Career Flux - non-profit

Interview with an Addiction Therapist

Vanessa Price works for LatPro.com and JustJobs.com and and is one of their content specialists. The following article would help someone considering a career as an Addiction Therapist and also pros and cons related to that job.

Considered working in the Therapy field? This interview will take you through the ups and downs you can expect as an addiction therapist; what it takes to land the job, what you can expect to earn and more. This is a true career story as told to JustJobs.com for its “Academy” series. Other interviews include one from a Hypnotherapist to a Physical Therapy Aide, and everything in between.

I am an addiction therapist for a local non-profit organization that helps people who are dealing with abusive situations. I have been a therapist for a little over a year. I would describe myself as being straight forward, compassionate, and detail oriented.

I am a white male. I feel that this really has had no impact on my position. However, I have found that some women have preferred to talk to a female therapist. Usually, I am able to convince them that they should feel comfortable with me as a therapist. By showing compassion and trustworthy qualities, I feel that my gender becomes less of an issue.

As an addiction therapist, I help people to understand that addiction is not just a chemical dependency. My job entails talking to people, who have come from terrible situations, about their problem and allowing them to gain insight into their own addiction and how the two situations relate. The most common misunderstanding about any type of therapy, in my opinion, is that we tell people what their problems are. In all actuality, a therapist coaches an individual to discover the problems on their own.

I must say that on a scale of 1 to 10, I would score my satisfaction with my current position at a full 10.

This job completely moves my heart, in every way, shape, and form. For me, it is very fulfilling to be given the opportunity to make a dramatic difference in the quality of someone’s life. I truly feel as if I have found the job that I was meant to do.

People who read this should understand something about me. I am a self proclaimed master of nothing and apprentice to many. I am always looking for new ways to grow and learn in my life and in my career. This has led me to where I am today and I do not ever plan to change. I feel that keeping your horizons open can lead you into the direction of your true calling.

I got started in this line of work by volunteering at my current place of employment. The entire psychological aspect intrigued and moved me. While I never intended for this to become my position, I loved to learn about it. Therefore, I picked up a few more Psych classes in college and found myself completely wrapped up in all of the wonders of addiction therapy.

The only thing that I have learned the hard way in this position is the fact that you cannot at all involve your own emotions with the people that you treat. Their worries will become your own and it becomes hard for you to treat someone whom you feel so much sympathy towards.

In school you are taught that you choose a dream and follow it. In the real world I have found that it works much better to have many options and routes to take towards success.

I have not yet had any really strange experiences in my position or stories to share that would be odd.

I get up and go to work each day because I am very happy with what I do. Every time I see a battered woman, who has been struggling with addiction, find the common thread that binds the situation, I feel as if I have done my job and I am proud.

The biggest challenge as an addiction therapist is keeping yourself out of the emotional aspects of the job. I do not ever see this causing me to quit doing what I have grown to love. I do not find my job at all stressful and as long as I keep my emotions in check, I maintain a healthy work/life balance.

A rough salary range for this position is $30-$40,000 a year. I find this a comfortable salary range for myself. I have not been with this organization long enough to accrue any vacation time. I do look forward to my first vacation week this year.

In order to become an addiction therapist, I was required to have a master’s degree in behavioral science and additional course certifications in addiction counseling. If a friend was considering my position, I would highly recommend that they first try volunteering in this type of atmosphere to ensure that they would feel comfortable.

If I could choose my own destiny, in five years I believe I would still be in my current position. However, I would like to become well known as an addiction therapist. I would want people to know me as the therapist that could help them find the way back to the life that they want to live.

Filed Under: Guest Experts, Real Workplace Stories Tagged With: Job, non-profit, Real Workplace Stories

Internship at a Non-Profit – A Great Career Start for Graduates

By Sandy Leave a Comment

Completing their courses and becoming a graduate is undoubtedly a very exciting time for any youngster. Their eyes are full of dreams and their hearts pound with excitement at the prospect of going out into the big world and make a difference. Except a lucky few, however, they find that they have landed from the Earthly oxygen rich atmosphere of college to the harsh Martian winds blowing in the current job market. There is always this danger of many of them turning cynical non believers or simply giving up their conjured up dreams of a meaningful career and settling for a lesser choice than their actual potential should command.

The better informed members of this group can create for themselves a buffer between the cozy confines of college days and the much competitive job market by choosing to enhance their real life job skill sets. One of the best ways to gain such experience is to volunteer with a reputed organization in their chosen career or becoming an intern. And one of the best places to become an intern is at a non-profit organization. Alisha Dosani, a young graduate, in her article “The benefits of interning at a non-profit” published in USA Today has narrated her first hand experience about interning at a non-profit and the benefits derived from it. She considers herself lucky enough to intern with Make-A-Wish foundation and found it “to be the most rewarding and beneficial work experience” she has had so far.

One has to agree with her observations that the disadvantage of a non-profit to hire at will – because of limited funds – is a boon for the interns. They get to do more hands on work under a mentor involving responsibilities that otherwise only a regular employee might be taking care of. Non-profit organizations also give you opportunities to create a respectable network of professionals and make new connections. This experience sits pretty on your resume too. Moreover, I believe that the work culture at a non-profit is not profit oriented and more steeped in humanistic values versus monetary ones at a business, thereby creating a warm atmosphere. So it may prove to be the perfect buffer which I mentioned earlier. As a result, the conditions are much more conducive for a graduate to get ready to move out into the more competitive world waiting ahead.

To read Alisha Dosani’s full article, please visit:

“The benefits of interning at a non-profit” – Alisha Dosani, USA Today

Filed Under: Career Flux Times, College Graduates And Interns, Job Search Tagged With: Career, job market, non-profit

6 Places To Look For Jobs

By Mona Samar 2 Comments

Looking for a job demands a high level of focus and a proper direction. It doesn’t help just flapping around haphazardly in desperation trying to get ‘anything’ to work for and then getting frustrated when your employment goals are half met or not met at all. Fortunately, in this information age, there are myriad channels that you can use for a meaningful and fruitful job search. Let us examine 6 places to look for jobs among some of these channels where we can direct our job search.

1. Internet – World Wide Web

A couple of decades ago, you didn’t need to go ‘online’ to search for a job – there was no ‘online’. Nowadays, most people in most countries have to go online and use the internet to search for a job. More and more companies are opting to receive job applications online only. Even people with traditional mindsets would agree that using internet is part and parcel of our job search now.

Searching for jobs on the internet is quite simple. Just entering the term ‘jobs’ on Google returns hundreds of thousands of pages for you to browse. However, the sheer number of pages returned in such a way can overwhelm anyone, so it is important to direct your search in a more focused way.

Career/Job Advice Sites: At present, there are scores of career and job related websites, like the one you are on, providing free and valuable advice. Visiting only a few of the good ones will give you an idea of how to organize your job search and more important, which job boards (sites) to follow.

Job Search Engines: Anyone familiar with such a search would know that the leading job search sites include careerbuilder.com, monster.com, indeed.com and simplyhired.com among many others. Most of these sites let you post your resume free of cost or for a small fee for employers to scan.

Social Media: In recent times, the concept of Social Media Networking has exploded onto the scene. A job searcher can make full and rewarding use of it by getting registered on a site like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or MySpace and these versatile portals would throw job opportunities back at you like popping corns.

Companies’ Websites: If you have already gone through the grind of deciding upon which particular industry you want to go in, find out the companies suitable to your search. Now make sure to each of their websites as they post any available positions under ‘careers’ etc. Many a times, that is the only place they advertise as they think anyone really interested to work for them would visit them on the web to find out about them.

Government Run Job Boards: Most governments these days, national or local, run their own job boards and these are a very valuable resource. The credibility of advertisers on such job boards is high and you are less likely to waste your time up blind alleys. Type in your city, state or area name along with the word ‘jobs’ and you are sure to get a ‘jobs available’ page by the relevant authority.

2. Newspapers

When I graduated from college and university a couple of decades ago, the main source for our job search used to be the good old Newspaper. We used to get a ‘jobs available’ page on the Wednesday and Saturday editions. Although I mostly use the web now to help my clients, the joy of the rustle of newspaper and the excitement of going through the vacancies remain unmatched since then. My peers from that time would acknowledge that.

National Newspapers: The newspaper in its ‘paper’ form is on the way out slowly. Still, you can scan through the week-end editions of good national newspapers even now. If you are looking for big corporation or companies, a national or state level newspaper is the one to read.

Local Newspapers: For jobs in and around the area you live in, local newspapers are still your best bet, even compared to the web. The classified ad sections in these papers contain a treasure of local jobs from companies that are likely to be familiar to you. These ads are likely to seem more ‘real’ to you as compared to some distance and unknown employer and company on the web.

3. Networking

In the previous point, I mentioned about the ‘romance’ with newspapers relating to job search in the times gone by. Another channel at that time to secure a job was networking with the people you know and, in turn, they know, for jobs. Talking to your friends, friends of friends, acquaintances, relatives and even people like your grocer or hairdresser could get you job leads. Mercifully, this kind of channel is still alive and actually kicking. Any employment counselor worth his salt would tell you how effective networking with other people for your job search is, even and more so in this day and age.

Despite all the hype of job boards and numerous such avenues, networking remains the single most effective way to get a real job. The reason for this, among other things, is that a large percentage of available jobs are nested in what we call the Hidden Job Market. An aggressive and focused networking approach would land you a job faster than any professional person or organization can help you with.

4. Job Fairs

If you keep yourself abreast of all activities in the job market, you are sure to come across notices of Job Fairs happening in your town or city. Sometimes these fairs are held by aforementioned non-profit organizations while other times by a single big company itself. Going to a job fair might not guarantee you a job but would certainly help you get familiar with a lot of them. You would be able to talk to someone from the companies advertising there who would actually be eager to tell you more about them as opposed to if you cold called them. In addition, you can drop your resume there and then. Most of these companies put those resumes in their data bank and go through them when a position comes up. As a result, you are one step ahead of your competition at a later stage.

5. Recruitment/Staffing Agencies

Check into the Yellow Pages of your area and you are bound to come across a bunch of recruiting or staffing agencies. Call them or pay a visit to their office. Be clear about your target and explain it to them. They are in the job business only so you may find what you are looking for with them. Only thing to watch out is that some of them may have expensive services and there is absolutely no need to spend a large amount of money for your job search in this booming information age.

6. Non-Profit & NGOs

One of the positive offshoots of civilized society is that we have a lot of non-profit or non-governmental organizations working in various areas for the betterment of society in general. Many of them run very resourceful employment programs and are doing laudable work in this field. Look up in your area or city for such agencies and you are sure to find useful leads for your job search.

With so many resources available to you all around, its time to take a deep breath and embark on your job search journey. Good luck!!

Note: You can start searching for jobs at our JOBS page right away.