Work at Home Jobs That are not Scams

Working from home can be very beneficial especially for certain lifestyles. As a stay-at-home-work-from-home mother I am very familiar with the trials and tribulations of searching for legitimate work from home jobs. After several years of figuring out that most were scams (some very scary scams that led to innocent people being jailed) I have also found some very legitimate companies and jobs.

SKILL SET - The first thing you have to be aware of is that it is important to understand what skill set you have to offer a company and see if that skill is needed by a company. You can also improve your skill sets in various ways to make you more valuable to any company.

YOUR CURRENT EMPLOYER - If you are already with a company it would be beneficial to see if that company is a telecommute-friendly company. Your company might offer part time telecommuting or certain positions might be more telecommute-friendly. Under either of these situations it might be possible to simply transfer you're your work office to your home office. So check with your company first and see what they have to offer.

TELECOMMUTE-FRIENDLY COMPANIES - Some companies offer telecommute positions usually after a certain amount of training from a few weeks to a few months. There are many big named companies that are known to be telecommute-friendly such as AT&T, 1-800-Flowers and U-Haul to name just a few. Some of these companies are also location specific so make sure you find a company that is in your area.

There are many different types of work from home positions a few that come to mind immediately are tutoring, data entry, and customer service.

1. Tutoring - This is somewhat specialized but if you have teaching experience or a degree you can tutor and there are many different tutoring companies out there.
2. Data Entry - Data entry is a highly coveted position so the jobs are few and far between but if you happen to luck up on one keep it.
3. Customer Service- There are many different customer service positions with numerous companies as long as you have a computer and phone (specifications depends on the company) then you are all set to go.
4. Call Centers - Similar to customer service there are many different call center companies looking for work from home workers. Again if you have a computer and a phone set up, most ask for Cable or DSL as well as a second phone line with nothing else on it.
5. Others - There are many other types of positions out there and companies looking for stay-at-home moms and dads, disabled peoples, students and other specifications for their positions.

BEWARE OF -

1. Pay - The important thing to remember is that you should NEVER pay to work for a company. Trust me I have run into many people who have spent thousands of dollars to get information on work from home jobs. Please do not waste your money do your own research most of those listings are outdated and the others are fraudulent. The few times that you might have to pay is for a background check and possible for training but you should not have to pay until you sign a contract.
2. Give out personal information - You should never give out personal information such as your banking information unless you have been hired by a company and signed a contract. If the online application asks for your social security number, enter all zeros to protect yourself. If you are submitting a resume give limited personal information only put your city and state no address. Give your first initial and last name. These few steps will help save you from giving out unnecessary information to scammers. You can even go a step further and make a special email address just for your job searches so that your current email does not become spam central.
3. If it is too good to be true - Remember if the pay or the job seems too good to be true it probably is. You are not going to make millions working from home unless you have some specialized skill.

After a while of searching you will be able to spot a scam pretty quickly using the techniques above. Most of the postings are under the "too good to be true" or "pay" categories and those you can weed out quickly. To be honest the scammers are becoming trickier so be careful and protect yourself. Happy Hunting!!!