Ok, while they’re not specifying work at home jobs for moms, over the past several months, I’ve read several articles suggesting that the U.S. government is largely in favor of telecommuting jobs. Seems there is real concern about natural disasters shutting certain government agencies down when people need them the most. Allowing employees to work from home, however, goes a long way in solving such problems. In cases of severe snowstorms, flooding and other incidents, which make it impossible for employees to commute to work, allowing for work at home setups makes perfect sense.

Not to mention that working from home saves on energy costs. As Representative Gerald E. Connoly puts it

Now, if we could get 20 percent of all Americans to telework one day a week, we could reduce our dependence on Persian Gulf oil imports by up to 48 percent. But we have to move one step at a time.

Here here!

Read the rest of the article and discover for yourself just how open the U.S. government is to work at home jobs:

Lawmaker Touts Telework as a Win-Win Situation

And, before you go, be sure to check our job leads.

Enjoy!

Resources:

Need help figuring out what type of work at home job is right for you? Check our “How To” business guides and see if you can find a good fit.

Work at home jobs for moms are advertised everywhere. As you know, many of them are scams, but a good deal are also legitimate telecommute opportunities. If you’ve spent any time at all on our site, particularly viewing our daily job leads, then you’ve noticed that we cruise CraigsList on the regular.

This may leave some of you wondering “why CraigsList?” In an industry rampant with scam artists, why continue to use a site widely considered to be a preferred portal for predators, dishonest hucksters and, basically, scam central?

The answer is pretty simple. Amongst all of the bad guys, CraigsList actually offers really good work at home jobs for moms and their community works very hard to police the place to help keep the riff raff in check. If you’ve ever posted an ad on CraigsList only to have it flagged 15 minutes later, you know what we’re talking about. Seriously, though, if not CL, then who?

Sure, we like SimplyHired, Indeed, Monster and the rest of the major and minor job aggregators out there. But, truth be told, it takes more time to field the fluff on those sites than it does on CraigsList! Don’t believe us? Take a gander over to any of those sites and search for work from home jobs for moms using “telecommute”, “remote”, “virtual” or, if you’re really feeling adventurous, “work from home”.

What you’ll find are several pages of ads requiring you to register before you can apply for a job; Ads from bidding sites; And ads placed by recruiters and agencies interested in collecting applicants. Now we’re not saying that any of these are dishonest approaches, but we are saying that real, straight up and down work at home jobs take some serious sifting to find on these sites.

We find CraigsList easier to cull leads from. Most ads are hand-written and offer more direct ways of applying for available positions. We don’t know why this is, but it seems that bidding sites aren’t too keen on CraigsList either, which makes them infinitely easier to avoid. It’s not that bidding sites are bad (they’re actually a very good resource for freelancers and contract workers), it’s just that we try to avoid them as often as possible and, instead, post work at home jobs for moms that don’t tempt moms to ask for less (salary-wise) than a job is worth.

While we never guarantee that scam artists can’t slip past us, we do do our best to spot them before you do and even flag them ourselves when discovered (and we encourage you to follow suit). That said, never just take our word for it. Whether it’s CraigsList or another job source, you MUST diligently research all ads for work at home jobs for moms before offering your personal information, know how to spot scams…and never, EVER pay for a job opportunity!

CraigsList often gets a bad rap, but we wanted to put why we favor them for work at home jobs for moms right out front. So, what do you think? Feel free to agree or disagree below. Also, please share which job board or classified site you favor for work at home jobs and why. Thanks!

What You See…

Finding legitimate telecommute jobs takes a concentrated effort. We know this because we put forth such an effort every weekday, as we gather and post leads on the latest work at home jobs for moms. With our finger on the pulse of the home-based job market, we often find work from home opportunities among the most unexpected careers. We’re talking about job descriptions that can catch you totally off guard like work at home pharmacy jobs, triage nursing by phone or even online jurors. While few ever imagined that any of these duties could be performed in a telecommute position, they are and we’ll continue to tell you about them as they cross our radar.

And What You Don’t See…

However, we also come across ads for telecommute positions that you’ll never see here. By all appearances these are legitimate jobs and respectable careers, but we don’t provide leads to them for one reason and one reason only: they aren’t real telecommute jobs!

I can sense your confusion, so let me explain.

For some odd reason, a lot of employers list jobs as being telecommute positions when they’re anything but. I mean, can a cab driver really telecommute? And, if so, how? Or what about a cook, an auto mechanic or a security guard? How on earth can a person be hired to drive a car or guard a business while working from home? Crazy, right? Yet, each of these are jobs that we frequently see advertised as telecommuting positions. I suspect that some employers are confused about what telecommuting means or perhaps the people posting these ads are confusing the word telecommute with telecommunicate (which still wouldn’t make sense in most cases, but whatever).

What You Need to Know

Regardless of how they occur, we thought it important to bring this oft-made error to your attention for a few reasons. For one, we want you to know that you’re not crazy. Yes, the word telecommute refers to working from home and, yes, it is a keyword you should continue to use in your job searching efforts. We understand that it’s frustrating to have to filter through these “errors”, but it’s just something you’re going to have to live with while you’re between gigs.

Beyond Words

We also want to warn you not to take for granted that a job is a work at home job simply because it’s advertised as a telecommute position. Don’t be surprised when you apply for what you think is a home-based position only to find that the employer actually expects you to report for a 40 hour work week on site! Therefore, read ads very carefully and look for other clues within the text to be sure that it is a real work from home opportunity. And never be afraid to ask if something just doesn’t seem right.

Please Stop!

And if you’re an employer, please PLEASE don’t list jobs as telecommute positions if they’re not really work from home opportunities! The mere mention of this word makes us all giddy inside and it’s really not fun to discover that our dream work at home job is actually a work at “your home” or a work at “your home office” job. When it comes to telecommute opportunities, we’d like nothing more than for you to mean what you say and say what you mean.

Ok, so you’ve read and implemented our tips on avoiding interruptions, but your friends and family just refuse to leave you alone while you’re working from home. Now, it’s time to try our guerilla tips for shutting everyone up and out while you get your work done:

1. Keep working ~ I recall interrupting a reporter at the Los Angeles Times while he was hard at work on a story, undoubtedly rushing against a deadline. However, I needed his attention and could not wait, so I approached his desk fully expecting him to turn his attention to me. Not only did he call me a pest and quite pointedly tell me to scat, but he never stopped typing and never looked up from his keyboard. I persisted in speaking with him while he persisted in ignoring me. Ultimately, I did get him to look up for a second (and only a second!) to acknowledge my issue, but that was only because I had to (I had my own deadlines and needed his attention). However, most people are not as persistent and can take a strong hint like this to mean that your work from home job is your top priority during working hours.

2. Your speakerphone is your friend ~ In work at home jobs for moms, the telephone is sometimes a big part of our job description. If powering down isn’t an option for you, consider hands-free conversations as your next best option. If you have long-winded clients or personal acquaintances who tend to interrupt you by phone, simply place them on speakerphone whenever they call. Most people hate having conversations by speaker and will most likely be in a hurry to end a call once they discover that their conversation is being publicly broadcasted. (Doesn’t hurt to place the phone right next to your keyboard so that the caller can hear the sounds of you working and feel free to sound a little distracted when you speak just to emphasize the point. Hey, these are guerilla tactics, remember!)

3. Read the signs ~ Place a sign on your front door that lets visitors know that, “If you did not phone, I’m not at home” and remain engaged in your work from home job while ignoring drop-in guests during your business hours. Later, you can explain that you placed the sign on your front door in an attempt to avoid interruptions and distractions. Your visitor may be slightly offended, but they will understand that work at home jobs for moms are serious business and not to be taken lightly.

4. Relocate ~ If your spouse or children are too much of a distraction while you’re working from home, consider packing up and moving shop to your nearest coffee house (with a Wi-Fi connection, of course). Be sure to take a set of headphones with you to block the sounds of other customers, put some relaxing music on and enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted working bliss.

5. Use an egg timer ~ When callers or visitors interrupt, immediately reach for your egg timer. Set it for 5 minutes and kindly let your intruder know that you are doing so because you can only spare a few minutes for their issue. Be polite about this and then give them your full attention until the timer goes off. When the alarm sounds, be firm in telling them that you will have to continue this conversation after hours (this is also a good time to reiterate your working hours to them, so that they are clear about your schedule).

Work at home jobs for moms are no different than outside the home jobs. Just because you work from home, does not mean that you are there for everyone’s personal whims. Of course, you must take regular breaks and be available for your family if they truly need you, but for frivolous interruptions, these guerilla tips for avoiding interruptions and distractions can go a long way to keep them at a minimum.

If you have other tips to share, we’d love to hear about them in the comments section below.

It drives me crazy to hear people make blanket statements that all work at home jobs for moms are scams. Or that, even if there are a few legitimate work from home opportunities, at least 98% of all work at home jobs are scams. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve tried to convince people otherwise, only for them to turn a deaf ear and continue spreading foolishness.

Fighting Lies With Leads

Generalizations like these are why we work hard to post work at home job leads right here on this site. Everything from freelance writing to triage nursing by phone is represented in our leads. Although we are clear in letting you know that we can’t vouch for every single one of the work at home jobs for moms posted, it is our firm belief that we share legitimate work from home opportunities on the regular.

What Does the Federal Government Say About Making Money at Home?

While doing a little research on the origins of this so-called 98% statistic, I ran across an article written by the hardworking folks over at the WhyDoWork blog. The article observes that, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, work at home jobs do not exist…well, at least on their niche job board. This may not seem like a huge deal to some, but as much as the other niches listed there, people employed by work from home opportunities represent a growing segment of employed Americans. It is amazing, then, that this niche isn’t featured on the DOL’s site. Now, no one’s calling this a conspiracy or anything, but it’s this kind of silence that leads job seekers to believe that legitimate work at home jobs for moms are nothing short of a myth.

The U.S. Government Offers Legitimate Work From Home Opportunities

The fact is that the DOL knows all about legitimate work from home opportunities. After all, as reported in the Department of Labor’s 2009 report to congress, the Status of Telework in the Federal Government (pdf), 102,900 federal employees work from home! Among a healthy library of information available on the federal government’s website, a very informative report about medical transcription jobs clearly states that many transcriptionists work from home. Ads for medical transcription jobs and training, particularly those programs that are home based, can be found on the web. Yet when people discuss these and other work at home jobs for moms, they often do so as though this is not a reputable employment niche.

Though telecommuting jobs are not featured on their niche jobs list, detailed analyses of other other legitimate work from home jobs appearing elsewhere on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ website are:

Interpreters

Travel Agents

Freelance Writers and Editors

Data Entry Operators

Systems Analysts

Virtual Assistants

And more!

State Governments Encourage Legitimate Work From Home Opportunities

And it’s not just the federal government that’s down with work at home jobs for moms. On page 36 of the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statics’ January, 2010 Monthly Labor Review, it is reported that Virginia created a Commonwealth Office of Telework Promotion, which not only assists employers in developing special programs and projects for work at home employees, but that new legislation also provides an incentive for more employers to allow employees to work from home. So it would appear that, not only do legitimate work at home jobs for moms exist, but governmental authorities would like to see even more legitimate work from home opportunities created in the future.

Legitimate Work From Home Opportunities in Corporate America

Consider for a moment that large corporate employers, such as Jet Blue, American Airlines, AstraZeneca, Cisco Systems, S. C. Johnson & Sons and Qualcomm all offer part and full time work at home jobs for moms and others. And of these, several appear on the list of the top 10 out of 82 best companies that allow their employees to work from home. No matter how many times people say that 98% of all work at home jobs are scams, there are an estimated 2.5 million employees who are making money at home and can successfully argue in favor of legitimate work from home opportunities.

The Origins of the Myth that 98% of All Work at Home Jobs are Scams

Though I’m still looking for the first person to cite this statistic and the research that led to this conclusion, I’m not all too optimistic that this information actually exists. What I have found, however, is an ABC News broadcast detailing the underbelly of this employment sector by shining a much needed spotlight on scam artists who prey on innocent people, such as those  seeking work at home jobs for moms. In the two-part video, it is stated that there’s a 54:1 ratio of shady work at home job leads. Please note that this ratio refers to advertised leads and NOT the jobs themselves. Yes, the Internet is rife with slimy leads, but this does NOT mean that 98% of all work at home jobs are scams! There is a distinct difference between job “leads” and actual jobs. People are not making this distinction, unfortunately, and I suspect that this is where the myth has taken root. See the report for yourself by watching part 1 and part 2 of this very informative video. Also notice that the special report ends with a previously scammed victim finding a work from home job. In a nutshell, the investigation uncovered that work from home opportunities are real, even though an enormous amount of advertised job leads are scams.

Others are Making Money at Home and So Can You

My point in sharing all of this with you is so that you’ll know better when people tell you that you’re wasting your time researching legitimate work at home jobs for moms. You are not. What you are doing is preparing yourself to join an intelligent group of employees who are able to save time, money and energy while making money at home. Work at home jobs for moms are part of a highly coveted employment niche…even if the federal government is slow to honor it as such.