Possibilities

• Whether you consider Internet jobs or simply work at home positions, online work is a liberating experience. The ability to work solely from your home while still earning an income is a dream for some but a reality for others. The career paths are endless. Many options include, captioning, transcribing, article writing, blogging, graphic artistry and customer service via email, chat or over the phone. There are an alarming amount of people finding the ease of telecommuting more and more attractive.
  
  

Introduction to Working at Home

• Equally as alarming, is the dire need for online employees. One very affluent virtual call center that is currently seeking telecommuters is, LiveOps. LiveOps provides a pay per use type service for companies that want the luxury of well trained and capable agents, but not necessarily the hourly expense. LiveOps charges a flat fee for the use of their live agents. From this fee, agents are paid by the minute leaving a substantial profit to be made by Live Ops. Live Ops hires telecommuters for a range of tasks from taking inbound sales and customer service calls to licensed insurance agents. As an agent for a company like LiveOps, as well as with many Internet jobs, you are considered an independent contractor.
  
  

Employee Versus. Independent Contractor

• Hiring an individual as an independent contractor is a consistent trend with Internet jobs. This can be a blessing and a curse. As an independent contractor, you are not privy to benefits, such as 401k, health insurance, flexible spending accounts and profit sharing. This may sound unfortunate to some but as an independent contractor you are bound only by the terms in your contract. The employer cannot control the manner in which you complete your job, only the outcome of your work. This gives the freedom that many seek when searching for freelance and other work at home opportunities.
  
  

Resources and Assistance

• Fortunate for those seeking a work from home experience, LiveOps is not the only work at home company seeking telecommuters. Common resources for finding work at home are job sites like Monster, Careerbuilder and Craigslist. Sites not as commonly known, are work at home message boards like Work at Home Mom, Virtual Vocations, Work Place Like Home, Rat Race Rebellion and Work at Home Mafia. These sites provide support and guidance when searching for that perfect career from home. They also serve as excellent resources when researching companies' legitimacy.
  
  

Scam Prevention

• When working from home you find there are a number of disparaging advertisements with promises of grandeur. Key points to watch out for, are jobs that promise large amounts of money. Working in a brick and mortar facility, the pay scale for the same job working from home is typically less than or the equivalent of the pay in which you are accustomed. No one makes $1,000 in a day and no one pays you $35 an hour for data entry. Take note that there are websites designed to assist with information on companies that seem suspicious.