Freelance Virtual Assistants

In this entry I thought I would spotlight how a virtual job can span many industries and skill sets.  The number of freelance virtual assistants is growing.  If you have a skill set that someone else would benefit from, you can probably market that skill virtually.  But to be successful, you will need to apply creative ways to make your skills valuable to others.

Educational background? Search out jobs such as editing children’s books, writing educational articles and online tutoring.

Fitness enthusiast?  Market your knowledge as a personal trainer, weight loss motivator, fitness coach or nutrition counselor. 

Like to work with online content? Help both businesses and individuals market themselves online with services such as website building, social media page administration or ghost blogging.  What is ghost blogging?  Check out http://www.ghostbloggers.net/

Like to talk on the phone? There are customer service, support, and technical jobs with phone systems that can be logged into from home.  In fact, you may work incoming calls from all three types of careers at once, and have a real variety of things to do in your day!

A good starting place for many looking for legitimate work-from-home opportunities is Rat Race Rebellion.  http://www.ratracerebellion.com/  Jobs show pay ranges and industries for easier searching.

Who hires virtual assistants?

1-800 Flowers.com

U-Haul

UnitedHealth

Amazon.com

American Airlines

Apple

Best Western

Hilton

Jet Blue

Marriott

Quest Diagnostics

Good luck!

Do Your Homework

This week I thought I’d circle back to talk to those who think they would like to work from home.  I will be honest here…I did not purposefully seek out a work from home job.  The opportunity to do so came about by unusual circumstance while I was updating my resume in W231 – Professional Writing Skills.  We did a cover letter, resume, and were asked to find a job we thought we’d be able to tailor our resumes toward and apply for. 

Well, I looked internally into my company, found this very interesting position that happened to virtually office, applied, and was hired by the end of the summer.  I was ready for a change and a challenge, and one pretty much was out there waiting for me.  So remember, do your homework!

 

Now, doing your homework applies to finding the virtual jobs too.  There are a lot of shady advertisements out there looking to make money by writing too-good-to-be-true job descriptions.

 

Many years ago I moved a great distance and had to find a job very fast.  One job in the classifieds read something like, “Do you like to play with toys? Are you a child at heart? Come join our team! Unlimited income potential!”  I called the number in the ad for more information, and they simply told me there were ongoing interviews at 8am the next day.  I was given an address, and showed up dressed appropriately with my resume and portfolio in hand.  Asked to wait, I heard people in the back offices cheering and laughing.  I looked around at the equally curious faces in the waiting room.  The laughing group greeted us enthusiastically in the lobby and I was quickly introduced to my new liaison.  She was going to show me this wonderful way to make money and have fun. 

She directed me out into the parking lot, and to her car. This happened with all the other liaisons partnered each with a new potential worker.  We were going to the distribution site, or so I was told.  It ended up we were going to her “preferred neighborhood” to walk door to door, peddling duck print umbrellas and oversized Disney storybooks from her truck to the people in the hair parlors, repair shops, and small office suites along the way.  I just laughed to myself as I watched her show two old men the merits of having a duck print umbrella, and gracefully bowed out from this new business venture by heading home before lunch. 

So again, do your homework, and ask the right questions about any potential new job:

·        How long has the company been in business?

·        What are their annual revenues?

·        If it is a new company, does their business model look promising?

·        What does the company DO, exactly?

·        Is it a Fortune 500, or 1,000 company? If not, do they have any as clients?

·        Where is the headquarters?

·        Is the position seeking an employee, or an independent contractor?

·        Discuss a pay range

·        Research for publications, clients, awards, or other public information on the company

It is wise advice to “trust, but verify”.  Avoiding scams is a very high priority for anyone seeking the opportunity to work outside of an office. The fastest growing industries remain computer sciences and technologies, the medical field, and the financial sector.  In all three of these, there are legitimate jobs that can be done virtually.  Focus your education on the right sort of work from home fields, make note of the virtual classes and group projects you successfully completed already in your college career, and I am sure doing your job search homework will reward you with opportunities to work independently from home.

A Sticky Situation

I’m going to go a little off topic, yet not really since it happened during work hours and at my “office”.

Niles and Be

                               Earlier this year, my husband and I moved to Florida.  I have two horses, both of which a good friend elsewhere in the state kindly kept for me while we searched for a new home on a couple of acres.  This plan took longer than anticipated, so shortly after closing on the property we rushed to get it ready not only for us but for my horses as well.  Over three hectic weekends we removed ample amounts of palmettos and scrub brush, trimmed up low branches, fenced in a perimeter and made about half an acre habitable for the horses to come home.  They arrived last week. We finished off their new living quarters with a nice shelter and hay feeder this past weekend, and figured things were safe enough to continue with the finishing touches in our spare time.

The New Paddock

Well, a couple of people warned us about this one solitary sappy little pine tree that was growing in the paddock.  It was oozing goo down its sides like a sticky volcano.  We just didn’t have time to address that situation yet.  The horses arrived Thursday, and that day and Friday passed uneventfully.  Saturday we kicked the horses out in the backyard while we built them a shelter, and they still did not get into any trouble.  Sunday I took them for a nice short ride each.  Monday had a rainstorm overnight, but the shelter kept them and their hay high and dry.  So that leaves today, Tuesday.
 

Mid afternoon I am deep in conversation with my developer, going over a roadblock hindering a site deployment and discussing my options.  She can’t do much for me, as she doesn’t have access to the settings I need configured.  Only someone in a department that isn’t responding can help me.  They are currently working on another priority.  I’m going to have to write a pointed follow up, and copy some people that I only bring in when I can’t get action any other way.  I hate doing that, but it is part of project work.  Sometimes your wheel needs to squeak.

 

Frustrated, I look up from my computer and notice my mare is vigorously rubbing her neck on a tree.  At first, it doesn’t dawn on me which tree she’s cozying up to.  Then I look again at the tree, and realize it’s the same sticky pine she’s brushing her hair with.  Oh no. No, no, no.  She snakes her head around the little sapling, and I can see from my desk chair that her mane is clumped together with fresh sap.  I politely disengage from chat with my coworker, and explain I need to step away from work for a bit. 

I try tapping the window while I hurry my feet into sneakers, but she’s ignoring me.  She’s massaging that little pine all down her back as I’m moving toward the door, grabbing shampoo and the pump house lock key as I go.  As I open the gate to the paddock, her eyes are guilty and she approaches me with her head down.  I tell her in polite, gentle tones, “you are a complete moron,” as I softly clip the lead rope to her halter.  Two soapings and rinses later, and I think I had more success with the hair pulling out in clumps than I did with shampooing the sap out.  The horse enjoyed her hearty massage though!

So back to the original sticky problem.  I need to get the rubbing tree out of the paddock.  I've never removed a tree before.  I don't exactly have great options for tools yet either.  We have a bow saw.  

Guess who learned to use a bow saw?

Hey hey hey, good bye!

I see my horse out there sniffing where the pine tree use to stand.  Sorry gal.  How about a peppermint and a nice bath instead?

 

Niles and Be, doing more appropriate things

Technical Difficulties

A typical Sunday night, and I sit down to check through my emails, both personal and professional.  This is what you do when you work from home.  The office stuff never gets left behind at an office, forgotten Friday afternoons until Monday morning.  Even when I am away from my home I am hooked in with my smart phone.  My husband has learned the difference between the email ding and the text message pop.  Early on in this work-from-home thing, he used to ask about what the different noises on the phone meant, but that hasn’t happened for a while.  I sometimes cringe at the dings, so that probably tipped him off.  I’ve become Pavlov’s dog in reverse; if the bell dings after reasonable hours, I associate it with more work.  It’s not that mind work, quite the contrary.  But I do like to enjoy a little time away from it as well.

However, it is not enjoyable when the systems I rely on for work decide to take a little time off from doing their jobs.  This Sunday, my internet decided to go down in the middle of the early evening.  Not cool.

I know my network pretty well.  I set it up, same as I have in the previous several places we've called home. I named my network, secured it, gave the devices access, share files between them, and have two printers hooked up (everyone needs a laser and an inkjet, right?).  But the actual service coming in through the wall from the provider is beyond my control.  It makes me feel at best uncomfortable, at times even vulnerable.  So much of my duties and responsibilities rely on that provider to provide.  I don't want to call the call center.  I don't want to read off the lights blinking on my modem.  I don't want to be treated like a simpleton.  I'm not!  I'm IT! Or at least, I use to be.  Now I'm quasi-IT.  When service goes down, it's no longer "our" service, like it was when I was corporate IT.  Now, it's "the service", provided by a big phone company that will ask me the stupid questions like "have you powercycled your modem"?

I use my internet connection for both work and home.  This particular night, I needed to access my online classes for school as well as check in on work email.  I pulled out my smart phone, thankful my online course system is more compatible with Apple products than in the past.  As I’m logging into my classes, I pull wires on the DSL modem and count off minutes to let the thing reset itself.  Once I secure my assignments through my phone, I think more about how my situation could affect my work.  I now live in a rather remote place.  The DSL is the only reliable high speed internet service we have here.  I contemplate what a day of working out of the library or Starbucks would be like, and realize it would not be ideal.  Even worse would be several days, while I wait for the provider to send out a tech.  I probably should come up with some contingency plans. 

Back when I had an office, the contingency plan for emergencies was connect at home.  We had some massive winter conditions, or the occasional server issue flair up, and those I could remedy by simply connecting in from home and working there.  If something happened when I was at home and for some reason I could not connect there, I could go to the office.  Things offset each other nicely.

Pulling the wires and waiting worked, this time.  The internet came back slow, and then eventually picked up speed to normal operation.  Today I realize I need to create another “disaster recovery” plan for long-term service provider outages.  I can only do so much from a smart phone, and some of the things I do on my team are very specific to me.  I think the first thing to do is scope out where the free public hot spots are around my new location.

Otherwise, Plan B is currently drive an hour to my mom’s house and set up shop on her dining room table ;)

Book Review!

Title: Working from Home: Earning a Living Where You Live
Author: Jane Jerrard
Published: 2012
Pages: 184
Paperback, Kindle

Did you know that nearly half the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's 10,000 employees work from home full time?

The rest do so part-time.  And at a savings of almost $20 million to the agency!

Written by work-from-home freelance writer and editor Jane Jerrard, Working from Home Earning a Living Where You Live is a short but sweet guide to almost everything you need to get a home office job including:

• Chosing the Right Job
• Wording you Resume
• Searching for a Job
• Avoiding Scams
• Average Income Expectations
• Creating a Workspace
• Staying organized
• Communicating with Coworkers Virtually
• Working for Yourself / Self-Employment
• Setting Up a Business
• Paying Self-Employment Taxes
• Recommended Insurance
• Home Business Laws
• Choosing Your Office Equipment
• Securing Sensitive Information
• Creating a Business Plan
• Marketing Yourself
• Acquiring Business
• Keeping Records
• Collecting Payments

In the Appendix is a great section called 20 Questions to Ask Yourself before Starting a Business. There are also resources for market research data and statistics so you can determine if your business segment has a likelyhood of success. 

The last section contains additional Web Resources for finding jobs, support groups, networking opportunities, salary ranges, and more. 

Overall, this is a great short resource for anyone interested in seeing if Working from Home might be the right future for them.  I checked this title out on Kindle from my Public Library, or it may be found inexpensively at book retailers such as Amazon below.

 

Working from Home: Earn a Living Where You Live

Let's Be Invisible!

One of the often-toted disadvantages of working from home is that coworkers lose the personal interaction and face to face discussions that make us feel connected as a team. 

To this I say, hogwash.

Nothing makes me bottle up my thoughts on a discussion like sitting in a room with people staring at each other or stopping into my desk space to talk.  I’m an introvert.  The former feels like an interrogation.  The latter feels like an invasion of my personal space. 

Phone calls, webinars, teleconferences, emails and chat messages have improved my ability to open up and contribute to the team.  I can plan ahead for a phone meeting because I have agendas or topics in the invites.  When the leader of the call asks for a report or questions each of us by name, I have my information ready to go, my questions at hand, and a computer to reference if I need it.  If I am writing emails or chatting, I can backspace and edit the message until it sounds just right.  When I instruct with webinars, I never feel the eyes burning a hole through me. 

But there is one aspect of working from home that frightens me.  The Webcam. 

That little lens pointed right at a close up of your face, shown always either in over or under exposed lighting, is just not enjoyable.  Having one trained on me for an hour long meeting is downright torture.  And then there are the background distractions.  Kids, pets, the doorbell, having to get up and grab a bottle of water for your parched throat, or wondering about a person's taste in decor based on the movie poster behind their back are just not apropos. 

Fortunately, the rest of my team seems to avoid the webcam as well.  We all have them, we all are quite capable of using them, but we never, ever mention turning them on.  We know what we all look like.  We even know each other’s voices.  I’d rather they hear my voice and picture me mentally in a jacket and blouse, or a business casual sweater.  Because I am sure I wouldn’t put across a professional message if they saw my puppy pushing her toys in my lap midway through a demonstration ;)

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek College Humor video on working from home with webcams.  Enjoy!

Real Jobs You Can Do From Home!

I hear a lot of wistfulness when I mention that I work from home.  I did my time in office settings, complete with long commutes, frequent meetings, presentations, and so forth.  Now I still do all those things, save the commute, and in trade I often have extended “business” hours.  I think it is a good tradeoff! I both love what I do, and I love where I do it.

 

So, I thought I would share a couple of real work-from-home careers that you might enjoy as well…

 

 

Customer and Technical Support -  There are some companies that will hire work from home support agents.  These agents usually log into a central ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) and a type of incident tracking software that they record their interactions with you in as a record of actions taken on the call.  These companies may hire workers as either an employee of the company, or as an independent contractor.  As an employee, the companies may pay for things like your computer, phone and internet connection. Typically these positions pay by the hour.  As an independent contractor, you may be required to furnish your own connections and computer system. They may also be paid by the incident, rather than by the hour.

 

 

Search Engine Optimization - There are companies that pay for the way you search the web, and reviewing your results with them.  Then you assist them in adding your key words to their site to bump up their company in search results.  If a company wants to be the first result for anyone looking to buy, build, design or install a pool, that company may employ a search engine optimizer.  The downside to this is the position is that it is usually contractual, and you will be looking for new assignments from different companies when your current assignment ends.

 

 

Wedding/Party/Event Planners - Perhaps you enjoy designing the perfect event for others to enjoy?  This is a career you may be able to do mostly from home.  You will still need to meet with your clients, show them venues, share catalogs or your visions, and likely even be there on the special day to coordinate activities, but you do not necessarily need to have an office job feel to your work.  You can do a lot of planning and sharing by email or phone.  A downside? Expect phone calls outside normal business hours.

 

 

Writing!  What position could be more solitary than a writer?  You could find a great career in freelance writing of articles, sports events, concerts, writing fiction, short stories, children’s books, travel guides, and so on and so forth.  The downside is there are a LOT of wannabe writers in the world.  Getting your feet wet in collaborative writing, editing, or copywriting could be a good start, but working from home might be a percentage of the time rather than all the time.

 

 

Accountants - Especially tax accountants. While the demand is seasonal, some companies farm out their work to home-based tax preparers who bury themselves in a part of the house somewhere around the beginning of the year, and do not see the light of day until after April 15th.  If this sort of hibernation appeals to you, the rewards can be lucrative.  You could use those tax skills later in the year independently to assist people who were audited in a much-reduced pace, and plan a few vacations.

 

IT - Specifically, software engineers, computer scientists, programmers, and system administrators often have work-at-home job postings.  In fact, this is where I fall in.  I administer systems that are quickly moving to “the cloud”, so I can access them anywhere with a broadband internet connection and a good computer.  My company pays for both of those, so the where was up to me.  There is a little travel involved to work on projects or with my team members, but on the whole we are all independently situated and there is no office.

In the comments, feel free to add other careers you think could work from home!