Guest post by Traci L. Dillard-Bell (learn more about Traci at the end of this post)
Building a home business can be physically, emotionally, and especially financially exhausting, but there are ways maintain a steady stream of income by taking on a part-time home job early on while creating your business. Having a side income can reduce some of the stress when trying to make ends meet while you are getting your home business off the ground.
You might be asking how you can find ways to earn money part-time at home during this business building process. The answer is easier than you might think. While legitimate home jobs may seem difficult to come by for some, once you know where to look for these opportunities and you do find legitimate ways to work out of your home, the possibilities are endless. In this article, I will go over some of the proven ways you can find work at home that will help you avoid scams or investment opportunities. I will discuss certain search strategies to help you find real, legitimate work that you can do in return for pay.
Learning How To Do Proper Searches For Home Jobs
A large factor in finding companies that hire people to work from home is knowing how to do an effective search. It is very common for prospective home workers to search for these jobs using keywords such as “work at home,” “make money at home,” or “stay at home jobs.” By searching with terms such as these, you are opening yourself up to a few legitimate results and many not so legitimate results.
The first thing to understand is keywords such as “work at home” are fiercely competed for by people with misleading advertisements and websites. These keywords are also competed for by legitimate website owners, but by taking a new approach in your home jobs search, you will be pleasantly surprised by the outcome.
Think Like An Employer
While searching for a job to do at home, it is important to put yourself in the shoes of an employer posting for these telecommute positions. You can also enter the specific type of work at home you are interested in doing. For example, if you would like to work as a customer service agent at home, you might enter, “hiring at home customer service agents(or representatives).” You can also replace “hiring” with “needed” or “wanted.” Some additional helpful keywords might include the following:
- “home office required”
- “at home agents”
- “1099 position”
- “telecommute position”
- “remote position”
- “virtual position”
You can add the specific type of job you are looking for in addition to the keywords listed above.
Types Of Home Jobs That Are Common
1.) Writing is a very legitimate and common way for people to earn money at home. There are many benefits to being an online writer and there are a variety of ways you can earn through writing from home.
One of the major benefits is that most work offered to writers does not require them to be on a set schedule. With this type of work at home, you can usually write articles on your own time.
Some companies hire content writers in which the pay is per word or per assignment. There are also companies that hire writers to earn residual income through advertising. Both methods can be beneficial and many writers prefer to do both.
2.) Customer service jobs at home have become a very popular method to earn income for home workers. There are customer service jobs which prefer to hire independent contractors, while other companies prefer to hire home workers on as actual employees. Typical pay tends to range between $8.00 to $15.00 per hour for these positions. Requirements usually include a land line telephone, certain computer requirements, and the ability to commit to a certain number of hours per week or a set schedule. Many companies will request for you to comply to a background screening for these positions.
3.) Telemarketing is another common way to work at home. This is not the preferred method for most people because you must be willing to sell and work for commission, but if you are experienced with sales and you do well with this type of work, you can earn a pretty decent income. Not all telemarketing jobs at home are high pressured sales or require you to call out. Some of these jobs consist of taking inbound calls from customers inquiring about a product or service. In addition, some of these type of positions include business to business type of sales.
4.) Some of the more professional types of jobs employers seek home workers to do include medical, legal, and general transcription. You can also find many teaching and tutoring jobs online. Additional fields for home workers include accounting and bookkeeping, translational work, proofreading, editing, and administrative assistance, which is also referred to as “virtual assistance.”
5.) Mystery shopping is also a way to earn extra money in your spare time. It is important with mystery shopping to realize that you must apply directly to these companies. Legitimate mystery shopping companies do not randomly solicit people via e-mail and offer mystery shopping assignments. Mystery shopping is a legitimate field and great for people that want to get out of their home, but many scam ads have been posted by people posing as legitimate mystery shopping companies. As long as you sign up directly with the company, you do not have to worry.
While this is not a complete list of ways to work at home, this should help anyone seeking to find ways to begin supplementing their income while starting their new home business. Legitimate opportunities to work from home do exist, but it is a matter of knowing how to find them.
About the Author
Traci L. Bell is a stay at home mom and home worker. She also owns the the AllStayAtHome.com site which offers information about working from home and a home jobs directory.
Thank you for this information. This is helpful and I didn’t realize there were so many ways to work from home.