How To Work From Home
Working from home is the dream of millions of people throughout the world, and despite popular belief, is easier to do than one may believe. Many people think that the ability to work from the comfort of their own home is an unachievable goal, something that only a privileged few can attain. The reality however is quite different. Right now as you’re reading this, people with minimal education and skills are sitting at home, on their computer, working.
Since the start of the 21st century, working at home has become such a standard practice that those who aren’t familiar with how to do it are thought as being “left behind” in a pre-Internet age. Indeed, the Internet has greatly accelerated the development of the world as we know it, and given everyone the opportunity to earn an income without ever having to move an inch.
In this article I want to discuss the most common ways that people earn a living working from home, so that you too can start doing so immediately. One thing that should be noted from the beginning of this article however is that working from home for an employer is not the same as running your own Internet based business from home. If you want to be an entrepreneur and set up and manage an Internet based business then you should venture into the field known as Internet marketing. If however entrepreneurship does not interest you, and you’re only interested in staying at home and working for someone else without having to make any form of risk or investment, then this article will guide you in the right direction so that you can get started.
Work From Home Jobs
There are a number of jobs on the Internet that you can complete for a monetary payment. The difference between Internet based jobs and land based jobs is that employers on the Internet rarely offer a fixed salary, but rather pay based on services rendered. For example, if an employer needs someone to write an article, or to reply to some e-mails, then they will usually pay based on the number of articles written, or the number of e-mails replied to, as opposed to a fixed hourly wage. Many people prefer this performance based model as it gives them the opportunity to find additional work once their current work is completed, instead of sitting around all day doing nothing (as is commonly the case with a traditional office job).
It is possible to find some employers providing fixed hourly based salaries for Internet based work, however it’s rarer than finding employers who offer performance based work. Performance based work is usually preferred by employers too as it allows them to ensure that their virtual employees aren’t wasting time at their expense. This form of payment essentially provides a win-win situation for both parties.
So, you may be wondering, where do you find these legitimate work from home jobs? There are a number of websites that act as intermediaries (third parties) by connecting virtual employees and employers together. The most popular of these are oDesk and Freelancer for people with specific skills, and the Amazon owned mTurk service for people with more generic skills looking for quick, easy work. It doesn’t cost anything to sign-up with these sites and you can start finding specific jobs immediately (it’s free for the employee, whilst the employer pays the sites a fee to list their jobs) .
The demographics of people who utilize each employment based service are outlined below -
oDesk.com - Employees are mostly comprised of those between 25-34 years of age, and that have some form of tertiary education such as a computing related degree. Use this site if you have technical expertise to offer.
Freelancer.com - This site is mostly frequented by those known as freelancers, who commonly work for businesses who outsource their services to third world countries. Whilst Freelancer.com does offer some good home based money making opportunities, it’s primarily used by those who can live with a lower income.
Mturk.com - This is the favorite “work from home” based site for single moms, or moms with a large family (mums for our British speaking visitors). It’s also used by those who don’t have any specific skill to offer, but need work regardless. Average hourly wages for hard working individuals can turn out to be anywhere from $4.00 to $20.00 an hour, depending upon the jobs selected and the speed with which they’re completed. This is a great site to get started in finding free work from home opportunities.
In addition to the above mentioned services, it is of course always possible to find an employer offering direct, full-time employment for prospective employees looking to work from home. Finding an opportunity such as this however is usually rarer, and requires finding job opportunities with specifically targeted companies.
Data Entry Work
The most common form of data entry employment is a typing job known as a “data entry clerk”. The job of a data entry clerk is straightforward and does not require any specific training. It usually involves inputting some form of generic, real world based data into a computer. Examples could include recording data from health insurance claims or the tracking numbers of sent/received mail.
Because data entry work does not require any specific skills, there is a high demand for jobs within this field, which in turn has unfortunately given rise to a large amount of data entry employment scams. Various people and shell companies claim to offer home based data entry work in exchange for a small fee, when in reality they do not offer such jobs. This form of scamming has become increasingly common throughout the Internet, and one should be careful about handing over any money before being employed in any Internet based data entry job.
Despite the scamming that prevails within the industry, there are still plenty of legitimate home based data entry jobs available through the Internet. Indeed, in third world countries, millions of people are employed as home based data entry clerks. The main problem for people living in more developed countries however is that the pay is often too low in order to compensate for living expenses. It is not uncommon for entry level online based data entry jobs to pay as low as $1/2 per hour. For this reason, people often pursue alternative skill based online jobs where the pay is higher.
Other Opportunities To Work From Home
Without a doubt, the most lucrative and profitable way to work at home is by setting up and running your own Internet business. The problem with this however is that running your own Internet business requires capital, investment, and risk. Working from home for another company does not require any form of financial commitment, and therefore the risk is almost non-existent (apart from your time). As an individual, you need to make a decision whether you want to take some risk and potentially make a lot of money, or take no risk and work for someone else.
Not all forms of online based entrepreneurship require risk however. There are ways to set up an online business and work from home without investment. Some of these strategies are outlined in our tutorial - Promoting Your Product With Free Methods. The difference between running your own business and working for someone else from home is primarily discipline. If you run your own business, you have to become disciplined. The paychecks won’t be coming in automatically each week, and there may be times where you put in a large amount of work without receiving any monetary reward. If you look through history however, you will see that all of the great entrepreneurs from Andrew Carnegie to Bill Gates had repeated failures until they succeeded.
If your goal is to simply work from home for someone else so that you can generate a guaranteed income, then home based employment is what may interest you the most. If however you’re willing to take a little risk, then becoming an Internet based entrepreneur who works from home on their own business (not someone else’s) may end up being the most rewarding thing you ever do in your life. Establish your priorities and your goals, and then make a decision on what it is you want to do to earn money from home.
