Mirror Mirror on the web

With more and more companies offering work from home positions, be careful what you post or the pictures you put on your public profile pages. Like myspace or facebook. I have a friend who was interviewing with a very popular company that was just starting to offer work from home positions. She went through two interviews and was top pick for the position. Well guess what? One of the companies policies was to google the applicants names and to view their myspace pages. She had recently gotten married and had pictures of her bachlorette party. Honestly I am not sure exactly what the pictures and comments were but it was enough for the company not to hire her. The reason they told her was, "We do not want someone that would publicly post risky pictures like that representing our company" Now I am not saying that was right or wrong, I am just saying that companies are starting to do that. Honestly I have never even thought of it. Has this happened to anyone you know or to you? Please feel free to share your experience or to post you comments. I would love to hear from you.

Companies are hiring

Even with the economy like it is, work from home companies are hiring. I personally received replies today from two companies I recently submitted my resume too. So if you are thinking that now may not be the best time to start looking for telecommuting jobs, you could very well be wrong. I also saw on a popular work from home message board, that several people are getting replies to resumes they have sent to companies. You know the old saying "nothing ventured nothing gained" that saying is still true today. So update your resume and start submitting it. Just remember when applying, do not submit any of your personal information, like address until you are certain the company is legit. Always remember never pay for a job.

Boy somedays working from home is challenging.

Some days working from home can be difficult. Today is my daughters 16th birthday. So my day started off with getting everyone to school. Then home to work for a few hours. The job I do is very busy these days and believe me I am not complaining. One thing with working from home you have to learn to prioritize your time. You have to treat you work from home job as just that, a job. When I first started working from home, I had several friends and family thought I could run errands for them because I was at home. I had to learn very quickly that just because I work from my home office, I was not available to run everyone's errands and to keep their kids when they were sick.

So tonight we went out for dinner for my daughter's birthday. Oh I can not believe she is 16. Where did the time go? She is so happy and has the world by the horns. Oh to be 16 again. In our state (NC) the drivers license is restricted to only driving between 6am-9pm. I am so grateful for this law. At least she can not be out late driving around. I am always interested in different state laws. What are the driving laws like in your state? Please feel free to share. I bet every state is different. Oh happy days in the life of a mother of a teenage daughter.

Different types of work from home jobs

There are several different types of work from home jobs. If you can do phone work, those are usually the easiest to get hired with. Some good companies that offer work from home are:

1-800-FLOWERS
ACD Direct
Alpine Access
Answer 1 Communications
ARO
Blue Zebra
Connect2Agent
Customer Loyal Concepts
Grindstone
Jet Blue Airways
LiveOps
National Telecommuting Institute
New
Parameds
Service 800
Talk2Rep
Team Double-Click
VIPdesk

Several of these companies are hiring so it is worth submitting your resume. I have also learned that being diligent does pay off. Like I mentioned before if you can get two or three part time work from home jobs that would be great. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

If you are thinking of working from home

If you are thinking about working from home. The best advise I could give you is, do your research. There are legit companies that do hire and pay on time. Unfortunately there are also scams too. The reason I started this blog was to help as many people as possible to be able to work from home. I truly believe in paying it forward. I am working on adding a list of telecommuting companies that I know are legit on to this blog. I plan to have that on here by next week. I have found some of my work from home jobs by searching on www.craigslist.org. Again do your research. There are a lot of scams on there but there are some that really are good places to work. One thing to always remember is, NEVER pay for a job. If you receive an email saying they need money for training materials, thats a scam. The first company I worked from was www.liveops.com. Check out their website with any questions you have about what they do. They do require money for a back ground check, but they are legit. I have several friends that work for them. It is phone work but it is a job.

In my three years of working from home I have wore several hats. I have texted, telemarketing, customer service and writing. The company I am with now, I have been with for going on two years. I still search for other jobs. It is never good to put all your "eggs" in one basket.

The important questions to ask yourself is. How much do you need to make? Will your home be quite enough to do phone work? Can you get a dedicated phone line installed? (if needed) You will need to let everyone know that you are "working" from home. And treat it as a job. Look for the legit list of companies that hire work from home on this blog. If anyone has any questions, concerns, etc please let me know. I want to help!!

My journey to work at home

I have worked from home for over three years now. Even though it has not been easy and some days in the past I have worried about having to go back to the "brick and mortar" jobs. I still consider myself very blessed to be able to work from home. My journey started when we moved to a new house in a new town not far from where I was raised. We met some of our new neighbors. Like normal conversation everyone was asking where we worked. At the time I was working 3rd shift for a well known battery company. Making good money, excellent benefits, you know the phrase. But honestly not happy. I hated kissing my children good night and having to go to work. Most nights my son cried when I left. Anyway, my new neighbor worked from home. Up until this time, I honestly had never meet anyone that actually made money working from home. So as you can guess I was all "ears". She went on to tell me the company that she worked for. She explained the job and the pay. I remember being absolutely stunned. I had never in my wildest dreams thought that I could honestly do that. She told me about a wonderful website for work at home moms. www.wahm.com. I talked to my husband about wanting to try to find a job. Of course starting out part time in addition to my "outside" job. I researched so many companies and educated myself what was a real job and what were scams. Three years later I am working full time from home and loving it. Now I will say it has not been easy and I have hit some brick walls along the way but would I go back and change it? No way.