Finding Work from Home

As an alternative to working from the office or any other outside location, some people are now looking for opportunities where they can work from home. Most of these jobs will only require a PC with internet connection, a telephone and relevant skills. However, there are some jobs that will require periodic on-site visits. Among the people who work from home include moms, retirees and people with disabilities.In this tutorial, we will discuss

1. Types of Work from Home Jobs
2. Where to find Work from Home Jobs
3. Scams to Avoid

 Types Of Work From Home Jobs

Some of the options that you will have when finding work from home include:

Virtual Assistant: Instead of hiring permanent employees, companies or even businesses are now going for temporary specialists who can help them in fields like secretarial, clerical support and administrative support among others. As a newcomer, you may find it challenging trying to break into the virtual assistance, but you can make this easier by networking through social media websites like Twitter or business groups.

Customer service representative: You will find a number of companies today hiring customer service agents instead of having an internal call center. As a customer service representative, you will be charged with some duties like answering incoming calls, completing forms and then lodging complaints in line with some agreed protocol. As a full time worker, you can even benefit from paid vacation or medical insurance.

Technical support agent: This is another great opportunity for those finding work from home but as the title suggests, one will need to have some technical skills. Generally, such an agent will be dealing directly with customers looking for assistance in troubleshooting equipment or appliances like laptops, stereos and servers among others. Most establishments will require you to provide professional certification.

Online tutor: With a bachelor’s degree, you can venture into online tutoring where you can be providing teaching lessons or assisting students with their homework. Some websites will hire you as a part-time employee but others will consider you on a freelance basis, and it is, therefore, up to you to find your perfect match. Examples of these sites aretutor.com and Get Educated.com and among others.

Freelance writing: This is all about creating technical documents or blogging where you can specialize in some fields like sports, entertainment, health and politics among others. If you are good in researching, freelance writing can be your best bet when finding work from home, but you will need to create informative and unique documents without plagiarism. In this field, you can also help students work on assignments and academic projects.

Translator: If you well understand a number of languages, you can become a home-based online translator for business documents, academic papers, computer software or consumer websites among others. Most translating positions are available on freelance basis, but they will be varying benefits depending on the company you choose. Some of these firms are SDL and Argo Translations among others.

Other jobs that you can consider including:

• Programing or Software Development
• Travel agent
• Medical transcription among others

Places to look for jobs where you can work from home

Job Boards: Finding work from home sounds easy but this can be pretty challenging if you don’t have the right details in your fingertips. Today, you can make use of job boards and these are websites that post available employment opportunities. With these, you can refine your search by picking categories like business, law, education and beauty among others. Examples of job boards are Career builder, Cool Works and Indeed.

Discussion forums There are many websites today that act as discussion forums and some of these list employment opportunities that can help people work from home. You will also find online hiring companies posting on these forums and they provide links where people can click to access their websites. You can also depend on referrals or local newspapers to find jobs where you can work from home.

Hiring companies: There are many companies today hiring people to work from home where the beauty of this is that they can get labor when needed and dismiss some employees when demand is low. Some of the jobs that you can get with these companies include sales, customer service, technical jobs, scheduling, telemarketing and writing among others. You will find some jobs that are commission based while others may be paid per project.

Referrals: In your efforts to find work from home, you can rely on referrals from close friends or family members. This is so because there are many people today making a handsome income while working from home and they can give you an idea on where to start. Such people will also hold your hand whether with tips or ideas on how to rise the ladder and become successful in a short time.

Local Newspapers: There are very many people who can’t do without a newspaper everyday and employers or hiring companies usually use this media to advertise for job opportunities including those where people can work from home. You can, therefore, grab your local newspaper and check in the employment section to see whether you can find some open opportunities where you can fit.

Watch out for scams

There are pretty high chances of falling for internet scams when finding work from home, and this calls for great caution. Some things that should raise your eyebrows include getting a job offer where you never placed an application, being asked to make some upfront payments, promise of huge paychecks for very little work and unclear salary terms.

As a way of avoiding these scams, you should pay close attention where you are asked to pay any charges whether as registration fees, processing fees or training charges among others. Be extra careful in providing some personal details like social security number or your driver’s license number among others. Ensure that the promised salary relates to the services that you will be providing.

In a situation where you are in doubt, take time to carry out a background check on the company or individual in question. Check whether they have functional websites and try confirming their contact details. It is also wise to scan through posted reviews, if any, and check out the ratings by people who earlier tried out similar offers. All this should tell you whether the offers are legitimate or not.

With the right details, finding work from home should be real easy where you can go forfull time or part time employment. The list of companies you can choose from is pretty huge, and you can boost the chances of submitting successful applications by picking a field that perfectly matches your qualifications, skills and experience.