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.