If you have a good phone voice and have experience working in a call center in sales/customer service, there are various companies you can hire with.  Consider companies like Alpine Access, West Corporation, Cloud 10 Corp, and Convergys if you’re looking for sales or customer service work from home jobs and still be considered an employee of a company rather than an independent contractor.  Companies such as Arise, Working Solutions, and Live Ops hire home based agents as independent contractors, so you’ll be considered a self-employed individual.  There are several other companies that offer work from home job opportunities in specific geographical locations.  Sitel, ICT Group, Customer Loyalty Concepts, are several companies that require home based agents to train at one of their regional contact centers.  Companies such as Jet Blue and 1-800-Flowers hire home based agents directly and also hire in specific geographic locations.  All of these companies will have a similar application process, requirements, and pay structure.

For those looking to work from home as medical transcriptionists, or other types of audio transcription, finding work will be more challenging.  Working in the medical transcription field requires certification in the field, and once certified, it will behoove you to get involved with a medical transcription association in your area, if available.  Although the demand for medical transcriptionists is growing and the job outlook is good, most employers ask that you have a certain amount of minimum experience (many ask for a minimum of two years experience) particularly for work from home job opportunities.  Being part of an MT association will allow you to network with other MTs and get your name and reputation out.  The school you receive your training at can also be a good resource for finding first-time employment.  Also, do a search online for medical transcription jobs.  Various forums, whether work from home or specialized MT job forums, will have job listings.  The more popular online job sites such as Monster and Craigslist are good places to find additional job listings.

If you have skills and experience as an administrative assistant, secretary, marketing assistant, or any related position you can make the transition into a virtual assistant.  Some work from home job opportunities may involve using a few of the many tasks that virtual assistants are able to perform.  Finding work as a virtual assistant can be done through broker companies that connect VAs with companies that need VA services, or by being a self-employed individual marketing yourself and your services to the job market.  This is starting to go into the realm of running a business, but the nature of the work is more job-oriented.  It may be a good idea to specialize in just a few “niche” skills (i.e. marketing, graphic design, and/or writing).  Doing a web search for “virtual assistant” or “virtual assistant jobs” will bring up several good resources for finding VA work or forums and other websites where you can make your services known.  Also, joining professional organizations, whether local or online, is another good way to network and get known in this small but growing industry.  You may also consider joining your local Chamber of Commerce to find clients.

There are several websites that offer work from home job listings by purchasing a membership.  You can find these sites by doing a websearch for “home based jobs” or “work at home jobs.”  Many claim to offer legitimate, scam-free listings.  For the most part they do seem legitimate and are a good resource if you’re not able to find telecommuting job opportunities elsewhere.

Legitimate work from home jobs are out there, but finding them can be a long, challenging process.  Keep a good attitude and persevere, since the rewards once you’ve secured work are worth the search.  The key is to continue to inquire, market yourself, and if you have the qualifications and certification, you can find a number of work from home jobs in your area of expertise and enough work to generate a full time income working from home.

Most of us are used to being supervised and told what to do.  When we were children, most of what we did was under the guidance of our parents.  They would be watching us, telling us what we could or could not do, where we could or could not go.  They showed us how to do things.  If we did something good we were praised and rewarded.  When we did something bad we were reprimanded.  This dynamic carried over into school, where our teachers became our surrogate parents and there were rules to follow just like at home.

A job is what most of us have transitioned into after finishing school (and some of us while in school) to replace the environment but still maintain the same relationship dynamics between our parents and our teachers.  Essentially, our bosses are our surrogate parents at the workplace.  A job makes sense to most people because it is familiar (like family) and is something we are comfortable with.  Our job experience resembles our family experience and, without realizing it, is one of the main reasons why most people find it difficult to be a business owner or entrepreneur and instead find it easier to gravitate towards a job working for someone else.

Work from home jobs will require that you become familiar with being independent, being comfortable with working for yourself and getting work done without supervision.  They are a middle step between a traditional job and running your own business (whether a “brick and mortar” business or marketing your own service or product online).  Real work from home jobs will require a bit of business owner thinking and discipline since, essentially, you are an independent contractor and will be “prospecting” for work as you would be prospecting for clients (though some positions can be long-term projects).  Work from home jobs will require that you are able to be productive without having someone watching over you (though there will be metrics that will be analyzed to ensure you are doing your job).  This can be challenging for a lot of people because most of us are used to the rigid structure of a workplace and can be easily distracted at home since the usual mentality is “no one is really going to know what I’m doing.”  Most people associate home with relaxing and not working, so making a mental shift to being productive at home and getting paid for working from home is challenging.  Most of us are also used to getting paid a wage per hour.  Though most work from home job opportunities offer hourly wages, the flexibility of working the hours you want, together with the associations of staying home and relaxing, are mental obstacles difficult to overcome.

Perhaps I’m making the mental aspect of working from home seem like a daunting challenge, but, although it is very important, it’s not that hard to overcome.  Work from home jobs are a relatively easy transition from a workplace.  It’s challenging to find good, long term, legitimate work from home jobs at first and this is usually the phase (the start-up phase) that requires the most perseverance, but once you start working from home, the new mentality will become habit and you will be on your way to long-term success working for yourself.

Some of the alternatives to work from home sales jobs involve traditional office jobs that can be done via telecommute.  These positions include administrative assistant services, medical transcription, data entry, bookkeeping, help desk related positions, and general customer service.  Many of these positions are advertised at a pay scale similar to one at a regular office ($8-$12 per hour).  Many companies are outsourcing their work to telecommuters because it saves on overhead costs normally associated with employing people at an office.  It makes sense:  why not have people do the same work that can be done at an office at home (since the people don’t really need to be at an office to do the work anyway) and save yourself the cost of running the office (electricity, rent, etc)?  Both sides win because the employer can still offer a competitive wage while still saving money per employee and the telecommuter can save expenses related to commuting (gas, dry cleaning, childcare) and create a work-from-home lifestyle that allows time flexibility and the ability to stay home (and be with your children if you are a parent).

The requirements for these work from home jobs will be very similar to the “brick and mortar” counterpart.  Most will require experience related to the position, some will require a certain amount of years of experience.  Most will require computer skills, particularly with Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word and Excel, efficient data entry skills, and a minimum typing speed.  Keep in mind that many advertisements for office or clerical work-related telecommuting jobs are not real work from home jobs (see previous post) but are marketing opportunities or even scams.  In either case, all positions will require enough self-discipline to do your job well, without supervision, as if you were “at the office.”

Administrative assistants, or anyone with related experience, parlay their work into the home based arena as virtual assistants.  This line of work actually becomes more of a home based business than a job.  Medical transcription is also a more specialized work from home job opportunity in that it requires specialized training and certification, particularly to find home based positions, and usually will require a certain amount of experience in a clinic or doctor’s office before transitioning to home based employment.

Where can you find these types of work from home jobs?  They will likely require some extra research to find.  Perhaps the best place to start is to do a Google search for “work at home jobs,” “stay at home jobs,” or “work from home jobs.”  There are some websites dedicated to listing these kinds of telecommuting opportunities, some will charge a small fee to see listings (but usually worth it to find legitimate work from home job opportunities).  There are forums that discuss work from home jobs which are a great resource to finding virtual employment.  Although finding the right opportunity that fits is challenging, there are legitimate work from home jobs that you can be qualified for and be comfortable doing in the “office job arena,” and it’s just a matter of doing the extra research to find them.