Work-at-Home Gal

Finding legitimate home-based jobs, especially those gigs that you can do with the use of a computer can be a daunting task if you lack the right resources and information. Here is my top 5 suggestions on how you can bag ‘em.

1. Know What You Know and Love Doing

It’s as simple as giving yourself a few hours, days or even weeks, if you must, to think on what you definitely enjoy doing. If you like typing like crazy and can understand accents, a transcriptionist job might be for you. If you know how to tweak a website, freelance web designing might be your calling. If you know how to persuade people to buy just about any product, direct selling or selling on eBay. You can even list down those activities that you so enjoy doing and survey your friends, co-workers, family or anyone who may give you sound career advice to tell which activity you do best.

2. Prepare Your Resume’ and Portfolio

If you’d like to become a freelance writer, you have to be ready with your resume’ and curriculum vitae if you’d like to be armed if ever a client requires your CV. Also, virtual assistants can benefit much from a well-structured resume since an online job like being a VA needs a resume that is tailored for remote clients.

3. Create an Online Presence for Yourself

The virtual hiring trend is having a Google-able presence or someone whose name shows up if a certain field is researched online. If you’d like to establish yourself as a freelance online writer, it’s now important to have a website or a blog that potential employers or clients can check out. If you can’t find a web designer friend to create you a website and you can’t afford to hire one, you can start creating profiles on business social networks such as LinkedIn. If you’d like a free blog, Wordpress.org is a good choice. But if you’d like everything polished and you are very determined and you know that it’s what you want to keep on doing for the long haul, pay for hosting and domain name registration. It will save you a lot of trouble if you get more involved with your online career.

4. Know Where to Look for Online Jobs

Research on which sites gets updated with your target job leads. Check out job boards, job listing sites, blogs that regularly post job leads, sites of companies hiring virtual workers, work at home forums etc. Keep a copy of these sites, either taking note of them using a pen and paper or online subscription using RSS.

5. Know How to Distinguish a Legitimate Online Job from a Scam

This is an important step if you are serious about finding yourself a job that you can do at home. The Internet is full of scams and you don’t want to be a victim. Learn about the anatomy of an online job scam .

These are just first five tips on how you can find legitimate work-at-home jobs. Stay tuned for the next five.