When I first made the decision (after many heart-to-heart talks with my husband and best friend) to become a work-at-home mom and quit the office job that was making me so miserable, I admit to feeling initially lost. I was unsure about how to take the next step, and even with my severance pay and the savings we managed to accumulate between us, I was embarrassed about the possibility of relying on my husband for support during the time that I was “afloat” and unemployed. But I knew deep down that I made the right decision for me and my family, and it was just a matter of time and finding the right break to make me feel fulfilled, career-wise.
Fast-forward to today, and I’m happy to report that my freelance career has taken off (though not exactly thriving...yet). I may have been apprehensive in the beginning, thinking that it will take some time for me to get a legit home-based job, but friends helped me out by introducing me to a number of companies that actively and regularly seek out and hire home-based workers like you and me. I was actually quite surprised by the sheer volume of employers that hire remote staff, and I’m glad to share them with you in case you’re also looking for a home-based gig.
Customer or tech support/call center jobs
A lot of my friends who have home-based jobs actually work in the customer or tech support field or are part of the call centre workforce. From our collective experience, these kinds of companies are often the ones you can rely on to hire nearly all the time, so it’s a good place to start.
- Apple - you can try to be an Apple At Home Advisor! Your job will be to respond to customers with concerns about Apple products and services.
- Arise - apply for their tech support positions, or as a call center agent via their outsourced customer service platform.
- Concentrix - by joining their home team, you will be helping to increase their service quality while lowering costs for clients!
- Convergys - Convergys offers a tempting benefit package to their home-based customer service agents.
- Enterprise - you can look for jobs in or near your location with the site’s handy keyword search engine, but there is usually some training involved before they hire.
- HSN - join their customer care team, either part time or full time, in the location closest to where you live.
- LiveOps - this site wants you to “work around your life”, which, in a nutshell, is what being home-based is all about. You can apply to be an at-home virtual call center agent at a per-talk minute rate.
- Sykes - boasting of a 55000-strong team across the world, Sykes is currently offering work from opportunities for service-oriented people.
There’s already a very helpful article on online tutorial resources posted in this forum, so I won’t try to compete with what’s offered there. Instead, I’m linking a couple that I actually tried in my early years as a home-based worker to underline that they’re legit.
- Brainfuse - you can send your resume and application via the page linked here, and if you’re someone that they’re looking for and hire you, you can then be a tutor to K-12 clients.
- Tutor.com - one of the more popular online tutorial platforms, the site takes pride in highly qualified tutors in their roster.
If you speak several languages or want to teach English as a foreign language to international students in the comfort of your own home, consider these language coaching sites.
- Gengo - you can join their freelance translation team and enjoy a flexible schedule, a supportive community, the latest technology for translation, and competitive earnings (they have a nifty monthly average calculator on the homepage that computes how much you can earn, depending on the language and customer demand).
- GoFluent - as a well-known English training company, GoFluent is always on the lookout for home-based business language coaches.
- Open English - get a chance to become part of their team of ESL professionals who speak native English!
Virtual assistance is one of the best options for those who can only work part-time at home, especially for moms with young kids (like I once was when I first started out as a WAHM), or even college students looking to augment their pocket money.
- LifeBushido - you can join their global network of part-time but dedicated virtual assistants for a variety of businesses and industries.
- Time Etc. - you can start making over ten dollars per hour but need to commit to at least five hours weekly doing various tasks.
Maritz Research actually offers several job categories in their search for jobs page, including administrative, technology and engineering, operations, and marketing. However, they usually have a lot of marketing research openings for those who want to work part-time from home, who will be able to get feedback from customers about partners’ products and services.
Transcription
If you’ve had experience transcribing documents and have the proper equipment at home, consider these sites who are actively looking to pay them!
- Rev - payment per audio minute can be up to 65 cents for every transcription. Rev is always on the lookout for transcribers, so if you have the time and inclination, look them up.
- TranscribeMe! - if you think you have what it takes to transcribe audio and video files into high-quality text, try this one on for size. TranscribeMe boasts of the “industry’s best rates” at $20 per audio hour!
I cannot recommend working from home enough for a number of reasons - you get to save up on gas and commuting fees, you have more quality time with your loved ones, and you’re free to explore your passions while getting some income from them. These resources and links I provided are only some of the companies that are recognizing the potential of hiring remote workers for their businesses, and I’m sure there will be more in the near future!
Your turn!
What was your first work from home job, and how did you learn about it? Please share your experiences to a curious WAHM (yours truly)!
