Did you know that on any given day, there are tens of thousands of work-at-home jobs available for you to apply to? With so many jobs out there, why do people have such a difficult time finding and getting hired to a work-at-home job?
My theory is that most people don’t really understand work-at-home jobs, so they end up looking for the wrong types of work in the wrong places. If you’re interested in knowing my five steps for zeroing in to finding work-at-home jobs and getting hired, you’re going to wanna watch this video.
Edited Transcript:
Here are my five steps to finding and getting hired to a work-at-home job.
When I talk about a work-at-home job, I am talking about employment. I know that when I look at content, other websites, or other YouTube videos that talk about work-at-home jobs, a lot of times they use the term “job” fairly loosely to mean just about anything you can do to make money from home. While there are a lot of fantastic ways to earn an income from home, in my mind, a job is employment. So I am going to be very specific in that I am talking about companies that are hiring people for a steady regular job, and that they pay a wage or a salary for that work.
Step One: Know What You Have to Offer an Employer
The first step is to understand what it is you have to offer an employer. That means, what skills, what talents, what experiences do you have that an employer is going to pay you to do? If you went to find work in the traditional work world, a lot of times, the first thing you’d start thinking about is, “what jobs can I do?” But for some reason, when people look for work-at-home jobs, they start to do a search to find things that they can just sign up to do from home. But you need to treat your work-at-home job search the same way you would treat a job search outside the home. That starts with, what are your skills and experiences and your talents that you can bring to an employee?
I always suggest making a list. What are all the jobs that you had and the tasks and duties that were involved in doing that job, and the skills you learned in doing it? Maybe they’re specific software you learned or different systems that you learned.
Also, you want to make note of any volunteer work or hobbies that you have been involved in that also involve the skills or experiences that could be helpful to an employer. Certainly any of your education, training, certifications, you’re going to want to make a list of as well. Because chances are, this is where your work-at-home job is going to be focused in.
I do hear from people a lot who say to me, “I don’t have a lot of work experience,” or “I don’t have a lot of education, can I still get a work-at-home job?” And the answer is, yes. Today, there are many entry-level work-at-home jobs out there that do not require vast amounts of education or experience and training. In fact, I did a video on work-at-home jobs that don’t require a lot of experience that you can watch it when you’re done with this video and learn more about the opportunities available for people who just may not have a lot of experience or skills behind them.
Step Two: What Employers Are Hiring For Work You Can Do?
The second thing you need to do, is you need to figure out, “Okay, what employers out there are hiring for the types of work that I can do?” That involves a job search. The topic of job search is pretty big, but I do want to make sure that I highlight that you shouldn’t just go to Google and type “work-at-home job.” If you use the term “job,” Google is feeding job results that it’s curating off a variety of job sites. That is not bad; however, by using Google to find a job, you’re also more at risk to find items that are not jobs or even scams. So to avoid that, the best place to look for jobs are where jobs are listed. There’s a variety of places to go, which includes job websites, like CareerBuilder or Monster.com. Places like Indeed and ZipRecruiter, not only have jobs listed there but also often curate jobs from other sites. So they have a very large database.
When you use these options, which are free to search, you do need to understand what work-at-home jobs are and aren’t, so that you can weed out the things that might not be jobs. Sometimes things get listed there that are mad money-makers, like surveys, and some of them are business opportunities and not really jobs. So you do have to understand what a job is, versus what’s not a job.
Other places you can look for work-at-home jobs include sites, like Work-At-Home Success‘ free job board. Plus I email jobs out to subscribers every week, so sign up for the WAHS list.
There are also some telecommuting databases that you can access. These are not free and while you never wanna pay money to get hired to a work-at-home job, it is acceptable to pay money towards things that can help you find or get a job. Accessing a telecommuting database, like FlexJobs, for example, is a way to do that. FlexJobs has already screened the jobs, they have information about the companies that are listed there, they have lots of tips and tools to help you get the resume that will get you noticed. So it is a good investment if you’re very serious about finding a work-at-home job.
Step Three: Make Your Resume Stand Out from the Crowd
The reality is, finding jobs is really easy. Once you figure out where they are and how to use the various keywords to pull up the work-at-home jobs, you’re going to find the jobs easily. The challenge is getting hired to them. So how do you do that? This is another big topic, but the fast and easy tip is that for every resume you send in, for every application you submit, you want to tailor them to fit the job. That means you need to match the skills and experience you have to what the job description says they’re looking for. So if they’re saying they are looking for somebody who types 50 words a minute, and you type 50 words a minute, you want to be sure your resume or application says that.
You never wanna lie or embellish, but the closer you can match your skills and experience to what the job description says it wants, the better your chances are that you are going to get noticed by the hiring person now. So don’t just send in some generic resume. Don’t be sending in the same thing to every job that you’re applying to. Take the time to go through, read the job description, and then match your own skills and experience and highlight those that the job says that they want or need. 
Step Four: Be Prepared for an Interview
Not all jobs require interviews, but enough do that you should be prepared to get on the phone or through maybe voice-over-internet, something like Skype or Zoom, to have an interview. It isn’t necessarily a video interview, although it could be.
You need to be prepared for the common questions that you might be asked, such as, “Why do you want this job?” “What sorts of skills or talents do you bring to this job?” “Why did you leave your last job?” You also want to be prepared to answer questions about working at home, such as, “What is your work-at-home environment?” “What is your schedule like?” “Do you have time to dedicate that is free from distraction?” So if you have children or animals or something else going on that could distract you, have something in place to help prevent that?
The other thing about interviews is just like in your resume, you’re going to want to be prepared to answer questions that highlight your skills and experience toward what the employer said they wanted in their job announcement. So every time that you can fit into what they said they wanted, you’re going to stand out. Design your answer to fit with the company’s needs.
Step Five: Don’t Quit
The reality is, it can take a long time to find a work-at-home job, and it can be a frustrating process because half the time, maybe even 80% of the time, you’re not going to hear back from these employers. You’re going submit something and never hear anything or it might take months. I once had an employer get back with me a year after I submitted my application. So it is a long, frustrating, often discouraging process.
But, if you quit, you won’t get a work-at-home job. If you can continue to search and apply, search and apply, you’re going to increase your chances of getting hired to a work-at-home job. So my tip to you is to not quit.
If you are finding over time that you’re not getting a response or things just aren’t working out, you can tweak what it is you’re doing to improve your odds of getting hired.
Work At Home Success has tons of content on remote jobs, including information on specific job types and a free job board. Check below for more great work-at-home content to help you find or create a home-based career of your dreams.
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