Most people are uneasy at the thought of sharing personal information over the internet. Most of the time, that’s a good thing, but when it comes to looking for a work at home job you’re going to have to share some information. How do you know which information you should share when you’re applying for a work at home job?

Is Professionally Embarrassing Information Already Out There?

A lot of people have discovered that information they’ve shared online socially can impact them professionally. Some employers do check applicants out online, to see what’s out there.

No one has perfect control over what appears on a search for their name online. I’m not currently on the first page for my name, one of the curses of having a very common name. But since I’m not exactly going for the guru thing I’ve never stressed about getting my name up there in the rankings.

But the factors you do control you should take into consideration. Look over how you’re presenting yourself on social networks and anywhere else you appear online. Work at home jobs will mostly be concerned with your professionalism, and depending on the position you’re applying for these things can be quite relevant.

Pay Attention to Who You’re Sharing Information With

We all worry about being scammed when looking for stay at home jobs. It’s normal. There are a lot of scams out there.

This makes sharing even normal personal information requested on any other job application more difficult when you’re talking about applying online. You just don’t have the reassurance that you get from applying with a company you can more easily get information about and maybe even drive right by their location, as you could do with a local, outside the home job.

Fortunately, you can do a pretty good job of researching potential employers if you know how. The ones that more regularly hire work at home employees are usually well known on the work at home forums. Make sure you know the company’s name and do a little research on them before you apply for a job.

When in doubt, see if you can submit the online application without all the information filled out, and use the comment box (if available) to explain why you have left certain information out. A Social Security Number, for example, is necessary for a company to deal with taxes, and may be requested if a background check is being done. It’s really not necessary to share it otherwise, and you can take the chance of offering to provide it only if you make it that far in the hiring process that it become a necessary piece of information.

Keep It Professional

One important thing to do when you’re looking for a job online is to make sure you give a professional appearance with the information you do provide. This means you don’t want to have an email address that’s fun to have socially but might make a potential employer lose interest in you. An email address based on your name is best for most purposes, and it can be nice to keep your job hunting emails separate from the usual personal stuff anyhow.

Potential employers also aren’t going to be interested in your home situation. Even if they’re hiring you for a home based position, they don’t need to know about your kids or how you’re going to handle caring for them while you work. That’s your problem and the expectation is that you’ll handle it.

What they do want to know is why you’re the right employee for them to hire. Make a good impression in that area by emphasizing your relevant skills. Potential employers need employees who know how to separate their family life from their work at home life. If you can’t do that in the application process, they may feel that you won’t keep them appropriately separated when you’re working.

Hunting for a job always means sharing some personal information. Someone offering you a job (not a business opportunity) without wanting to know about your work history probably doesn’t have a real job to offer you. Make sure you know what the appropriate limits are, and if it feels wrong to share a particular piece of information, find out if it’s really necessary to share it.

I get a lot of people asking me how to get started looking for a work at home job. They know they want one, but have no clue where or how to start looking, even after finding this site.

So, short answer, take a look at the Work at Home Jobs section of this website.

Ah, but that’s not terribly helpful to those who really don’t know what they want to do. How do you get to the point where you can start looking for a particular work at home job?

1. Look at your expectations.

Despite the myths, working at home isn’t easy. So many people just want to be pointed in the right direction and have it handed to them, and that’s just not going to happen. When you want something in life you can’t sit around waiting for it to happen. You have to do what it takes to make it happen.

Expect to have to work at looking for a job. You probably wouldn’t get the first outside the home job you apply for, so why should you expect that for a work at home job?

Don’t assume that you’ll be making big bucks from a work at home job. That’s one of the big reasons people get scammed so easily. Visions of easy money make people lose all common sense. Many work at home jobs don’t pay spectacularly well unless it’s a more in demand and hard to find skill. And most home businesses can take anywhere from months to years to become profitable, IF they ever do… no matter what the hype says.

2. What do you want to do?

Just as in looking for an outside the home job, it really helps to know what kind of work at home job you’re looking for. What are you qualified for? Do you have any relevant experience?

It’s all well and good to say, “Well, I’d like to do customer service, or maybe data entry or even assemble stuff from home, just so long as I get paid.” That is, if you want to fail.

Don’t be vague. And don’t just think about the classic work at home jobs. There are a lot more possibilities out there.

3. Really look at your experience.

It’s extra hard landing a work at home job if you lack experience. There’s rarely any face to face training unless the company has strict location requirements.

Experience always helps. It doesn’t matter what kind of job you’re looking for. Employers love experience.

You don’t necessarily need the exact job title as the one you’re going for. Many jobs give you a part of the skills you need for the common work at home jobs. Just think about how many jobs have aspects that can be related to customer service, for example.

4. Work on your resume.

Now, the best resumes are targeted to the individual job, not just a generic resume for a particular field. But you should have one that is generally targeted toward what you’re seeking so that it doesn’t take too long to customize it for each application. You want to target it to each individual employer’s needs.

5. Work on your cover letter.

You may not always need one, but it’s good to have a cover letter available as a way to introduce yourself when possible. Don’t talk about wanting to work at home for more time with your family and that kind of stuff; it’s not relevant to potential employers, any more than saying you want to work to support your family would be for applying to an outside the home job.

Just as with your resume, have a generic one you can customize as needed.

6. Put a salt shaker on your desk.

No, you don’t have to do this literally. But when you’re about to start looking at work at home opportunities, you need to be prepared to take things with a grain of salt and a whole lot of skepticism. Probably go through the entire shaker pretty fast.

Work at home scams outnumber legitimate opportunities by far. I try to keep things clean here, but I can’t promise to get it perfect. And if you’re searching around and about the internet you’re probably going to run into a lot of scams.

7. Start looking.

With a good notion of the kind of job you’re looking for, it’s time to quit preparing and start looking. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t take action.

Don’t pay to apply for a work at home job. A very few legitimate companies charge applicants for a background check – only consider these companies if you really think you’re a good match and can risk the cost of the background check.

Once you’re applying, it can be quite the waiting game. It is not at all uncommon for work at home job hunts to take months, sometimes over a year. I’m not going to promise you an easy time finding a job. Lots of other people probably want the same jobs you do, and you can’t all have them.

It can pay off to apply to some employers every few months. Don’t overdo it or you’ll be an annoyance, but a time can come when sending in a fresh application is the right move.

Finally, if your family is desperate for money, do consider an outside the home job if that’s what you need to keep financially afloat. I see too many people saying they need a work at home job desperately so they can pay their bills. If that’s you, consider finding an outside the home job while you hunt for work at home.

You may have to work at night if you’re married and can’t afford child care. You may have to find a friend to trade child care with if you don’t have any way to pay for child care and no one else to help you.

If you need income be realistic about it and remember that you can find work at home later, without such extreme financial pressure. Desperation means you’re more likely to make stupid mistakes.

One key factor to landing a work at home job is to understand what employers want from you. Much of what they need is similar to what jobs outside the home require, but there are some special considerations for when you want to work at home.

The Ability to Work Unsupervised

Even though your work can be tracked by productivity, employers do not want employees that they have to remind to keep working. When you’re at home you need to be highly motivated.

Some work at home jobs will let you work whenever you feel like it, so long as you get a minimum amount of work done. Others want a schedule out of you and expect you to stick to it, just as with an outside the job home.

Scheduled or not, no work at home employer is going to be happy with an employee they have to keep reminding about their schedule. They want you to get your work done. They want high quality work. They don’t want to have to be checking on every piece you send in.

Excellent Communication Skills

It hardly matters if you’ll be dealing with customers or not. If you work at home you need great communication skills.

If you deal with customers, you need to be a great representative for the company paying you. If you aren’t dealing with customers, you need to be able to communicate well with your employer. Smooth communication is key when there’s a problem or if you have a suggestion.

This also means use good spelling and grammar in all communications. You can get away with sloppy spelling when chatting online or emailing with friends. To an employer, to customers, that looks highly unprofessional.

Problem Solving Abilities

Stuff happens when you work at home… especially with computers. Whether you’re solving a problem for a customer or dealing with technical issues on your side of things, your employer doesn’t want to hear from you every time something that isn’t quite routine comes up.

Of course, you have to stick within company policies as you do so. You can’t give customers something you aren’t supposed to without permission. You can’t give someone access to proprietary data. If a problem is too challenging, then you may have to go to your boss for help, but you need to be knowledgeable enough to handle most problems on your own.

Understand the Job You Want to be Hired to Do

Just as with any other job hunt, take the time to understand the companies you are applying with. Do some research. You can look for forums where people discuss the employer you’re trying to get a job with, for example, and find out some general information about what exactly the job entails. Many will have rules about what employees may and may not discuss on public forums, so don’t be surprised if sometimes people won’t discuss much about their jobs. But generalities about duties may be allowed.

Don’t forget more traditional sources. Go over their company website. Look for news stories.

The Ability to Follow Directions

When you’re applying for a work at home job, pay close attention to what the employer wants from you. Have your resume ready not only in Microsoft Word format, but text and/or RTF as well. Include it in the body of your email or as an attachment depending on what is requested.

And if they say don’t call, don’t call!

The ability to work at home should not be your emphasis. Neither should you emphasize your reasons for wanting to work at home. You can mention your skills and equipment that make it possible for you to work at home, but only in the context that would matter to a potential employer.

Do Not Expect Training on Basic Computer Use

If you’re trying to find a work at home job, you should have general familiarity with how to use your own computer already. Know how to use the internet, email, your word processor and any other programs you already own that might be a part of the job.

Your employer may train you on specialized skills for the job, but if you can’t do the basics you’ll probably be too much trouble to bother training.

Even with all these skills and a great presentation of them, there’s no guarantee that you’ll land the work at home job of your dreams. But they can improve your odds by ensuring that you make a good impression from the very start.

What a miserable economy for my husband to be unemployed in! At least they finally conceded that it’s likely a recession. As my neighbor said, most of us could have long since told them that. But then, San Diego unemployment is worse than the national average right now, so we’re feeling it worse than many, I guess.

I finally talked my husband into talking to some temp agencies. I’ve been telling him to do that for a while, and I think he finally has the idea. Temp jobs can be essentially long job interviews, after all, and certainly a way to build some skills and experience outside the retail sector for him.

Now that the family is healthy again, I’m playing catch-up with all the things I had wanted to get done to build things up business-wise. It’s rough, especially since it is a distraction having my husband at home. I really do not work as well when there’s someone able to read what I write as I write it.

And of course the kids still need Mommy to do things for them much more than Daddy. Just habits. I can deal with that, even when it gets frustrating.

I do have a lot of plans for the ‘what ifs’, such as if we do have to move in with my inlaws. I’m figuring on homeschooling for the rest of my daughter’s kindergarten year; she’d end up being the new kid the rest of the year if she transferred, not to mention the possibility of moving again for a new job. Besides, you don’t have to register here to homeschool kindergarten; school registration is not required until first grade.

But I also want to have her birthday party at the park by her current school. Make it easier to invite her current friends, who she will no doubt be missing by then.

I really, really hope none of these plans will necessary. I’d rather my husband get a job and we stay put. But why wait to the last minute to decide?

It’s definitely a rough time to be searching for a job in my area. My husband is getting some interviews, but not a lot. We’ve been having to think on places to look for work that might not be so obvious.

Of course, we have the usual… search Monster, Career Builder, Yahoo! HotJobs, Craigslist and so on. But the other day my husband came up with a really great place to look for local jobs.

The Chamber of Commerce website.

It was one of those blinding flashes of inspiration. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself, since I know the Chamber of Commerce is supposed to be a good place for business networking. I hadn’t thought about their local business listings as a way to spot local companies to apply to.

Of course, one important thing to remember is that you don’t always have to meet each and every requirement listed on a job description. If it’s a skill that can be picked up quickly, the employer may be agreeable to train. This is something my husband has struggled with at times, since he wants to be a great match!

All too soon my husband also has to report to the unemployment office for the stuff they want to do in person with him. Hopefully he’ll get some useful information from that.

We’re all slowly recovering from being sick, which of course has been another complication for job hunting. Didn’t stop the hunt, but it sure made it harder to focus.