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Before you jump on the bandwagon of working at home, there are some things of which you should be aware. Often, failure in work at home employment comes not from the lack of available, legitimate projects to be awarded, but rather in the overlooked area of personal goals and expectations.

What does this mean in layman’s terms? Know what you have to offer with a definite and realistic goal in mind before you go looking for work. In my case, I examined the skills that I possessed along with the time I had to devote to working and the amount of income necessary to meet minimum requirements in my budget. This gave me a narrowed field to search out that held the most possibilities in securing employment.

Knowing ahead of time that I can a)write, edit, illustrate, work Powerpoint, Paintshop Pro, and Photoshop and that my interests were grounded in areas of writing that were creative as well as informative, and b) that my goal for desired income was in a reachable range, I was able to better evaluate possible jobs. Since my boundaries were well defined, I found that I could research the source of the job, propose a bid if I felt I could manage the job in a timely and professional manner, and gained more work than I had been receiving prior to self evaluation of constraints in my skills, interest, and income.

Are there scams? Of course, there are! That’s why researching the potential project is in the best interest of the job seeker. If the pay seems a little too good, be wary. Those legitimate companies and individuals that hire work at home employees generally don’t offer enough for anyone to “get rich”. Working from home is no different in that than traditional jobs in which an hourly wage or salary is depended upon. If you know you can’t get a traditional, out of home job doing data entry at a rate of $100,000 a year, don’t fall for the online, work at home data entry jobs promising just that. The same goes for the oposite direction. If you have a skill that is marketable at one rate, don’t settle for substandard rates.

On average, I work approximately 6-8 projects a month. Most take only a few hours each week for an average work week of 25 hours. My income fluctuates, but I always meet my goal of $1,500. The work is varied and has timelines. Most often, the contracts are short and sweet. Once a project is completed, both parties go their separate ways. Often, I have been asked back to do future projects after completing a previous one as I pay attention to what timelines I can accurately meet.

Employers aren’t the only ones that can scam. Several work at home employers now ask for detailed information because freelancers have been unreliable in delivering a product. Many now require the project to be completed prior to payment being sent.

Several of the employers now use safer ways to pay in order to avoid disputes. These include escrow accounts as well as paypal and credit card payments. This is done to protect both parties as these methods leave a paper trail that can be verified later should the need arise.

So, is this all there is to working at home? Not exactly. Now that you have an idea of what you want and the type of employer that you should work for, you must learn to write a proposal. This is the equivalent of a job application in traditional settings and the only way you have of properly representing yourself to a potential client.

In your proposal, you should include your name and contact information. The proposal should outline how you think you can deliver the desired project based on information from the prospective employer. This means a timeline, expectations of the work, how you will handle communications as well as your minimum working rate for doing the job. Make sure you are realistic in your proposal. If the job is for 50 600 word articles, don’t promise delivery in 24 hours unless you can really deliver. Many contracts, once the job is awarded, have provisions in them that cover deadlines. More often than not, if you can’t deliver the work in the promised time, you don’t get paid.

Once you’ve learned to write an attractive proposal, start bidding for the projects of your dreams. Use a little common sense and the joys of working at home will be plentiful.

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