It is always difficult to find legitimate work from home jobs, but I have found that Craigslist can be a good source. However, it does take a bit of work to find the good telecommute jobs amongst the “regular’ jobs and the scammers. To make the job easier, I have come up with these tips to finding a good work from home job on Craigslist.

1. Don’t limit your searches to cities near you. When you work from home your boss could be half away across the world from you, location really doesn’t matter. Start with the larger cities and work your way through the whole list of Craigslist. One thing I would like to see with Craigslist is a search feature that includes all cities. As far as I know you can’t do that right now. So for now you need to do your searches city by city.

2. Start your search with cities where employers have to pay to place an ad. Not all Craigslist ads are free. In some of the larger cities, employers are required to pay to place an ad. Scammers don’t like to pay for ads, so this weeds out a lot of scam artists. San Francisco and New York are two cities that you need to pay to place a help wanted job on Craigslist.

3. When you work from home, it really doesn’t matter what location your employer is at. So don’t limit yourself to only searching cities near you.

4. Look at all job categories, not just the field you want to work in. Not everyone classifies things the same way. For example, I have found bookkeeping jobs in almost every category, including general labor and manufacturing. Some employers will classify by the type of business they have, as opposed to the type of job. So, if a manufacturer needs a bookkeeper, they put the ad under manufacturing.

5. Use the search box! Don’t spend your time scrolling down lists. Most jobs posted will not be telecommute or work at home jobs. Use search terms such as “work from home”, “telecommute”, “work remote”, etc. Make sure to use the quotation marks to precisely define your search and weed out the results you don’t want.

6. Watch out for the scammers. No matter where you look, there will always be scammers. Be sure to read up on how to spot a work from home scam, and know that with few exceptions, you should never have to pay to get a job.

With these tips and a little work you should be able to find a number of opportunities for legitimate work from home jobs. Good Luck!

With thousands of new websites coming online every day there is a huge need for quality writing.  But of course, for every legitimate write from home job there are at least 3 scams.  Here are some writing jobs that I know are legit. And with a little work, even beginning writers can find sites that will pay them to write.

Right now my favorite get paid to write site is Today.com. At today you start your own blog, and for the first 30 days you are paid at least $1 per post, up to one post per day. After 30 days the amount you are paid per post can go up or down. You are also paid a small amount based on the traffic your blog receives.  Bonuses of up to $250 are paid  to top bloggers. Today claims that their top blogger made $700 in November.  I am getting paid for writing Review Me Today. In less than a month I have earned $38. I should get paid next month!

What I like about Today.com: Write 100 original words and get paid. Everyone is accepted. Just register and start writing.

What I don’t like about Today.com: Minimum payout is $50.  After the first 30 days you could be paid less than $1 per post.  Only advertising and affiliates placed by Today are allowed.

Hub Pages is a network where you can write web pages, called hubs.  Here you are not responsible for a whole blog, just one page.  You can write as many hubs as you like, and, unlike a single blog, they can be on as many different topics as you like.  Payment is based on a revenue share plan, using advertising networks such as Google, Amazon, and Kontera.

What I Like About Hub Pages: You can write one page at a time, as opposed to needing to keep up a whole blog.  Because each page is separate, you can write on a variety of topics.

What I don’t like about Hub Pages: There is no guarantee of payment.   You will need to work on building traffic, and not just any traffic.  To get paid you need people to click on ads.

Squidoo Lenses: Just about the same as Hub Pages.  You create a webpage, Squidoo calls them lenses, and you get paid a share of the revenue generated.  Same pros and cons as hub pages.

About.com will pay $725 per month for you to maintain a blog on a certain topic.  Not everyone is accepted.   When you apply to become a “guide” you pick a topic from the list About provides. Fill in your application and include a writing sample on the topic you are applying for.  Wait.  Wait some more.  After a few weeks you should hear if you have been accepted to the training level. During training you will write blog posts and articles under the direction of an editor.  Usually 5 writers are accepted into training for each topic.  Training typically lasts 1 month, and after training only 1 person will be hired as an About.com guide and paid a $250 hire on bonus.  About.com says that begining writers usually earn around $1,000 per month, established writers average $2,000 with top authors earning $100,000 per year.

These are just a few of the opportunities for writers that I have found. Later I will post about paid forum posting, and writing paid posts on your own blog.

Happy Writing!

I just found a free forum that lists freelance writing jobs. I really liked the layout, as the forums are divided into high paying jobs, low paying jobs, free jobs. There were also sections for collaborations (when you want to work with other freelancers), writer and publisher ops (writers looking for publishers and vice versa), writers for speaking engagements, and freelancers seeking work.

One thing I found nice about this forum is that for the high paying/low paying jobs section, the posters are required to list the pay for the job. Great if you don’t want to waste your time applying for very low paying jobs. There is also a section to list scams, I suggest you peruse this section before replying to any of the posts!

Today while I was perusing the forum, in the high paying jobs forum I found job listings for bloggers, legal writers, online gaming writers and travel guide writers. I found pay rates from $15 per post, to $20 per hour to $750 per day. Quite a spread!

The low paying jobs forum included jobs for e-book writers, quiz writers, and bloggers. Pay rates ranged from $10-$20 per post.

It is a moderate sized forum so there are a decent number of jobs listed, and not a huge amount of competition. If you are a decent writer you should be able to find a job here.

The forum is Online-Writing-Jobs.com.
Check it out and let me know how it works out for you. Did you get a job? Did you get scammed?