Archive for the ‘Job Search’ Category

If you’re unemployed and need to make ends meet, you might want to consider working from home, even if it’s only temporary. Because most work-at-home jobs are flexible, you’ll still be free to continue your job search, and the added income will help with necessities like groceries and utilities until you can get back on your feet again. Here are just a few work-from-home employment opportunities for you to consider.

Freelance Writing

Freelance writing may involve everything from blogging to writing content for clients through content marketing sites like WriterAccess and oDesk. About.com is another site for experts, and because of that, it also has rigorous application and training process, but in return for a specified amount of articles and blog posts, writers are guaranteed a certain amount of pay per month; additional pay is based on page views.

Online Employment Sites

Online employment sites like Elance offer a range of employment opportunities that range from finance to mobile development, consulting, marketing, programming, designing and writing. The International Association of Employment Websites is an excellent resource for people who are job hunting because it is like a clearing house of resources.

Telecommuting Jobs

For people who need a certain amount of flexibility, telecommuting jobs offer this in abundance. These jobs may also open the door to future long-term employment, which could mean benefits and a steady paycheck.

Freelance Work

There are countless freelance opportunities for those who are willing to search for them, but it’s important to check the reputability of each site. FreelanceFree is of the top four, according to Entrepreneur Magazine, and there are a range of different opportunities.

Typing and Data Entry

Some companies need people on a temporary basis to do typing or data entry. Arise offers opportunities for people in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. Other companies also have data entry opportunities if you take the time to search for them.

Online Surveys for Cash

There are a number of sites that pay people to take surveys, and a good way to find them is by going to one of the sites that keeps track of multiple survey sites, such as Surveys for Cash. The amount that these sites pay varies, but be sure to read the fine print. For people who are willing to invest their time or test products in return for taking surveys that allow you to review the product, this can be an easy way to earn cash.

A Final Word of Caution

Unfortunately, there’s always a chance that you’ll be a victim of a scam. Be sure to check with the Better Business Bureau to find out whether sites that interest you are reputable. When it comes to working online, there are countless great sounding opportunities that are really scams. Adopting the “buyer beware” philosophy is the best way to prevent yourself from becoming the victim of a scam.

Being unemployed usually puts you in an untenable position, with persistent money worries and frustrations. Finding opportunities to work at home or online isn’t easy. However, with a little stick-to-itiveness and more than a little elbow grease, you might soon find more work than you can handle.

Danielle Rhodes is a full-time writer who dabbles in poetry in her free time. When she was uemployed, she found many creative ways to work from home, and was immensely glad for the short term health insurance she was able to procur during such a worrisome time.

Grinding the work at home job search grindstone can be wearying, stressful and downright disheartening. We have to deal with scams, unanswered e-mails and any number of other factors that can make it difficult to continue to send resumes and contact info out into the ether day after day.

In talking with friends and reading this blog and others that focus on WAH job-finding, I see that many people restrict themselves to traditional forms of job searching: career websites, job posting boards, shot-in-the-dark searches in industries of interest. These are methods with results and totally worth executing. It is, however, important to break out of the mold every now and again and use the tools that define our modern society to our advantage. Searching job boards is an arduous and sometimes successful process, but have you tried first person outreach via Twitter?

The social network encompasses nearly all of us, and is used mercilessly by businesses and corporations to generate contacts, sales and revenue. As such, it provides the perfect ground for WAH job searchers to broaden their contacts, cultivate relationships, and find leads to jobs that may not have gone through some company’s HR department and been posted to a site. If you already have a Twitter account, you’re ahead of the game. If you don’t, start one and follow these guidelines that will help you build a reputable, engaging Twitter persona, avoid spammers and scammers and eventually find openings you wouldn’t have had access to with traditional job search tactics.

Be Yourself

As long as you aren’t a basket case. Ha ha ha, but seriously, the key to cultivating your Twitter feed is to be genuine. Check out this helpful list of tips for making your Twitter more accessible and versatile. They will help you build your contact base, meet new people and create more opportunities for you.

Applications

While some contend that Twitter is largely a popularity contest, there is a great deal of opportunity for networking, generating contacts and turning those contacts into work. There are a number of applications available that are specialized for finding jobs via Twitter. TwitJobSearch is among one the best for those combing for general jobs. Thanks to a recent explosion in iPhone app development, there are a number of mobile applications available as well.

Build Relationships

It’s pretty easy to determine who is important in the field you are trying to enter. Twitter does a good job of recommending relevant contacts, but if you are trying to find work as a copywriter, there are a number of copywriters you can ‘follow’ and ask for advice. You can go further and follow the companies that they work for, demonstrating your skills and eventually seeking a position working from home.

Watch For the Liar, Watch for the Cheat

Never before in the history of the world has an innovation like the Internet made widespread anonymity so easy. If I had to guess, I would say that 30% of the tens of millions of people on Twitter are fake bots, or people masquerading as someone they’re not; in order words, fake scammers. They may try to court you with job prospects or conversation but have no intention of following through. Take extra steps in verifying that the person is the real deal before engaging them in any business conversation.

Balance Personal and Business

Leveraging your Twitter account for business means that you’ll have to post a fair amount of information relevant to the work you are trying to obtain. People who visit your Twitter will no doubt be charmed by your hilarious, thoughtful personal tweets, but you must indicate that you also mean business. This could be as simple as posting salient articles about your field published in news outlets (the bigger the better: NY Times, CNN, Telegraph, etc.). Once you start making friends on Twitter, posting blogs they write will help you ingratiate yourself towards them, which is an invaluable part of the relationship building process. If you write your own blogs or publish on other blogs about business, link to that also. Turn Twitter into your running resume.

Following general rules of Twitter etiquette and parlaying that into meaningful relationships over Twitter will yield surprising results and also offer an avenue through which you can diversify your work at home job search.

Danielle (who blogs on behalf of Sears and other prestigious brands) is a full-time blogger and part-time hobbyist who fixes washers and other household appliances in her spare time.

Read her work at eatbreatheblog.com.