrical utilities power generation; now I know that doesn't help you at all, but it can give you a wedge, some insight, into overseas work.
What I found overseas was a screaming need for education and training, regardless of where I went, the caribbean, south america, asia, africa, even the 'classroom of civilization' educated europe. I spent about a third of my time training and educating people, communicating.
While my experience was technical, and the training and education I did was technical, don't let that diminish the value of what you have, don't let that hold you back.
The whole world comes to the USA for advanced education. Really. They do.
That means you've got an extremely valuable asset in your masters degree which the government and people of Puerto Rico are going to be fortunate to have.
I've always found it valuable to keep my college catalog and course descriptions handy, because, like I said, our secondary educational system is outstanding, and at some point, someone's going to say, I need a person who knows X and you can pull that forward and say, I know X, got an A in it, here, read this.
The whole world shows up on student visas for secondary education in the US; you've got a great asset, and someone in Peurto Rico is going to jump to get you involved. You've got a masters, you know how to present material, how to educate and train people, and license requirements aside, that is highly valuable and desirable.
All the best, good luck to you.
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