Telecommuting is awesome! You can work in PJs ,grab a snack from your own fridge whenever you want, and even, in many cases, make your own schedule. But true telecommuting isn’t the same as working at home as a business owner or in a freelance writing position. As a telecommuter, you still have to answer to a boss and many telecommuters go into an office at least a few times a month.

Still, telecommuting means that you don’t have that ugly rush hour commute, and it’s an optimal choice for parents. How can you convince your boss that telecommuting is a great choice for you?

• Do a good job in your office position.

If you need constant hand-holding or just scrape by doing the minimal amount of work, your boss isn’t going to be chomping at the bit to put you in a telecommute position. In fact, right now, when the job market is so overflowing with candidates, you might find yourself looking for a new job if you aren’t putting forth your best effort in the office! Get to work on time every day (and that means be at you desk and ready to go, not in the break room getting coffee for 15 minutes). Be a team player. Finish your projects ahead of schedule and on budget. Volunteer for projects and assignments no one wants to do. If you do a great job in the office, your boss will be more likely to consider you for a telecommute position.

• Educate your boss.

Older bosses and more traditional bosses are adverse to the idea of telecommuting. When you propose this idea, be prepared to gently educate them. Talk about the benefits to the company, not the reasons why it is better for you to telecommute. For example, if you work at home, will you provide your own computer, making it unnecessary for the company to purchase upgraded machines? Or if you work at home will you be less inclined to take sick days? Do your research and if possible, find case studies of other companies in your industry where workers are telecommuting successfully.

• Start slow.

Going from 40+ hours per week in the office to full-time telecommuting might be a struggle for your boss. Instead, propose a six-month trial period where you work two or three days from home and come to the office other days. That way, if it isn’t working out in your boss’ opinion, you can revert back to working full-time from the office. Be prepared to work hard so you’re allowed to continue working from home when the trial period is over!

Recently, professional blogger Darren Rowse posted a chart on Google+ outlining the several different ways bloggers can make money online. Blogging is one type of freelance writing that is growing rapidly, so if you want to work in this industry, blogging a great option. Let’s go into a little more detail about the ways Rowse notes you can earn money in this type of career:

• Services

I personally have found that using a blog to promote services is one of the best ways to make money online. You can make money as a coach, speaker, consultant, and more based on the topic, or niche, of your blog. For example, want to work as a videographer? Start a blog about how to create videos with lots of tips and have a page on your site specifically for people to hire you to create their videos.

• Advertising

Advertising comes in many forms, but the premise is pretty simple – you’re selling real estate on your blog so companies can promote their products or services. You can work with advertisers through a network or email people directly, but in both cases, it takes some time to build up traffic before you’re attractive to advertisers. However, you can get started with a CPC (Cost Per Click) program right away. With CPC, you’re paid a very small amount whenever someone clicks on the ad.

• Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing allows you to promote specific products or services. You’re paid a commission based on how much you sell. Many large companies, like Amazon, have their own affiliate programs, and you can also join networks like Share-a-Sale or Clickbank, which give you access to several affiliate product programs at once.

• Selling/Flipping Blogs

If you’re experienced working online, you can create blogs or take over failing blogs, build up traffic, and then sell. It’s almost like working in real estate as a house flipper – you basically buy something that’s low-value and do as little work as possible to be able to sell it for much more than you paid for it. This is a challenging way to make money as a blogger, but some people have become extremely good at blog flipping, so you can certainly be successful on this career path as well.

• Continuity Programs

With a continuity program, people pay a weekly or monthly fee to access specific content on your blog. This could be videos, a forum for members, coaching sessions, premium blog posts, and more. You can use special programs in conjunction with your blog to renew their membership every month until they cancel.

• Products

Many bloggers sell products. You can produce physical products like books or t-shirts, but to get started for little to no out-of-pocket cost, think instead about producing virtual products such as email courses, ebooks, or software. You can also make it possible for other bloggers to become affiliates for your product, where you’ll pay them a commission to sell your products.

• Other Indirect Methods

Lastly, there are other indirect methods allowing you to make money working as a blogger. For example, having a blog online can actually help you find a full-time job! When you blog about a specific topic relating to your desired career, you’re showing potential employers that you really know your stuff, so they’ll be more likely to hire you. Think of it as a huge portfolio you can use to support your resume.

Working abroad can be a great option, especially if you’re having a hard time finding a job in your home country. However, there are both pros and cons to working abroad – getting an international job isn’t for everyone. If this option interests you, but you want to stay in the United States (or your home country, whatever that may be), why not instead consider a virtual job? Virtual jobs allow you to work from home or from a local office, but you’ll work with clients or customers from around the work.

Let’s take a look at some of the virtual job options you have if you want to work in a global position without leaving your country of origin:

Working as a Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants are like administrative assistants, but you’ll work purely through phone and email, performing tasks such as checking and answering emails, updating spreadsheets, building websites, and scheduling meetings. Virtual assistants can work for a single client or they can work part-time for multiple clients. In this career, being a self-starter is a must, and you must also be extremely organized. Keep in mind that if you work with international clients, you’ll be dealing with people from lots of different time zones, so this is a good options for those who want to work a traditional 9-to-5 job, but don’t necessarily want to work between the hours of 9 and 5.

Working as a Writer

Freelance writers don’t necessarily need to live and work in the same location as their clients. If you’re interested in working as a writer, it helps to specialize in one kind of writing, such as blogging, search engine optimization writing, or ebook writing. You can also pick a specific niche, such as parenting or technology, as a way to specialize your services as a writer. One of the best things about being a freelance writer is that you can make your own schedule, which allows you to have flexibility to also care for a family or enjoy a social life, but you also must be extremely disciplined, making sure to set aside enough time to work during the day.

Working as a Social Media Consultant

Social media consultants work with businesses to leverage their social media marketing. You could help with anything from gaining a following on Facebook to using Twitter correctly to reach more customers to uploading how-to videos on YouTube. Social media is a n extremely important part of the marketing campaign for most businesses, and great social media efforts are also imperative for quality customer service. Social media is global, so it doesn’t matter where you live to work in this field.

Working as a Teacher

If you love to teach but don’t necessarily want to work as an international ESL teacher or religious teacher/missionary, you can still tutor students from around the world as an online tutor or online school teacher. Working at an online school is not much different from working with students face-to-face, though there are some specific challenges depending on the subject you teach. Typically, at an online school, you’ll have a smaller class size, which allows you to do more one-on-one work with each student, and one of the biggest advantages is that you won’t have to manage a classroom if you work online.

Working in Online Banking

Online banking is an industry that is growing every year, with more and more people seeing the advantages of monitoring their accounts online and paying bills through paperless bill. Working for an online bank is more of a traditional office environment – few online bank employees work from home like freelance writers or online teachers. However, instead of helping bank customers in a face-to-face situation, you will be responding to problems or requests via email and phone. Online banks are often international, so it could benefit you to know at least one foreign language if you want to work for one.

In attempts to leave the traditional workplace, many people are turning to blogging to making a living writing about topics they enjoy.

Every day, however, more and more blogs crowd the Internet, and even if you’re an awesome writer with great content to share, you’ll probably have a lot of competition no matter what topic you’re blogging about. One of the ways to cut through that competition is to offer not just blog posts but also podcasts. The number of podcasts about any give topic is much, much lower than the number of blogs about the same topic. This is a unique way to work from home if you’re sick of the office life.

Podcasting is basically hosting a talk radio show online. You can choose whatever format works for your niche, from short ten-minute podcasts to much longer shows that last over an hour. Many podcasts have two or three hosts, but you could also do a podcast solo. Podcasts can include music, special gusts for interviews, and more. After you record your podcast, you can upload it directly to your website, as well as put it on iTunes and podcast aggregation sites for people to download.

The main way you can make money with advertising is through selling advertising packages, so this job requires you to be a bit of a salesperson. You can sell banner adds on the site where you host your podcast, and you can also sell timeslots for advertising within your podcast. Some podcasts read advertisements during the show, while others have set chunks of time that advertisers can fill with whatever they want.

Keep in mind that like blogging, podcasting is not a get-rich-quick scheme. While it does allow you to work from home, it takes most podcasts several months to gain enough readership to attract advertisers. Do your research before you start podcast – know what is already out there in your niche, invest in the best tools for recording your podcast, learn how to edit your podcast properly, and learn about ways to build an audience and reach out to those listeners.

Do you have a podcast? Has it provided an income allowing you to work from home? Tell us about your experiences with a comment!

On a jammed highway with a rip in your stocking and a coffee stain down your blouse, working at home becomes undeniably attractive.

  Instead of catching the 6AM train you can wake up when you choose.

While others are picking out uncomfortable professional suits, your yoga pants are more than adequate for your office on your couch.  You also have the flexibility to watch your kids when you need to, explore creative outlets, and take on other side projects.

Yet others might find being their own boss a lot more difficult than they imagined.  It takes a lot of self motivation, and an ability to tune out all other distractions.  Here are some pros and cons to consider.

PROS of Working at Home

Making Your Own Hours — For most of us, there’s a lot more going on in our lives than one job.  A lot of us need the flexible hours to work around our family.  Others might be trying to launch their own business, or still be enrolled in school, where a typical 9 – 5  just isn’t feasible.

No Commute — Aside from the walk from your bedroom to your laptop, you’ve just eliminated all travel time.  The hours you get back that might have been whittled away on an early train or highway rush hour are a real treat.  After-all, you can’t put a price on time.

Save Financially — Why pay for another office space, office supplies, electric and utility bills when you are already paying for your house?  The gas prices to travel to another office are on their own astronomical.  Let the money you save on gas and office space go back into your profits.

CONS to Working at Home

No Set Paycheck — In a regular office, you can rely on receiving the same regular paycheck even if you’re out sick or on vacation on some island.  When you work from home you don’t have that option to not work and still get paid.  Your paycheck is fully dependent on you.  You are paid for what you produce, so if there’s nothing to show you receive nothing in return.

Distractions — Yeah it’s great to not have a boss reading over your shoulder or breathing down your neck, but at home there are many other elements that are hard to ignore.  No one is watching if you take personal phone calls, or step out to run household errands.  The temptation to kick your slippered feet up and turn on the television is also a lot higher.  All these distractions and interruptions add up.

Always in the Office — The good part about your office being away from home is at the end of the day you get to leave work.  Otherwise your home is tainted with the knowledge that any moment is a potential moment for you to do some work.

Social Isolation — As human beings we need to see and interact with people.  True there are those annoying co-workers and ridiculously long and boring meetings, but at least it’s better company than yourself. Plus it’s nice to share the pain of working with others around you doing the same.

A lot of these setbacks can be avoided if you push yourself to leave the house.  Whether it’s a library, or a cozy little café with WIFI, try and set up your office in a place removed from the distractions and isolation of your house.

Whether it’s because of the economy or just because you are looking for new challenges, reentering the work force after several months or years at home with your children can present a lot of challenges.

How do you appeal to employers who want candidates with up-to-date skills and fresh experience? Can you compete with other candidates who just graduated from college and have all the latest research at their fingertips?

Believe it or not, the answer is Yes! Even after 10 years out of the workforce, you can jump back in as long as you know how to package yourself and your experiences. Here are some things to consider:

1. Networking is key. How often do we talk about networking on this blog? Constantly, right?! And we’re always saying how important it is and that something like 60 percent or more of the jobs out there aren’t even advertised. Well, as important as word of mouth is to the average job seeker, it’s even more important to stay-at-home parents looking to reenter the work force. These job networking connections may well make the difference for you between a first response of “too old, out of the loop” and a reaction of “you know what? let’s take a second look”. Dust off your rolodex and start calling people. Contact old employers and colleagues, but also take a look at the carpool pickup lane – who do you know now that might be of assistance to you as you build your future?

2. Volunteer Your Time

Another great way to expand your work-free resume and develop more networking contacts (see #1) is to volunteer your time at a local or national non-profit organization. When you work for a nonprofit, you will be able to strengthen your leadership, organization, administrative, fundraising, management and other types of work-related skills within a professional environment.

3. Make a Functional Resume

Consider seven things you have accomplished in your adult life. Write a short paragraph about what you did in each scenario. Then translate each of these paragraph into a list of action verbs. From among those lists, you will sense a number of themes – leadership, organization, personnel management, interpersonal communication, etc. A functional resume uses those themes as the organizing principles. After your name and contact information, make a list of each of those qualities, with one line of description about how you define that quality. Under each quality, make a bulleted list of experiences through which you developed those skills.

For more information on how to develop your functional resume, read the quintessential career guide, What Color Is Your Parachute.

4. Consider Working From Home

Whether as a way to build up your resume for your “real job” or as the real job itself, working from home as a freelancer is a great way to transition back into the work force. If you have writing skills, you can work as a freelance writer or blogger. If you are crafty, you can sell your works on etsy. If you are a bargain shopper, you can leverage your good deals by reselling on eBay. If you have great typing skills, you can work in transcriptions or medical records. Find out more about work from home jobs here.

Have you made the transition from being a stay-at-home parent to working a full time job? What tips and advice do you have to share? Post in the comments section!

With the rise in social media popularity, companies across the country are beginning to realize the benefits of having an employee to serve as a community manager. Some companies hire community managers on a telecommute part-time basis, so this could be way for you to work at home. Other companies have their community managers report to there public relations department, so you’d be working in a full-time job.

Still other companies hire multiple community managers to represent their different products. For example, a you can find a video game job working as a community manager for a specific game, while other community managers work with other games the company has developed.

What does a community manager do? Every company is different, but in most positions, you’ll job will be be almost exclusively online work. Your responsibilities could include connecting with fans online through Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social networking services, developing an email list to you can market your company directly to people who’ve signed up, running a company blog and replying to comments, addressing fan complaints via email, moderating a community forum, and more.

Basically, your job is to help people who use your company’s products or services feel like they’re part of an entire community of like-minded people. This fosters brand loyalty, as well as helps companies promote their products to new consumers.

So how can you get a community manager position?

• Get a degree in communications, public relations, business, writing, marketing, or a related topic area.
• Volunteer as a community manager for a non-profit in your area. This gives you valuable experience to help you get hired in a real job in this field.
• Create personal social networking accounts and keep them updated regularly.
• Start your own blog.
• Gain experience in related positions. If you can’t find a community manager job, work in another position that requires people skills, such as customer service.
• Attend industry events like the upcoming BlogWorld Expo and Social Media Summit in Las Vegas.

You can also directly contact companies that don’t have a social media presence to offer your services. Some companies don’t realize the benefit to community management through online real estate until someone shows them the benefits.

We’ve all seen the pop-up ads.

Work from Home. Earn $5,000 or more for less than 2 hours of work a week. I did it, so you can you!

or some variation on that theme.

It sounds too good to be true, so you wisely stay away. But that pop up is far from the only work at home scam. In fact, the Internet, Craigslist and even the newspaper classifieds are rife with scams for people seeking work at home opportunities.

If you’re looking for a work from home job, it’s critical that you have the savvy skills to avoid getting taken by a work from home scam.

Here are three signs that should set off warning bells for you:

(1) The ad doesn’t give complete information

If you start reading an ad for a work from home job and there is no contact information, no salary information, or not even a job description, look very carefully before you eagerly send off your resume. Many scams are phishing schemes designed to get you to give them your email address and other personal information.

* Tip: One way to protect your primary email address even if you have been scammed is to set up a separate email account and use it only for job applications.

(2) The ad makes grandiose claims of salary potential

Does earning six figures with no degree or experience sound very likely to you? Sure, it can and does happen, but from an ad you see on the Internet? Be especially suspicious of an ad that promises to pay you top dollars for minimal hours of work. Again, it might happen that someone becomes a millionaire by only working a few hours per week but it ain’t likely!

(3) The ad asks for money

This is as sure a sign as any the job is not legitimate. You should never have to pay for work, and certainly not to apply for work.

Have you ever fallen for an online work from home scam? What tips do you have to share with our readers?

If you’re hunting for a job, you’re probably already using the JobMonkey job database and other job search websites to look for opportunities.

What you may not know is that sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can drastically help increase your success rate when applying to positions in your field. If you aren’t participating in social networking sites yet, you’re missing out! This untapped resource could be the key to your next job, no matter what your industry.

First, it is important to understand how not to use social networking sites if you’re job hunting. We all love funny pictures, for example, but a public profile is not the right place to post photographs from your party days in college, no matter how professional you are today. You should also keep it private when you’re being considered for a job. Employers may questions you ability to uphold a confidentiality agreement or keep trade secrets under wraps if you start tweeting about the position as soon as someone responses to your resume or offers you an interview.

What you should be doing on social networking sites is building your community of friends and followers so you can all help one another. If you have 1,000 friends and leave a message that you’re looking for a job in your respective industry, chances are that at least one person will see that message and be able to help you, either directly or by connecting you to one of their other friends who works in your field.

You can also ask for help in the form of recommendations if you’re using social networking sites to help you hunt for jobs. LinkedIn is a great resource to help you connect with previous bosses and coworkers, even if you’ve lost touch otherwise. Many past employers are happy to serve as references or write letters of recommendation, and some may even offer you advance positions that have opened since you left the company.

If you enjoy social networking, you can even pursue this as a work from home job opportunity. Many companies want to have social network presences, so they’re looking for people who have experience in their social networking sites of choice. This is a great job choice for someone interested in working with people on a flexible schedule.

ABC had a great story earlier this week with a number of legitimate work from home opportunities. The story covers everything from blogging to selling jewelery online.

It’s a great and quick read for anyone dreaming about working from home.

If you are seriously considering starting your own home-based business, here are five suggestions for ensuring your success:

(1) Pick something you’re passionate about

Just because your neighbor’s cousin told you how he earns $2,000 a month selling greeting cards online doesn’t mean that’s what you should do. Money is an important part of the equation, but it shouldn’t be your first consideration. If you follow your passion and find a way to translate that into a viable business model, you will dramatically increase your chances of long-term success.

(2) Do your due diligence

A few quick Google searches will undoubtedly net you a bevy of information about the online business you are considering going in to. Learn as much as you can about marketing, profit ratio and hidden costs. The more you know before you launch your business, the better you will be positioned to avoid the pitfalls of those who have gone before you.

(3) Stick to a schedule

Whether your new home-based business venture is your full-time job or an additional income stream you work on in your spare time, it’s important to treat the venture as a job. Set a schedule for yourself and stick to it. If that means working for two hours early in the morning or grabbing a couple of hours at the end of the day, find a way to work without distraction during your allotted time frame.

(4) Don’t go into debt to start your business

Did you know that more than 75% of all new business ventures fail? I don’t tell you this to scare you, but rather to drive home the importance of taking a conservative approach to your new venture.

If you pay as you go, and work to ensure that your business model is viable, you will avoid the #1 cause of failure: excessive debt.

(5) Work your network

Most small, home-based ventures rely on word of mouth for their initial marketing. Now is not the time to be shy. Put a link to your website in your email signature. Print up business cards with the venture’s name, phone number and URL — and then be sure to hand them out to everyone you know. Consider submitting a press release to your local newspaper, especially if your company is targeting people in your own community.

Have you launched your own small business from home? What tips do you have to share with our readers to help ensure their success as home-based entrepreneurs?