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.

Too often I see people just say they want to work at home so they can be there for their kids. They haven’t put much more thought than that into it. Many people don’t know what they can do from home, what the income potential is or what to look out for. This can cause problems not only when you’re trying to avoid being scammed as you look for home based work, but as you try to build your career.

1. Learn the basics of spotting a work at home scam.

It almost doesn’t matter what you’re going to do as a work from home job. You need to know what work at home scams look like, or it’s too easy to fall for one. Simply knowing that you shouldn’t pay to show that you’re serious about applying for the job and that pay rates should be realistic for the kind of work you’ll be doing will help you avoid a lot of scams. A bit more research can be necessary to spot other signs, but those basics will help you avoid the most obvious issues.

2. Know what kind of work you expect to do from home.

Don’t go around applying for every work at home job you hear about, whether or not you have the ability to actually do the work. It’s just not a good idea.

Employers want people who are interested and capable of doing the job they’re applying for. Your resume should show that you have some sort of experience relevant to the job. Training is a bit more challenging when you’re at home, so employers don’t want to have to do an excessive amount of it.

3. Is this a job until the kids are old enough for school or your career you’re planning?

Many stay at home moms only stay at home until the kids are old enough to go to school. They then head back to work. Others plan on staying at home pretty much forever, and want to build a career from home.

While you may be looking at similar jobs, they won’t necessarily be entirely the same. If it’s a career at home you’re after, you want to know if you can grow in the job and still stay at home. If you’re planning on going back outside the home to work eventually, you need to know that you can move the skills you’re using in the job to either move to the office with that company or move along to another business in your area.

4. Do you know how you’re going to work at home?

It’s easy to say that you’re going to work at home. Doing a good job of it is something else entirely.

Motivation is one of the first issues people face when they start out. There are so many distractions at home, and it’s often all too easy to skip out on work when you don’t have to report to an office. That’s fine, so long as you don’t mind risking your job. Home based employees do get fired for not working when they’re supposed to just as people do when they work outside the home. Just because you don’t have direct supervision doesn’t mean they don’t know when you’re working or how productive you are.

Children are another distraction even when you’re feeling motivated. It takes time to teach them to let you work, and very young ones won’t understand at all. Many work at home parents do use daycare or have a family member or friend take the kids so they can get work done. Have realistic expectations for your family.

5. Are you comfortable with all the technology you’ll need to use?

If you’re terrible with computers, most work at home jobs aren’t going to work out for you. They’re a big part of most positions.

You need to be comfortable enough that you can quickly learn any new software your job requires. There will probably be some programs you learn to use in order to do your job that you wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. You may even use familiar programs in unfamiliar ways.

This includes knowing some basic troubleshooting. If your computer freezes up, what do you do? You shouldn’t need to call someone for help for minor problems.

6. How consistent is the work?

One problem many home based jobs face is that the work isn’t consistent enough for you to maintain a constant income. Some weeks your employers are begging you to put in overtime; others they have no work at all for you.

If you’re going to depend on the income, you need work that is consistently available. Depending on the industry, you may need to work for more than one employer to build a reasonably consistent income. Other industries, the one job is plenty.

This isn’t even about being laid off when the company is really low on work. Some jobs have times when they naturally have less work for employees, then a surge of work, and they’ll keep you hanging on even when there’s not much to do. Considering that many home based employees are paid on production rather than hourly, this can be terrible for your income.

7. Are raises available?

Some work at home jobs pay pretty respectably. Others not so much. But in either case, you probably want to know if you will be able to get a raise as your skills improve or for other reasons. The cost of living increases over time – odds are you’d like your income to do the same.

8. What about benefits?

This is particularly important if you’re trying to be the one to provide health insurance for your family. In some types of work at home jobs benefits are hard to come by while in others they’re about as common as they are in the office based versions of the same job.

Remember that benefits aren’t only about health coverage. Look at retirement plans, educational opportunities and other offerings that may be available to you.

9. Will you be considered an employee or a contractor?

The difference between an employee and a contractor is very important when it comes to handling your taxes and sometimes other issues. Companies that hire home based workers don’t always pay enough attention to the legal differences, and that can mess up your taxes pretty badly, as the difference determines factors such as who is responsible for certain taxes.

Do you have any further suggestions for things people should consider as they start looking toward a work at home job?

I’ve been in contact with Jessica LaFlesch from Arise lately. She gave me some customer service work at home job leads to post and mentioned that a lot of people have misconceptions about the relationship between Arise and people who work with them. She graciously agreed to answer some questions, so as to help put these misconceptions to rest.

1. What kinds of jobs does Arise generally hire for?

We do not hire agents; rather we contact with them and provide opportunities with specific clients to certify on and begin working. Arise has over forty clients in three primary categories: Sales, Customer Service and Tech Support. While the majority of our client needs involve handling inbound calls, we do have some clients who use Arise Certified Professionals to answer incoming emails and incoming chat sessions.

2. What is the relationship between work at home agents and Arise?

The Arise business model is built on a business to business relationship. Essentially, Arise Certified Professionals (ACPs) are considered self employed, contacted with Arise under the business entity established within the Admissions process. ACPs are able to pick the clients to certify on and build their own schedules in half hour increments based on their schedules.

3. What costs are there to work for Arise?

ACPs are considered independent contactors, not employees. As with starting ANY business, there are is an initial investment. However, much of the investment is not paid to Arise, it is invested in things like establishing your business entity with the state and your workstation. I have included a breakdown of the initial investment:

• Background Check – $13 or $26 (Paid to US Information Search)

• ACP101 Basic Certification Course – $99

• Incorporation – $100 +/- (Paid to the state you are filing in)

• High Speed ISP – $100 +/- (Paid to the vendor of your choice)

• Phone Equipment & Dedicated Line – $185 +/- (Paid to the vendor of your choice)

• Client Specific Certification Course $50 – $225

Arise does charge for certification courses. The fee assessed helps Arise to offset the cost associated with facilitating the courses.

4. What misconceptions about Arise would you like to clear up?

The below are excerpts from actual inquiries I have received.

1. “With Arise, you are paying for a job.”

The biggest misconception about Arise is that candidates are “paying for a job”. This simply is not the case. Arise Certified Professionals are independent, self employed individuals who are able to pick their own hours as well as the client they would like to certify with. They are also able to reap the tax and other benefits only available to small business owners.

2. “Nobody told me there was an investment required.”

Arise makes no secret of our business model or the initial investment – this information is located within our FAQs (no login or profile required), however not every candidate takes the time to review these pages before starting the Admissions process.

3. “I heard there are not enough hours.”

As with any type of contact center – virtual or traditional – there will be peaks and valleys in the call volume for each client. As a decrease occurs, there may be a reduction in the number of hours available. Successful ACPs will hold more than one certification to offset this.

4. “Arise brings on new agents while terminating the contacts of good existing agents for no reason.”

Arise will *not* terminate the VSC Statements of Work (SOW / contract) without cause. It is imperative that every ACP know and understand the expectations of the client before they even begin the certification course. Arise is no different than any other type of company – work at home or otherwise- agents must be meeting or exceeding the established expectations or they face the possibility of having their VSC SOW terminated.

The Arise Admissions process is typically open year round to new profiles, however, there are times of year when the demand for additional agents is larger than others. As a client advises their needs have changed and more agents are required, Arise will schedule and facilitate additional certification courses. During slower times of year, there may be a longer period of time in between certification opportunities.

I’d like to thank Jessica LaFlasch for answering my questions. If anyone has further questions, just let me know and I can send them along to her.

I’ve been thinking of new features to add to this blog. With the needs people have right now, I’m going to start featuring various types of work at home jobs and home businesses each week.

The idea, of course, is to give people ideas on things they can do from home. I know so many people who need work right now.

The focus will be more on types of opportunities, rather than specific companies, at least at first. I’ll also be mixing up the classic opportunities with ones you may not know so much about. And of course any scam warning signs that I am aware of. Even the best of fields have scams that look much like the real thing.

My goal is to start this next week, energy levels permitting. I’m still tired too often to be sure of how well I can keep up just now, but it’s getting better bit by bit.

While many stay at home moms do already work at home, others don’t. The reason is pretty simple: It’s hard to commit yourself fully to your family if you have to work all the time. And if your family doesn’t need the money, why use up all that time?

But things can change, and working from home may be a more pleasant option than giving up on the stay at home dream altogether. Good thing it may be manageable if you plan ahead and be realistic about your own capabilities.

So when should you start trying to work at home?

If Your Family is Carrying a Heavy Debt Load

For this, I generally mean beyond a mortgage. Most people carry a mortgage on their home for quite a number of years, and that’s not a bad thing so long as it is manageable. But credit card debt, student loan debts and so forth are more of a problem.

Working at home is a way to get some of that debt paid down a little more quickly.

If Your Family is Living Month to Month

Just look at all the reports of how the economy is going right now. We can argue about recession versus stagflation going on, but things are pretty rough out there for a lot of families. And in many cases that’s because they didn’t have any sort of cushion for their family in case of a lost job.

Jobs can be lost for so many reasons. Layoffs and medical issues come immediately to mind.

If you don’t have several months’ worth of income saved up for such a crisis, your family can be in deep trouble if the only wage earner suddenly isn’t bringing in much money, or is bringing in significantly less.

If you start working at home you can bring that cushion up. It can be protection for your family in case of difficulties. Much better than living month to month.

Just Because You WANT to

Sometimes you just want more from your life than taking care of home and family. Especially as children get older there’s only so much you can do, after all. Working at home gives you the chance to still be there while pursuing one of your own interests.

We have a huge advantage over mothers who worked at home in the past. There are a lot more options. We can go beyond the traditional options of daycare and network marketing, and follow still more of our own interests.

For that matter, network marketing has expanded beyond the most established companies. You have many more options available to you, and so can enjoy working in this industry with more options for what you’re selling.

You can start a website. You can be a remote worker for all kinds of companies, doing customer service, data entry, transcription or many other jobs. You can hire yourself out as a freelance writer, programmer, designer, whatever suits your skills.

So What’s the Catch?

The catch, of course, is that not everyone will succeed in working at home. It does take from your day. It takes effort. It’s flat out difficult for many people to find opportunities that aren’t scams. And yes, if you start a home business you may even lose money. It’s not risk free.

If you decide you want to work at home, don’t be in a rush about it. Don’t allow hype to catch your attention, or worse yet, your wallet. Take your time and do your research. Ask other people about it. The work at home community is generally very willing to help new members figure out what is legitimate. While you can’t trust everyone you meet online, getting more eyes on what you think will be good can help you to spot potential problems before you’re paying for them.