Archive for June, 2009

Scams targeting people who simply want a real job working from home are up a disturbing amount—as much as 250 percent in some areas of the country. This increase, officials believe, is tied directly to the downturn in the economy. As people get more desperate to earn extra money, they may open themselves up to putting money into something they wouldn’t have considered a year ago. They so want to believe they can get rich doing something, they’re willing to put what little money they do have into the pocket of a scam artist.

These scams hurt not only innocent people, but those businessmen and women who offer legitimate jobs and business opportunities.  Scams are more prevalent, yes, but there are still plenty of real jobs around.  People tend to paint online businesses with a broad brush, leading one to believe that every online opportunity is a scam. That’s not only false, but could lead job-seekers to ignore a very real job. Typically, there are two ways someone can earn money working from home: they can work for themselves or they can work for someone else.

Before you put one dime toward any business make certain you don’t only rely on some slick, professional-looking website. Scam artists know how to build a nice-looking website as much as legitimate business people. There should be a real person attached to that business, with a phone number and real address.

If you do invest in an online business, read all the small print, so you have realistic expectations about how much money you’ll make. Beware of businesses that require you to pay for information to learn the “secrets” of how to make money. If it’s a real business, training courses should be offered for free or at a nominal rate.

If you find an opportunity to work for someone else on a contractual basis, you should never have to send them money for training materials, software or to pay for shipping costs. No legitimate business requires the person they are hiring to buy anything. If they do, that’s a big red flag.

The Better Business Bureau puts out a list of work-at-home jobs that job-seekers should be wary of. The same businesses seem to make the list year after year. They include: data entry, medical billing, envelope stuffing, e-mail answering, and mystery shopping, among others. The bottom line is if a job seems to be paying a high amount of money for menial labor, chances are it’s a scam.

No matter how small your living space, chances are, with a little innovation and creativity, you can have your own office.  Here’s something you may not have considered: convert a closet into an office. Even a small closet can accommodate a laptop or small PC.

The following are some tips for creating your tiny office:

• Remove all “closet” trappings. Even if your office is in a closet, you don’t want to feel as if that’s where you are. Take out everything that doesn’t have something to do with your job. Don’t share your space with winter clothes or holiday trappings. No wire hangers. No shoe racks.
• Paint the inside a pleasing color. Most closet interiors are bland white. Pick something that makes you happy. It’s a small space, so it won’t require much time or effort to do. Pick a lighter color to make the space appear larger.
• Think vertically. You’re office is tiny, so fill it up from the ground to the ceiling if you need extra storage. Shelving is relatively inexpensive and easy to install.
• Think small. Don’t try to cram a big desk in or a huge office chair. Before you buy anything, measure it to make certain it will fit through the closet door and won’t overwhelm your small space. Work from a laptop or downsize your computer (most newer PCs are smaller today, anyway)
• Keep it uncluttered. The smaller the space, the more messy it looks. You’re going to have to be extra diligent about organization and keeping the area neat. Don’t pack in things you don’t need.
• If you’re at all claustrophobic, put a mirror on the wall or a picture that brings the outdoors in. Bring in fresh flowers or plants that don’t need a lot of sunlight. A little color and greenery can go a long way to making any office more homey and pleasant.

Even a tiny office is better than no office. Be creative, plan everything, and get to work.

One of the fastest growing work at home employment opportunities is to provide transcription services—that’s because this industry continues to expand as the need for such services increases. It is one of the few segments of the job market that continues to grow, even in the current recession.

To qualify for such a position, you do need specific skills—one being the ability to type quickly. Most transcription jobs expect you to be able to type 75 words per minutes, have excellent grammar and spelling skills, and be able to pass a typing test.

Medical audio transcription services also require workers be familiar with common medical terms. But companies that offer such services are constantly on the look out for competent workers. Medical transcriptionists create typed files of physicians’ dictation. As more hospitals and medical facilities hire contractors to provide this service instead of doing it inhouse, the work-at-home employee is finding more jobs. You must be trained in medical transcription to qualify for such positions.

Other industries also require transcriptionists, which do not demand the specific skills that a medical transcriptionist does, though it’s still a good idea to take courses in transcription. In the end, your educational investment could be a good one, allowing you to work from home earning up to $30 per hour and sometimes more, which is a decent wage for a work-at-home position. The faster and more accurate you type, the more money you earn, as most transcription services pay on a per line basis.

Many colleges are offering two-year programs for transcriptionists because the demand for such jobs is expected to grow, particularly in the medical fields. According to USNews, transcriptionists jobs are expected to increase by as much as 14 percent between now and 2016. That’s a bigger jump than any other segment in the job market. Medical transcriptionists was listed under the “best careers” portion of that magazine, which predicted “rapid employment growth.”

If you are qualified, finding a job is fairly simple. It can be more difficult to find a work-at-home job initially, especially in the medical transcription area, as many firms want to hire only those who have experience for such coveted positions. However, there are many at-home opportunities.

Most positions require you to have the necessary equipment, which can mean an out of pocket expense, as well as a high speed Internet connection. Don’t buy job-specific equipment that you will be unable to use for another position (unless you can afford to).

Visit  Jobs Based From Home  and start applying today.

Many parents, when their children are young, find a job that allows them to work at home. But as soon as the kids are all in school or old enough to fend for themselves, try to find work outside the home.

This could be a mistake. Many family experts believe parents need to be home even more when the kids are older, simply because they can get into more trouble. A sixteen year old is far too old for child care, and will no doubt balk at having anything resembling a baby sitter. But a sixteen year old can also do things when they’re on their own that they would never consider doing if a parent were at home.

Sure, you have rules. No friends in the house after school. No girlfriends or boyfriends or drinking or drugs or cruising the Internet for things you’d rather them not see. You may think you have the best kid on the block and they’d never go against the rules. Think again. If every kid followed every rule parents handed down, there’d be no unwanted pregnancies or drug experimentation.

Leaving your teenager home alone is a huge worry for working parents. That’s why working from home during these years may be the best thing you can do for your family. While stay-at-home moms and dads often deem the early years as the most important time to be home, others will stridently argue that it’s really the teen years when parents should try to be home.

Because of the Internet, parents have more options then ever if they do want to work from home. Many jobs will allow parents to telecommute part-time, other jobs allow parents to work at home full time. Consulting, freelancing or starting a home business are all options parents can utilize when they want to be home when their kids are there.

Studies have shown that teens engage in the most risky behavior between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. Make sense? That’s when teens are home alone, unsupervised and free to make some really bad choices. Unsupervised teens are nearly three times more likely to skip classes, use drugs and alcohol, smoke, and engage in sexual activity.

As more parents recognize the consequences of leaving teens at home, more are opting to work from home at least part of the time. Little ones will be safe in day care facilities or with nannies. But teens are most safe when mom or dad is home.

To find your perfect work from home job visit Jobs Based From Home and start applying today.

More and more companies are recognizing the cost savings and benefits of outsourcing work to home-based individuals. The opportunities for home-based employment have never been greater, and the number of legitimate at-home jobs is mushrooming thanks to new technologies.

Entire websites are devoted to helping companies find home-based employees. Websites focusing on freelance writers, graphic designers, website designers abound on the Internet. Many of these jobs were traditionally salaried positions that cost companies in wages and benefits. The vast majority of freelance jobs do not include any sort of benefits, something to keep in mind if you are considering working from your home.

Several websites charge job-seekers a fee to peruse their job listings, but other sites are free. Those who charge say they screen the jobs to ensure they are legitimate high quality positions before being placed on their site. One of the best places to find a home-based job is on Craigslist, a free classifieds ad site. A word of caution, though, as Craigslist has attracted scam artists. Don’t get overly excited by an ad that claims to pay an outrageous amount of money for little work. There’s a good chance it’s a scam.

Nearly every sort of job, including teaching, can be conducted from home. Sylvan Learning Center, for example, offers regional teaching jobs that allow teachers to stay at home and tutor via the net.   Another growing field of home-based workers includes people who transcribe.  Medical audio transcription services in particular are growing as more and more medical facilities outsource these services to save tens of thousands of dollars a year. This is one area that is expected to grow to cope with the expanding needs of the health care system.

Other companies, who used to have offices filled with telemarketers, now have a large percentage of those jobs as home-based positions. Large cable companies, including Cox Communications and Verizon are increasing their use of at-home employees. While these jobs do not typically offer the flexibility of other home-based jobs because their require the employee work specific hours, such jobs are desirable because they allow men and women to be home, saving money on gas and wear and tear on you car.
Now, a person living in Boston can work for a company in Louisiana doing jobs that were traditionally in-house. That’s a plus. But a negative is that these jobs may be easy to find, but because the potential employer is making a national search, they are extremely competitive.

To take advantage of the thousands of other work from home opportunities visit JobsBasedFromHome.Net and start applying today

Attend our FREE JBFH seminars and get answers to your questions.   No Hidden Fees!

. We’ll look at some of the different jobs posted in the database
. Discuss the best ways to apply
. What you might want to consider before applying
. How to use Guru.com to get a work from home job
. Open question and answer period

JBFH Seminar Schedule  June & July 2009
         
Date          (EST)           (CST)   (MST)   (PST)                        
June 11      7:00 PM       6:00      5:00      4:00  Non-Subscriber                        
June 16      4:00 PM       3:00      2:00      1:00  Non-Subscriber                 
June 18      7:00 PM       6:00      5:00      4:00  Subscriber                
June 23      4:00 PM       3:00      2:00      1:00  Subscriber               
June 25      7:00 PM       6:00      5:00      4:00  Non-Subscriber                        
June 30      4:00 PM       3:00      2:00      1:00  Non-Subscriber 
                               
July 7          4:00 PM      3:00      2:00      1:00   Subscriber                
July 9          7:00 PM      6:00      5:00      4:00   Non-Subscriber
July 14        4:00 PM      3:00      2:00      1:00   Non-Subscriber                
July 16        7:00 PM      6:00      5:00      4:00   Subscriber                
July 21        4:00 PM      3:00      2:00      1:00   Subscriber                
July 23        7:00 PM      6:00      5:00      4:00   Non-Subscriber                         
July 28        4:00 PM      3:00      2:00      1:00   Non-Subscriber                
July 30        7:00 PM      6:00      5:00      4:00   Subscriber

TO REGISTER:
Click Here   -  Then check the box next to the Seminar you would like to attend – Click the “Register” button below the list of items. It’s as simple as that!

See you there!

P.S.  Visit  Jobs Based From Home  to get your JBFH package and start applying today.

One of the best ways to learn how to succeed in your work at home job is to read inspiring stories about those who have found that success you’re still dreaming about.

Reading about the success of others can motivate you when your business is slow, when you aren’t seeing results as quickly as you’d like, or if you are just considering starting a home business. Some of the biggest companies didn’t start out big. They started in someone’s garage or home office and blossomed into something larger than anyone would have dreamed.

Even if your goal in life isn’t to be a gazillionaire, but simply to make a few extra bucks, reading about how other ordinary people changed their life because they came up with an original idea—or one they improved upon—can be inspiration. It’s the “Gee, if they can do it, I can do it, too” moment that all entrepreneurs have.

The bottom line is that the Internet is opening up huge possibilities for people who likely would have been working an average job and living an average life. Those college kids who wanted to start a social networking site for their friends likely never thought for an instant they’d have a multi-million dollar business and that Facebook would be a household name.

Go to some of your favorite sites and read the “about us” portion. In many cases, you’ll read a fascinating story about how they started small and got huge with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work. Google, is a good example of a company that started small and exploded seemingly overnight. Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and now has more than 20,000 full-time employees and is worth more than $30 billion.

Even if you want to stay small, reading about successful businesses can be helpful, especially if you’ve been struggling with your own business. Not everyone is an overnight success and certainly not everyone gets rich. However, reading how successful people got that way can help you create your own path toward your financial goals.

Not everyone can aspire to be a Google or a FaceBook, but reading the story about college kids can be inspiring, even for someone working on their outdated PC in a tiny apartment. Dream big, read about big dreams, and your own financial dreams just might come true.

If you’ve always dreamed of working from home, you have two options: work for yourself or work for someone else. Most people would agree that working from home beats working in an office any day, though not everyone has the temperament to work from home. For the most part, home workers tend to have more free time, don’t have to worry about a long commute, save on gas, work clothes and wear and tear on their car.

If you’re trying to decide which route to take – working for yourself or for someone else – it’s best to examine the pros and cons of each.

Work for yourself Pros:

-  You are your own boss. You decide when you work, how much to do, what your budget is. No one is breathing down your back, hassling you or not appreciating what you do.

-  Unlimited potential. When you start your own business, chances are your salary is going to be fairly small. But the best part of having your own business is knowing that no matter how small you start, you have the potential to become something significant. 

-  Unlimited Ideas. The Internet and its power has enabled people who never dreamed of starting their own business to start one. You can pick what you want to do, even if it’s something you haven’t been trained for. You can tap into skills you didn’t even know you had. It’s all up to you.

Work for yourself Cons:

-  You are your own boss. In other words, you have to be self-motivated to be successful. Ideally, you should be tougher on yourself than the boss you are trying to escape. Not everyone is cut out to be the boss.

-  The buck stops with you. If the business fails, it can be seen as a personal failure. You make the decisions, good or bad, and must face the consequences of those actions.

Work for someone else Pros:

-  You will get paid. Even if the company you work for has an off week, you’ll still get money for the work you do.

-  You know exactly what is expected of you.

-  You have a certain amount of job security.

Work for someone else Cons:

-  Many times you have to work set hours, just as in a job working outside the home, so you lose the flexibility that working from home often affords. For example, a growing number of people work from home for customer support positions. These jobs require people to work set hours.

-  You still have a boss to please, even if they are in a remote location.

If you decide a work from home job is for you, visit  Jobs Based From Home and start applying today.

Can you find real data and information processing jobs that allow you to work from home? Yes, but they are not easy to find. Search craigslist.org, other online classified sites, or home-based work sites. While you’ll immediately recognize that some are, indeed, scams based on what you now know, some sites do list legitimate positions. Most require that you are familiar with a specific kind of software, that you type at least 60 words per minute (some require more), and that you have excellent communications skills. Some positions are for specific regions only, even though they are home-based positions.

The best sites are those that list data entry jobs and let you go to a company’s website and make up your own mind whether or not you want to apply to them. Most will lay out specific requirements and conditions and aren’t sales pitches, simply job listings.

So don’t write all data entry jobs off, but just be careful who and what you pick.   And Visit Jobs Based From Home  to start applying today!

As more companies allow people to work from home, more employees are recognizing the benefits of such work and in some cases are willing to take pay cuts for the privilege.   As a cost-saving measure, large companies love the idea of allowing their employees to work from home.   They don’t have to expand their offices to accommodate more workers, they save on utility costs and often times see an increase in productivity.   This approach also allows companies to recruit the best available people without geographic restrictions.   If the best employee is 200 miles away, they can still hire them without paying for relocation costs.   A recent survey in Australia showed that one in six employees would be willing to take a pay cut if they were allowed to work from home.

The main reason those surveyed said they would be willing to take as much as a five percent pay cut?   Setting their own work hours.   Another benefit, employees sited, was having better jobs.   Those who live in rural areas have limited employment opportunities, and working from home would allow them to have greater flexibility in which jobs they work—and possibly higher paying ones.  The survey, conducted by Citrix Online, asked more than 600 employees in the US, Britain and Australia, whether they would be willing to get paid less to work at home.  The results probably aren’t surprising for those people lucky enough to have jobs that allow them to work from home.   A growing number of large corporations are hiring people to work at home, including computer giant Apple.  Apple recently placed online ads looking for at home tech support staff in six different cities across the U.S.   It was looking for fill more than 400 positions, according to reports.

Sears, one of the country’s largest retailers, has all their customer service staff working from home.   These positions allow people who don’t have their own business to work at home.   While they are desirable, they are also difficult to get because of the large pool of people trying to get these positions.  Those who want to work from home have far more options today than just a few years ago thanks to the power of the Internet.   Not only are more traditional jobs becoming available as a work at home option, the Internet also allows those to want to follow a more entrepreneurial track make money.   The bottom line is if you always wanted to work at home, you’re facing new possibilities and far better options.

To explore your options, valuable tools and resources for all Job Seekers Visit JobsBasedFromHome.Net  Today!

If your job requires you to work at home, you are a terrific candidate for a pet. While you don’t want to become a crazy cat lady or that weird guy in 7A who talks only to his dog, having a pet is a wonderful way to break up a day. And, yes, gives you something to talk to or at least take care of other than yourself. Working at home has many wonderful benefits, but some people find the isolation difficult to take.