Work at Home Jobs Revealed

Work at home jobs can be hard to find. Not only do most people have to weed through layers and layers of scams, but the real work at home jobs are in such high demand that landing a position can be extremely difficult.

It's well known that the average person searches in such a way that they're more likely to turn up work at home scams in stead of legitimate work at home jobs. And these aren't dumb people either. In fact I've helped several of them recover money from work at home job scams and many of them were extremely intelligent and well-spoken.

Honestly, I really don't see how it happens, but I think it really must come down to "desperate people do desperate things". Or it's possible that for some reason they think life on the internet is somehow different than the "real world". I'm not sure, but the point is if you've fallen for work at home job scams, don't feel bad. It doesn't mean you're stupid. Not at all.

The biggest mistake I see people making when looking for work at home jobs is misinterpreting the rule "never pay for a job" to mean "never pay for anything that helps you to get a job".

Now of course it is possible to succesfully land telecommuting positions without paying for any form of help. However, it is also true that there are legitimate telecommuting databases and memberships that have skilled staff to weed through the scams and pull in legitimate telecommuting positions. In fact some of them even have arrangements with certain companies that allows them to hear of work at home job openings well before the general public. And in other cases the owner and/or staff of the telecommuting jobs database belong to organizations that allow them to network with other telecommuters and hobnob with companies that offer telecommuting positions.

So what kind of "help" are you paying for when you pay for a telecommuting jobs membership or database? You're paying for the time and expertise of the staff to pull the potential positions for you, weed through and elminate scams, and network on the membership's behalf.

The downside of this type of arrangement is that if the membership isn't capped, you end up with a lot of eyeballs looking at the same positions. In fact memberships to work at home jobs databases are often most beneficial to experienced telecommuters with a strong skillset in specific areas. On the other hand it can be good for a new telecommuter to join for a while to get a sense of what "real" telecommuting positions look like and compare them to the multitude of scams being purveyed.

At one of my main sites I get a lot of people looking for "easy work from home" that will earn them at least $300 to $500 a week.

While that might not seem like a lot to ask for the reality is that a great number of companies are outsourcing much of the easy work to places like the Phillipines where people are willing to work for as little as $1.00 to $1.50 per hour. In other words, many people who weren't directly hit by the first few waves of the outsourcing phenomenon still don't understand the reality of the work at home marketplace.

I typically point these people to ODesk for a couple of reasons. One they can see many typical examples of companies looking for workers who will do many basic tasks for as little as $1.00 to $1.50 per hour. And also, ODesk does have a vast number of freelancing positions that require higher skill levels and thus typically pay more standard U.S. rates.

Now there are times when U.S. companies specifically will request U.S. workers even if the work is simpler in nature. Here's a little tip about that - if you come across outsourcing companies that look like they do most of their works overseas, take a quick check through the site and see if they specifically mention that they offer either overseas or U.S. workers. Homeshoring is big enough nowadays that there's a decent chance you'll turn up some hidden gems that other people are ignoring.

If you find they provide U.S. workers, hunt around for the "work with us" tab, which can be any number of places. The best words to check for are "jobs", "employment","work with us","apply" or the "Contact" tab sometimes will lead you to those types of sections. If there's a sitemap, check the sitemap. And if you can't find the site map, type this in Google to try to find the site map: site:companyname.com sitemap