Work at Home Opportunities

EVALUATING WORK-AT-HOME OPPORTUNITIES
There are many advertised work from home opportunities. However, according to one source, only 1 in 42 advertised work-at-home opportunities is legitimate.

A Couple of Warning Signs

• Money up front – Genuine work-at-home opportunities do not require money up front. It is safe to assume that any “investment” being required only benefits the person offering the “opportunity.”*
• Promises of big money – Legitimate companies are offering you the opportunity to do the work you would normally do in an office at home instead. The benefit to them: They save money. They are not going to pay you huge amounts of money for that.

There are three (3) primary types of work-at-home jobs:

• Call Center/Telemarketing
• Transcription/Editing
• Virtual Assistant

Call Center/Telemarketing

• 1-800-Is-You – Some companies are using “satellite” (your home) offices to handle their incoming customer service calls. They may also have you accept/process orders on their behalf. One well-known company that does this: Jet Blue
• Cold Calling – This is the most common and perhaps most challenging work-at-home job. It may involve fund raising for a nonprofit, getting people to take phone surveys, setting up sales appointments, or selling magazine subscriptions. Payment methods vary: by hour, by phone call, or by sale.
• Collections – If you have a background in collections, this may be a viable option. Generally, payment is based on an hourly wage plus a percentage of funds collected. A committed collections agent can actually make good money.

Transcription and Editing

• Medical Transcription – The reality is that home medical transcription is a fairly small field. Companies that utilize home transcriptionists require several years of in-office medical transcription experience. If you do have a background in medical transcription, medical terminology, and HIPAA compliance, this would be worth investigating.
• Editing – This is another field in which you need previous in-house experience before you will be considered for a job.
• Writing Online Articles/Blogging – While this is a legitimate possibility, please note that it is not full-time pay. For example, one company who hires bloggers pays $2.00 for every 300 unique blog views.

Virtual Assistant

This is probably the fastest growing work-at-home opportunity. Again, it requires prior experience in the field. Multi-tasking will include fielding phone calls, setting appointments, typing, data entry, etc. This allows the business professional to not be tethered to an office. Often, it also means you are making a commitment to be available 24/7.

Additional things to consider when evaluating an opportunity:

• Are they a BBB member? (http://www.bbb.org/)
• Review their BBB report
• Check them out on http://www.RipOffReport.com/
  
• Do an internet search. Are there articles about the company that are written by people other than within the company itself?

A couple of legitimate companies:

• Working Solutions (http://www.WorkingSol.com/)
• Alpine Access (http://www.AlpineAccess.com/)

In Summary: Working at Home is possible. Just be sure you do your homework so that the opportunity you are considering nets you money, instead of ending up costing you.

*This is assuming you are working at home for someone else. Launching your own business always has some type of investment requirement.