Where the real work-at-home jobs are!

by Leslie Truex

Published on this site: July 28th, 2005 - See more articles from this month

Within the last month there have been 86,808 of searches on the term “work at home job” or some variation such as “work from home job” or “legitimate work at home job”. Using those terms to search on Google, the first listed website says for a fee, you can access its job database which includes the ever questionable “assembly work”. The second site is full of work-at-home schemes but no jobs. Another site offers a book you can buy that includes known work-at-home no-no’s envelope stuffing and assembly work companies. The fifth site is a reputable work-at-home vortal that does offer job listings except that many of the listings aren’t jobs. Its not until the 8th and 9th sites listed that we come across resources with legitimate jobs.

To the inexperienced work-at-home job hunter, determining which sites offer legitimate work is not easy. They all seem like professional sites with bells and whistles and guarantees. Many sites require money and while you don’t want to pay money to get hired to a job, paying for access to a good work-at-home job database or ebook could save you a lot of time and hassle. If you decided to stick to free sites, you are still vulnerable to online schemes that are disguised as jobs. So how is the novice work-at-home job hunter to know the difference between a quality job site and those that are a waste of time?

When searching for a work-at-home job, it’s important to think of your job search like any other job search. If you were looking for a traditional job, where would you look? Odds are you’d use your newspaper classified ads. You would look in a specific section the “Help Wanted” section because that is where companies advertise their job openings. When searching for a work-at-home job, you want to do the same search where companies are posting their jobs online.

The most well-known job search sites are Monster.com http://www.jobsathomesuccess.com/monsterjob.htm and CareerBuilder.com http://www.jobsathomesuccess.com/cb.htm. These sites are good for the work-at-home job hunter as well. Simply visit the site, register for free to take advantage of all the sites offer and search using terms such as “telecommute” or “work-at-home”. Another great site is Craigslist.org http://www.craiglist.org, which has a “telecommute” option in his job search portal.

In all three job search sites listed above, you do need to be aware that biz ops and other schemes do post ads so not every announcement in your results list will be a true job. How can you tell the good from the bad? In most cases, the questionable “jobs” will be listed 100’s of times and will have titles like “Work At Home!” Another tip off to a non-job is the request for money to hire you usually worded as “fees to cover our expenses” or “fees to set up your account.” Legitimate jobs are listed by the job function such as “writer” or “bookkeeper” although you will want to screen carefully any job title of “typist” or “clerical” as these are common job titles for scams.

Other great resources for finding legitimate jobs are the work-at-home job databases; however, you need to research these services carefully. Not all are good. To avoid losing money in a bad work-at-home job database, stay away from any service that says you can find jobs in envelope stuffing, email processing, assembly work or any other programs that most work-at-home experts agree are scams. Any legitimate work-at-home job database will not promote questionable programs. I would also stay away from those that promote surveys or mystery shopping too much. While you can make money at these things, you are not likely to earn a big income and they are not really “jobs”. The work-at-home job databases I like best are not free but for the person who is serious about landing a work-at-home job, it will be worth the investment because these sites not only list work-at-home jobs, but most will screen them for legitimacy thereby saving you time and worry. My favorites are HomeJobStop http://www.jobsathomesuccess.com/hjs.htm (by far the most affordable), Virtual Assistance http://www.jobsathomesuccess.com/virtualassistants.htm, and Freelance Work Exchange http://www.jobsathomesuccess.com/flwe.htm. Each offers 100’s of jobs posted each week.

If you can’t afford the work-at-home databases but are struggling to find legitimate work on the free job search sites, try visiting work-at-home vortals (portal sites specializing in work-at-home). Good sites have job postings either on the site or in its newsletter. Work-At-Home Success’s http://www.workathomesuccess.com newsletter posts carefully screened legitimate jobs each week. There are many other good work-at-home vortal sites from which to choose. Again, stay away from any work-at-home resource offering questionable programs such as envelope stuffing or assembly work. Any work-at-home resource that advertises or promotes these programs should be crossed off your list of viable work-at-home resources.

Work-at-home jobs are actually very easy to find IF you know where and how to look for them. The sites listed above will give you good start on zeroing on legitimate work-at-home jobs.



Leslie Truex is a work-at-home consultant and author of Jobs At Home: A Complete Guide to Finding or Creating a Work-At-Home Job which provides step-by-step details on finding work plus 100’s of job resources. Get the Jobs At
Home 5 Day eCourse free at http://www.jobsathomesuccess.com