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WAHM Newsletters>
Techniques For Finding A Work From Home Job
It seems everyone wants to do it: Work from home, that is.
Whether it’s being able to work in their pajamas, or
getting to spend some extra time with their children,
something is prompting people to consider giving up their
day job to look for this "alternative" form of employment.
The only problem seems to be actually finding a
work-from-home job! Where are these companies that have
openings for telecommuters? And how does one go about
finding them?
As the number of people wanting to work from home grows, so
does the number of opportunists who hope to profit from
this group that seems to be so naive. (And, at times, so
desperate.) Advertisements appear almost everywhere
claiming to be the answer to people's work-from-home
dreams. Most of these claims end up costing want-to-be
telecommuters more money than they will ever make from
actually working at home. Despite the best efforts of
government, these opportunists (AKA "Scammers") seem to be
gaining momentum. Is there any way for job seekers to avoid
them and actually find home-based jobs?
The answer is "Yes". How? Through information. Information
that will teach you, the job hunter, how to find your own
home-based job. Learning how to research can be the best
investment a job seeker can make; therefore, in the
paragraphs that follow, you will learn how to research and
find a home-based job.
SCAMS
The first thing to be aware of is what makes a job lead a
scam. There are business “opportunities”, and there are
actual scams, such as when a person or company poses as an
employment firm, yet requires you to pay X amount of money
in order for you to be placed. Or, the company claims to be
a hiring company, but requires you to pay X amount of money
in order to “process your application”.
If you are looking for a home-based job, you should follow
similar steps that you did when you sought traditional
employment:
1) You send a company your resume tailored to the position
for which you are interested.
2) You go through some sort of interview.
3) You get hired, sometimes signing an independent
contractor agreement form.
4) You complete the necessary tax forms.
5) You do the work you were hired to do.
6) You receive a paycheck of a predetermined amount, either
commission or wages, for performing a specified type or
amount of work.
A real job does not require you to pay them for training.
(Either you have the skills, or you don‘t.) Nor would they
charge you for materials necessary to do the job. (Either
you already have them or they will GIVE them to you.)
Finally, a real job would never expect you to pay for
information about the position. In sum, you don't pay a
company to work for them; they pay you!
DIFFERENT JOB CATEGORIES
When searching for a home-based job, keep an open mind.
Working from home has gone way beyond envelope-stuffing and
craft assembly. In fact, thanks to the widespread use of
the Internet and e-mail, the possibilities are almost
endless. To simplify things, I’ve broken down the different
types of telecommuting options into four categories.
1) 100% REMOTE OR VIRTUAL
Virtual or Remote work typically means that you will never
personally meet your employer or your client. Your location
is irrelevant. You will apply for the job online, perform
an online “interview”, such as a test, or maybe do a
telephone interview; and your work is delivered to you via
e-mail or through a network. Obviously, jobs under this
heading will require that you are very computer literate.
Jobs that fit under this category include:
· Some research
· Customer service and other telephonic-oriented
work
· Web design
· Online tutoring
· Transcription
· Writing
· Telesales/telemarketing
This is typically the hardest category to find work in
because, even though the job is virtual, you are still
dealing with real human beings and there are trust issues.
You will have to be very good at selling yourself on your
resume to get such a position. Competition is also high in
this category, so having a professional resume and good
interview skills are crucial.
2) HALF IN/HALF OUT
I use Half In/Half Out to refer to work that is based from
home but requires you to leave your home to complete
important functions of the job. You still might never have
to visit your company’s office, or even personally meet
anyone that you work with or for. However, portions of your
job must be performed away from the home. This is a very
good option for people who are want to work from home
because they value independence or do not like commuting to
an office every day. Jobs in this category usually allow
you to create your own hours, work at your own pace, and
work around your own schedule.
Examples of half in/half out jobs are:
· Mobile notarizing/signing
· Some consulting positions
· Estimating
· Probate research
· Investigating
· Merchandising
· Mystery shopping
· Social work or nursing Case management
· Insurance or mortgage appraising
3) MAKING AN OCCASIONAL APPEARANCE
Some jobs allow for working from home, but require that you
physically check in from time to time. You might need to
receive your initial training in person, such as when you
are selling something very specialized. You may need to
attend weekly, monthly, or yearly meetings or conferences.
If you aren’t local to the company’s headquarters, you may
need to be prepared for occasional travel, sometimes
including overnight stays to accommodate meeting or
training schedules.
Examples of Making An Occasional Appearance jobs include:
· High end sales
· Consulting
· Real estate or insurance
· Medical
· Recruiting
· Legal work
· Certain business-oriented jobs.
When you show up for a company meeting or conference, be
aware that you are also being re-evaluated. Be prepared to
continue to sell yourself as a valuable employee. Your boss
will be asking him or herself, “Why should I keep this
employee?” during every meeting. You will have to prove
yourself a lot.
4) LOCAL CANDIDATES ONLY
Some companies might allow you to work from home, but want
to make sure that you are physically accessible. Either
that’s how they feel comfortable or, perhaps, there are
assignments that need to be delivered to you in person. In
this category, you will more than likely be under an
employee status, not operating as an independent
contractor, which is common within the other categories.
You might have to pick up your work assignments every day
or week, and then deliver completed work to them personally
at a determined time. For these companies, it would not
work to use a totally virtual employee, or even someone
fitting under the other two job categories.
Examples of jobs that tend to work for local candidates
only are:
· Sewing or piecework
· Data entry work
· Transcription
· Art jobs
· Clerical
· Craft work
· Babysitting
Clearly, some jobs listed under one of the above categories
could also fit under another one.
Transcription work, for example, can be Local Only or 100%
Remote. It all depends on what is most practical and
comfortable for a particular company. How a company chooses
to operate can also change after working with a person for
some time. As previously mentioned, trust is a big factor
in how a company decides to employ a home-based worker.
Once you have learned the various types of working from
home opportunities that exist, and you are able to avoid
the scams and "joke" jobs, the next step is to actually
locate an actual job. For most people, this is actually the
hardest part: finding a company that will allow them to
work from home in the first place!
There are several good sources to use when you look for
home-based employment. They include:
1) Job boards
2) Staffing firms’ web sites
3) Fee-based job sites
4) Work-from-home sites
5) Freelance web sites
The first place most job seekers look when they want to
find employment is in their local newspapers. However, if
you find even one legitimate work-from-home job ad there,
you’ll be lucky. Companies rarely advertise at-home
positions in newspapers.
Most likely what you’ll find are ads, such as, “Earn
$1,000-$5,000 a week from home! No experience necessary!”
This seems like an obvious red flag for a pending scam, but
it is actually common. I’m sure you’ve seen this type of
ad. I suggest that you steer clear of these and not even
check them out in the hope that they are real jobs. Trust
me, they ARE too good to be true.
The Internet, word-of-mouth, and creating a job are the
best ways to find a home-based job. For one reason, the
Internet is the primary way a home-based worker and a
company communicate. Whether it’s through e-mail, or
logging on to a company’s network to make reports, almost
any job--even the least technical one--will probably
require you to use the Internet. The Internet also offers
the widest array of sources for job hunting. You can use
job boards, or visit actual staffing firms through their
web sites. So, if you aren’t Internet savvy it’s time to
get that way.
JOB BOARDS
Within the Internet are several excellent types of sources.
The first and most common online source that’s used to find
jobs is the Mega Job Boards. There are many different sizes
and categories of job boards. SEEK and My Career are a
couple examples of what I call Mega Job Boards. They are
general job boards, and will post any job, in any
occupational category. (Such as accounting, psychic
reading, or nursing jobs). These boards will post any job
lead that a company pays them to post.
It is possible to find some good job leads here; however,
because they post any job a company pays them to post,
you’ll also have to do a lot of screening. Start out your
search by entering specific keywords, such as “work from
home”. You will probably be presented with at least a
thousand job ads. However, of those thousand or so results,
most of them will be scam or junk ads. You will need to
scan through those all those ads in order to get to the
real telecommuting job ads. (We'll talk about how to do a
quick scan in a following paragraph.)
Fortunately, there are other job boards worth looking into,
too. One type is called NICHE job boards. These are boards
that advertise jobs within a particular industry or
category. Career Mums is an example of an industry niche
board.
Another type of job board is what I call SUPERNICHE job
boards. These boards go beyond job postings within one
industry or category. They focus on a single profession
within an industry. Retail Jobs com is an example. This
site focuses strictly on retail jobs, and does not post
jobs for the entire field. Therefore, these are good
sources for finding work-from-home jobs.
Now, when viewing search results from these bigger boards,
you can scan these ads without actually having to read all
of them. Look for some common denominators, so to speak.
For example, if you have 50 job results on one page, and
most of them start with “Work from home! Easy work!” you
know not to even bother looking at those. Or, if you see
that one company is posting dozens of the same ad for areas
all over your country, you will probably want to avoid
those, too. (Such ads are probably ads posted by a
Webmaster or affiliate in an effort to lure to you a site
to purchase something.) Look for ads that advertise
specific positions, posted by a real-sounding companies or
staffing firms. For example:
Case manager needed for adolescents.
Orange Appraiser needed.
Account executive for Northern territory
Legitimate jobs rarely put “work from home” in their job
title. Why? Because working from home is a benefit, or
perhaps a requirement. It is not a job! So, scan past all
the amazing results and focus on the jobs.
Another internet job resource is STAFFING FIRMS’ WEB SITES
There was a time when, if you wanted to apply for a job
through a staffing firm, you would have to actually visit a
firm in person. Now, you can simply visit their web site.
The whole process is completely virtual. You can browse
their lists of jobs--even using search words, like on the
bigger job boards--and submit your resume for their
database in the event that they have a position that meets
your criteria. And, since these companies are hired to find
people to fill job openings, they will actively seek you
out if you are qualified for a job they've been asked to
find people to interview. I suggest that you leave your
resume on every staffing firm web site you can find.
FEE-BASED WEB SITES are another option
Because of the growing popularity of telecommuting, there
are some people who make it their business to comb the job
boards, the newspapers, online groups, staffing firms, and
search engines for good job leads; and then arrange all
their information into sensible formats so that, for a fee,
you can simply log on to their web sites and view nothing
but legitimate work-from-home jobs.
Unfortunately, there are also people who think they can
make a quick profit by promising job seekers that they can
help them find this difficult-to-find type of employment.
Be careful to research each site before you simply read the
sales pitches and claims, and then pay their fee. You may
not get what you pay for.
If you come across the right fee-based site, you are doing
well. You will have a flow of home-based job leads at your
fingertips at all times. However, if you buy into the wrong
one, you’ll end up in a mess: applying to companies that
don’t really hire home workers, or no longer exist, or do
not want their job ads posted on work-from-home web sites.
Investigate each site before you pay them their fee.
REMEMBER WWW.WORKATHOMEMUMS.COM.AU IS FREE AND ALWAYS WILL
BE
Just like spotting for scams, there are some points to
research before you join a fee-based lead site. In brief,
you need to check into the following:
1) Their guarantee of employment
2) The type of advertising they do
3) Their reputation
4) The length of time they’ve been in business
5) Verifiable references they provide
6) Contact information
Guarantee of employment
If a fee-based job site offers you a guarantee stating that
by joining their site you will get a home-based job, run.
No one can promise that you’ll be hired! In fact, whether
home-based or other wise, I think we all know that being
employed is probably the last thing we can bank on these
days!
The type of advertising they do
If you find that a fee-based company advertises itself on
job boards as a company who is hiring, be wary. There’s
nothing wrong with advertising; however, if they are trying
to lure you to their site by posing as a hiring company
just to sell you their services, take that as deceptive
advertising. If they can’t be upfront in the beginning,
then don’t trust that they will be upfront throughout your
membership.
Their reputation
Before you invest in a fee-based site--no matter how low
their fee is--ask around. Visit work-from-home message
boards and chat groups and ask members what their opinions
are of a particular site. Forum members love to blast a
scam, so they’ll tell you if they know of someone who was
disappointed by the service or actually was scammed. On the
other hand, they’ll also let you know if the site is
valuable, or at least worth a try.
Length of time in business
Just because a site is new doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable.
However, if they make claims that they’ve helped thousands
of people, yet they’ve only been operating for three
months, then you should stay clear. You can check a site’s
age by looking at the copyright date on their homepage, or,
better yet, looking up their information on Whois.net.
Although new companies might have the best intentions, due
to unforeseen circumstances they might not last. If you
invest money into a membership with one of them, and it
folds in three or four months, you’re back to square one.
Verifiable references
Testimonials look nice on web sites, but are they real? Ask
the site owner/manager if you can actually contact previous
and current customers. Are they open to letting you hear
from other members? Or, are they reluctant? There is
nothing wrong with doing this. It’s just like any other
service. Find out from these references if they ever found
work through the site in question. If not, was there at
least an ample amount of leads that could have helped
someone? Also find out what kind of support was available
to members. Was there someone to talk to when they had
questions? Were their e-mails answered in a timely fashion?
Contact information
I can hardly tell you how many times visitors of my own web
site have called and then said they couldn’t believe they
were actually speaking to me. It wasn’t a miracle; I simply
posted my real contact information. Unfortunately, many
sites don’t do that. If a site is asking you to pay for
their service, yet doesn’t provide a way for you to reach
them to ask a question or place a complaint, be leery. You
have the right to know who’s behind a service you are
paying for. There’s no reason you should have to go through
a fill-in-the-blank form and then be clueless of where it
goes when you hit the Submit button.
Take the time to look into these points before you sign up
with a fee-based job site. It’s your money; don’t lose it
trying to make it!
WORK-FROM-HOME WEB SITES
Another option that you should look into is the numerous
free work-from-home web sites out there. These sites are
usually graciously run by stay-at-home moms, for other
mums. Although they have only a fraction of the job
resources that a good fee-based web site has, and they are
typically loaded with banner ads and non-work related
information (such as breastfeeding), they are still worth
looking into. If you find just one applicable job lead, you
haven’t wasted your time.
FREELANCE WEB SITES
A growing type of web site is the freelance site. These
have developed tremendously over the past three or four
years, and are good resources for people seeking home-based
employment on a contractual basis.
Ozlance is a one such site. The jobs posted on this site
typically are projects, as opposed to long term, steady
employment. Employers/companies that have projects that
need to be done, such a writing a manual, sewing a line of
dresses, or creating a database can post their projects
online, and let freelancers bid on them. The person who
seems the most qualified at the right price wins the job.
If you are highly skilled in a particular area, this is a
good type of site to seek home-based employment. If you do
a job well, you will get a good reputation and will soon be
in high demand. I suggest placing your profile on these
sites if you have a specific skill that is marketable.
CREATE YOUR OWN JOB
Staffing firms, job boards, and job lead services are all
valuable tools to use when seriously looking for a
legitimate home-based job. A final option to mention here
is to create a job for yourself.
If you are a technical writer or medical transcriptionists,
for example, why not contact a company who is looking for
such a person to work onsite, and then meet with them to
discuss working for them from your home? As I mentioned
before, companies are sometimes leery of using home
workers; but, if you get an interview and go in with solid
qualifications and a clear blueprint on how this type of
work arrangement will actually help them, you have a pretty
good chance. This works particularly well with very small
or very large companies.
Just remember that you not only have to be qualified enough
for someone to hire you for a job onsite, but you must
spell out how you will be able to perform your duties just
as well--if not better-- offsite. To help negotiate the
arrangement, be willing to make a few sacrifices, too. For
example, since you won’t have the commuting costs that
other workers might have, maybe you could agree to take on
an extra or more difficult project. Perhaps you could cover
the office for them on Saturdays. This will help you get
your foot in the door, at least.
There are numerous jobs that can be performed from home.
With a computer, a telephone, and a fax machine, there is
almost no limit to the jobs that can be done remotely,
partially from home, or occasionally from home. If you are
clear on what your skills are and if you can sell yourself
properly on a resume and in an interview, you can use the
vast online resources to find a home-based job. It takes
effort. But if you use the ideas we’ve discussed here, you
can find a job that’s suited for you.
Press & Media As Seen
Sunrise
Sunday Telegraph
Daily Telegrapgh
Sydney Herald
The Courier Mail
Penrith Star
Take 5
Soap Mag
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