By: S McIntyre

There seem to be some confusion among many newbies just coming aboard the work at home train. I know how difficult it can be to wrap your head around all the information provided. Sometimes it’s as clear as mud and sometimes it’s just plain murky.

Let’s define work at home j-o-b. Yes, that’s job with hyphens in between it. Why? Simply because you will know I mean a job that requires skills and or experience, a cover letter, resume and an interview. You may be an employee or Independent Contractor with a set schedule and a set wage.

It is true you should never pay to get a job. It works like any brick and mortar. The exception to this “rule” goes to purchasing equipment to help you perform the job properly and this may include a headset or foot pedal. Sometimes a background check is required if you’re dealing with sensitive information, but this is done after you are hired and not before. Most companies will pick this tab up, but there are a few who don’t and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as the company is legitimate and reputable.

Now I just said it was true you should never pay to get a job, right? Exactly. Here is the difference and I’ll explain a bit later. In most cases, you can find jobs on your own. There are plenty of work at home sites that provide FREE access to work at home companies and job leads. Some are researched and most are unresearched meaning you have to do all the legwork. What happens if you don’t have the time or the resources or you’re not “the job searcher and sniff-out-scams” savvy type person? Then there is an option for you to pay a one time lifetime membership fee to receive access to researched and reputable work at home companies. Confused about the pay thing? Don’t be! Here’s my explanation. You’re not paying to get a job; you’re paying for a service; for an agency to do the legwork for you. While there are mixed opinions on this issue, it is simply that…opinions. Don’t let someone deter or sway you. Only you know the reasons why this could be a good solution for you.

Again, you will come across many sites who don’t provide a legitimate service. There will be some, who have a database full of jobs, but the jobs can be found everywhere or it’s not updated on a regular basis. There is one particular site with a very good reputation, comes with good recommendations and have been online since 1999.

By: James Stinson

Passion is very important for a piece of work to be done. When you are passionate about the work that you are doing, chances are, you enjoy it and at the same time youre doing it excellently. What a beautiful world it would be if everybody is doing what he or she is passionate about. In the real world, however, there are different kinds of jobs that are difficult to do yet they are very crucial for the business.

One of these kinds of work is data entry. It is very mundane, it requires not so great thinking skills because it is routine job. In short, data entry is rather boring. But then again, because it is important for the organization, then professionals should handle this work efficiently and excellently. Even if it were done very quickly, if there are numerous errors, then it would be inimical to the performance of the organization.

Hiring in-house personnel just doing data entry may be a little too costly and the personnel working for data entry may become low in morale because of the routine job that they have. In this regard, outsourcing your data entry processes may be an excellent option. After all, a number of companies are already doing just that and because of the success of this outsourcing, such number is already on the rise.

By outsourcing data entry kinds of work, your company will be able to save a lot of money. The money saved on this can then be diverted away and be transformed as additional asset of the company. If you outsource data entry services to the Philippines, your work will be done by competent professionals who are meticulous and excellent in doing the job for you at a much lower cost. At times, such cost is even 50% lower. These professionals are great in doing their jobs since most of them do possess bachelors degrees from reputable universities and colleges in the Philippines.

The kinds of data entry services you may outsource may be vastly different. These may be in the form of personnel information of the company, application forms for credit cards or any other products, as well as other kinds of processes that requires encoding the responses of the persons utilizing the forms. These data may contain numbers and letters, so the skills of those handling such data would be of important consideration.

By outsourcing data entry services to the Philippines, you can be sure that the service will be very professional and that they will be done on a timely manner. Because of the good service being done by these Philippine companies, there are an increasing number of businesses from Europe and the United States that are availing of this. If you are unsure where to turn to, you just have to do some research with business magazines offline and online. In order for you to verify that the company is indeed excellent, then you just need to let them do some sample work for you and you will not regret it.

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

James Stinson is Owner and Founder of Global Sky Inc. He employs a team of 50 in a high quality call center facility based in the Philippines. For more info on outsourcing your project visit: http://www.global-sky.com

By: Leslie Truex

If you have wanted to be hired to work from home, the options for you are endless. Today nearly 23% of the workforce works from home at least part time. However, there are characteristics and work habits that you must have if you are going to be successful. Before you quit your regular job to take a work-at-home job, make sure you have what it takes to telecommute:

1) Do you have a skill or talent? Companies that use telecommuters are not looking home workers per se. Employers are more concerned with finding someone who has the skills and experience to do the job that needs to be done. So, how fast can you type? Are you accurate? Can you write? Do you have phone skills? Are you experienced using bookkeeping software? In essence, what skills do you have to give to a company?

2) Do you have the resources? While some companies will provide you with equipment and services, many won’t. Do you have a computer with high-speed Internet access? Do you have landline phone service with flat-rate long distance? Do you have basic word processing and spreadsheet programs? Do you have the equipment, services and resources to do the job you want to?

3) Are you reliable? Are you able to deliver the work at the quality expected in the time frame needed? This means if your child is sick, you can’t just slack off and work whenever. Instead you need to stay up late or get up early to meet the deadline. Work-at-home employees need to operate with the same professionalism as any other employees.

4) Are you self-motivated and able to work independently? There are hundreds of distractions when working at home. The laundry, Oprah, kids, neighbors, the couch for a nice nap, etc. There is no boss standing behind you to make sure you are getting the work done. Its up to you schedule time to work and to get it done in a timely manner.

5) Would you hire you? Before you answer that question, really think about it. If you were the owner of a business that needed to hire help, would you hire someone who had your work ethic or skills? If you are someone who chats a lot by the water cooler or does just enough to get by, you probably wouldn’t want to hire someone like you. If that is the case, you need to change your ways. Working at home gives you a great deal of flexibility and freedom, but its still a job in which someone is paying you to provide quality work to your best ability.

Telecommuting has been the perfect solution to balancing work and family for me; however, it does have its challenges. Not everyone is suited to dealing with the lack of structure and routine that comes with working at home. Before you take the leap into telecommuting, make sure you have what it takes to succeed.

Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Leslie Truex is a work-at-home consultant and owner of Work-At-Home Success. Get her Jobs Online Toolkit free with a subscription to her work at home jobs and news newsletter, which is also free. Subscribe here http://www.workathomesuccess.com

By: Nell Taliercio

The two jobs that come to mind first when people think of telecommuting quite often are transcription and data entry. There are a few similarities between the jobs:

• Good typing speed (60 WPM or better)
• Accurate typing
• Reliable computer
• Reliable internet connection (probably high speed)

Despite the similarities, the jobs themselves are quite different.

Transcription jobs require a bit more training, especially if transcribing from a recording. Medical and legal transcriptions are much more specialized. It may also require the purchase of a 4-track transcriber. A good vocabulary and grammar skills are also important. The pay rates for transcription are usually based on a per-line rate, ranging from $ 0.06 to $ 0.12.

Transcriptionists quite often get regular work with more than one company, on a freelance basis. But, there are times when people can get a full-time position, with benefits with one company. If you already have a position doing transcription in-office, it might be worth asking your employer to consider telecommuting.

Data entry jobs are less specialized, but can be equally challenging. You need to be very accurate in your typing, not only with the standard keyboard, but also with the ten key. Data entry jobs may pay an average of $8 an hour, to start. There is quite a bit of competition for the data entry.

After you decide which job is right for you, you need to decide if you want to approach it as a job, or as a business owner, offering your services to companies on a freelance basis. Both approaches have their pros and cons.

If you run your own business, you have the freedom to pick and chose your jobs, set your own schedule and vacation times. But, you also have to keep track of your income and expenditures for taxes. If you work as an employee, it saves you doing all the extra paperwork involved in running your own business.
Either way, you need to act as professionally as possible, to keep a good working relationship with the companies you deal with on a daily basis.

Article By:

Nell Taliercio, the Telecommuting Answer Lady, owns www.telecommutingmoms.com where you can locate legitimate work at home jobs and practical advice to start your work at home career tomorrow!

By: Diane Fusco

With the rise in both the popularity of voice recognition (VR) software as well as outsourcing of transcription work overseas, the professional forecast can seem a bit gloomy for the average work-from-home medical transcriptionist these days. As a veteran MT with eighteen years experience, I can tell you that I have, indeed, lost accounts to VR. I can only wonder if any of the clients I couldn’t hold onto were lured by outsourcing. However, I would hardly conclude that the MT’s days are numbered. In fact, I believe that with a little fine-tuning of one’s personal and professional goals, today’s transcriptionist can be just as busy and successful as ever.

Change Your Mindset
Anyone who works in an industry that is undergoing rapid change is likely to feel anxious. Many times this worry comes from having a scarcity mentality—thinking that there simply isn’t enough work to go around. Common bothersome thoughts may include:
• The fear that one’s job may become obsolete
• Concern that someone younger and less experienced may take one’s job away
• Not daring to raise one’s fees when other options for clients might exist that appear more affordable to them

These thoughts may lead an experienced transcriptionist to take on a client at a much lower rate than is reasonable given her level of skill. And all this stems from doubts about her value in the current marketplace. Well, I’m here to tell you that medical transcriptionists are still very much needed. The US Department of Labor estimated that 105,000 MT’s were working in 2004. To some, that might appear to be a lot. But if you think about how many Americans have medical records,105,000 seems like a measly number of workers to be typing all those reports! I believe we don’t have enough medical transcriptionists. So I suggest that MT’s make a major switch in mindset from scarcity to plenty.

Persistence Pays Off

Because most transcription seems to be accessed through the platform of downloading audio files swiftly via the computer, it almost seems laughable that a doctor might still dictate into a tape recorder and that the MT would use a desktop transcriber as well as—gasp!—cassette tapes in order to carry out the work. Believe me, this scenario still plays out. And it is one of the more profitable accounts an MT can get, in fact. A physician who just “doesn’t trust” what to him or her might be the new technology of voice recognition may very well feel more comfortable dictating reports the way he or she has always done.

I believe these are the best accounts to acquire and I happen to know that physicians do exist who dictate onto cassette tapes! Recently, the Medical Records department of a local hospital offered an excellent rate for transcription of their tapes, which were done as a back-up to the more sophisticated equipment they were using. Yes, jobs like this might include pick-up-and-delivery of the reports, but that is something that an MT can factor into the price as it is a service that few will offer.

My advice? Query the Medical Records department of regional hospitals as well as individual physicians and see if they are interested in your services. This is where it is essential to have a superbly-written sales letter as well as excellent people skills when you meet the department director or physician. Persistence will pay off when you dedicate yourself to landing these types of accounts.

A Goldmine of Transcription

Sometimes MT’s seem to forget all about general transcription. GT, as it’s called, definitely has its advantages. Every industry has its own lingo and terminology. However, in my opinion, nothing is as difficult to learn as medicalese. And while just about every medical report seems to be a stat report, folks who transcribe more general reports routinely ask for higher rates when the required turnaround deems that a job is a “rush.” The relaxed turnaround seems to give the transcriptionist more room to breathe, and personally, I find this type of work to be less stressful.

I am saving the best news for last: with the popularity of teleseminars, Webinars and podcasts, it seems like just about everyone has some audio that needs to be transcribed. In the last six months I’ve had more requests to type general than medical audio. These clients just find me. But do you want to know where to get clients who are in a field that uses a lot of transcription? Coaching! That’s right—personal and business coaches do their fair share of teleseminars and each of these needs a transcript. And with coaching deemed one of the hottest professions of the next ten years, that’s indeed good news for transcriptionists.

Article By: 

Diane Fusco is a veteran MT with 18 years of experience. She has a free-spirited approach to a changing medical transcription industry. Please visit her blog at thrivingandtranscribing.com.