A friend brought this site to our attention and we wanted to share it with all of you:

FindFocusGroups.com

Might be a nice way to earn a little pocket change while you continue searching for work at home jobs for moms.

~Enjoy!

Recently, while searching the web for work at home jobs for moms, we came upon an ad for a remote customer service job. You never saw the ad…well, not in our job leads anyway…because, while it sounded like a legitimate work at home job, the sad fact of the matter is that they were charging a fee for you to be trained. Let’s rephrase that: they were charging a rather high fee of $100 to train you in the specifics of their job description. Although we don’t doubt that the ad was for a legitimate work at home job, that they sought to profit from you in this way was a huge turnoff to us. However, we’ve since come to learn from a few work at home moms that this isn’t entirely uncommon.

Charging people to train for a position is just icky to us and if you ever encounter this in one of the work at home jobs for moms that we offer a lead on, please let us know. Further, we won’t judge you if you choose to pay for one of these jobs “training modules”, we want to make sure that you know that you don’t have to do so. Our advice is to continue looking for a WAH job, as there are many that don’t charge. As you know, we list job leads daily and will continue to bring you updates as we learn of them.

Work at Home Transcriber Jobs Are Not Just Exclusive…Sometimes They Can Be Elusive!

In posting work at home jobs for moms, we do our best to supply links to employers hiring for medical transcription work. Home-based transcription positions, however, can be a little difficult to come by. Therefore, we thought it would be nice to share a few tips on finding these unique work at home jobs for moms and to open the doors of communication for you to share a few of your own with your fellow work at home moms.

(NOTE: If you happened upon this post because you’d like to become a transcriptionist or because you’d like more information on how you can earn money performing medical transcription work, home typing or general transcription work, please see our articles located in the Work at Home Mom Job & Training Center located in your sidebar.)

Tips for Finding Medical Transcription Work

Home-based opportunities in this field do exist and, all over the world, people just like you are earning money through legitimate work at home transcription jobs. Although job leads can sometimes appear to be quite thin, here are a few tips to help you find transcriber jobs that are perfect for your work schedule:

• Cold Call – Yes, it’s a scary idea to some, but some of the best transcription positions are not advertised and, therefore, you have to do a little homework. We suggest going through your local Yellow Pages and asking doctor’s offices, hospitals, law firms and other professionals who they are using to satisfy their transcription needs. Then, contact these companies directly and ask about available positions and who you can send your resume to.
• Network – Several forums and blogs are dedicated to medical transcription work. Home workers tend to congregate in these places to share stories, advice, encouragement and, yes, job leads. Social networks on Facebook or Twitter are a great place to also meet fellow transcriptionists who may be able to offer you a heads up on positions that aren’t advertised.
• Speak up – Let people know that you are looking for medical transcription work. Home is the best place to start, because even though friends and family members aren’t in the field, it’s likely that they’ve come across someone who needs a transcriptionist. Remember that it’s not just doctors who need to fill transcription positions, but online marketers often need webinars transcribed, professors are often looking for lectures to be be transcribed and a lot of other professionals who your friends and family members may have in their Rolodex may have a need for transcription services, too. So, make it known to anyone who will listen that you are on the hunt for transcriber jobs.
• Advertise – Did you know that it’s completely free to list your services on popular classified ad sites like CraigsList and Kijiji? Or that Facebook has a Marketplace for you to advertise your wares and services? These are but a few of the places where you can let people know that you are available for regular or medical transcription work. Home workers have also had success advertising in their local papers, as well, so be sure to consider all of the free and low-cost classified listings in your area.

Don’t Give Up!

Legitimate transcription positions do exist and each day people are finding transcriber jobs by employing these tips. Looking for medical transcription work, home typing and other transcription positions can sometimes feel like you’re looking for a needle in a haystack. With a little outside-the-box thinking and a whole lot of perseverance, however, you CAN find transcription positions…even when they’re not publicly advertised.

We’d like to hear from you!

What are some of the tips you can recommend to others searching for transcription positions? When it comes to finding work at home jobs for moms, it’s important that we share our personal experiences and ideas. So we hope you’ll share with us some of the tips you’ve found to be helpful in locating transcription positions.

Mock Jury Duty, Anyone?

Obviously we spend a lot of time gathering leads for work at home jobs for moms. However, every now and then we discover a few that we’ve never heard of or, quite frankly, ever considered possible. Enter online jurors!

Apparently, lawyers hire mock jurors to review their cases and weigh in on their opinions and it’s all done online. It makes perfect sense that attorneys would conduct such focus groups since, as we know, working at home saves on commuting and all of the little expenses associated with in-person meetings or work (cost of the physical location, utilities, coffee, office supplies, etc.). But the fact that we were actually able to locate a few companies that do so puts working at home as an online juror on our radar.

Are Online Jurors a Legitimate Work at Home Opportunity?

Before we go any further, it’s important to note that the discovery of online jury duty is a new work at home jobs for moms possibility for us. And, while we’re happy to share our findings with you, we cannot vouch for the legitimacy of these companies or the opportunities that they provide. With that said, PLEASE, if you have any experience as an online juror (or with any of the other work at home jobs for moms that we discuss here), we strongly encourage you to weigh in about your experiences.

Now, on to the good stuff…

Companies Hiring Online Mock Jurors

Here are a few companies that we found who hire online jurors and we encourage you go check them out for yourself:

eJury

Trial Practice

Jury Test

Online Verdict

How Much Are Online Jurors Paid?

From what we’ve read, most companies pay online jurors between $5 and $60 per case, so this certainly isn’t a full-time income opportunity. But it sounds like it may be an interesting experience and a way to make a little money on the side while exploring other work at home jobs for moms.

What do you think?

Do you know of any other companies hiring online jurors?

If you have any experience as an online juror, please leave a comment…we’d love to her from you!

If you can easily blow several hours tweeting, find yourself obsessively updating your Facebook status or have ever spent an entire afternoon engaging in a forum discussion, you may want to consider becoming a social media expert.

Is This a Real Work From Home Job?

While some social media jobs require a person to work on-site, a good percentage of them allow employees to work from home since the job is performed wholly on the Internet. Also, keep in mind that this is a service that you can offer as a freelancer or as an independent contractor. Simply post an ad for your services on CraigsList and similar sites, and you just may be able to start a new business.

Get Paid to Tweet, Really?

Yup, really. But that’s not all. Other services you may be asked to perform (or you may want to offer if you’ll be doing this as a freelancer) are:

• Social bookmarking
• Submitting articles to article directories (also consider writing articles for submissions!)
• Submitting press releases to media outlets and directories
• Submitting company websites to search engines and directories
• Forum and blog commenting to provide backlinks to a client’s site

Consider a few recent job descriptions from companies serious about hiring someone to handle their social media needs:

Social Media / Community Manager / Online Marketing

Social Media Reporter

Virtual Admin – Social Media

Also, be sure to check out today’s JOB LEADS for social media job leads and other work at home jobs for moms.

What Kind of Companies Need a Social Media Expert?

Any company that plans to do business in the 21st century.

Seriously!

See, business is all about branding and the Internet is an enormous landscape where companies need constant visibility. Gone are the days when it was enough for a company to have a website and an email address. In order to compete in today’s marketplace, companies need to have a presence on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and a variety of forums and other sites where their target customers hang out.

It’s unlikely that busy executives or their employees have the time to engage in all of these mediums on a daily basis, so it makes perfect sense that companies would either create a new position for an employee to handle their social media needs or outsource these duties to someone like yourself who is looking for a perfect work at home job.

When searching for work at home jobs for moms, keep your eyes and ears open for freelance writing contests. You may or may not be a professional writer, but contests are a way to possibly earn extra cash from your writing skills and become an award-winning writer in the process! To get you started, here’s a list of freelance writing contests you can enter today:

Atlanta Review – International Poetry Competition ($2,010 Grand Prize – Deadline May 7)

Writer’s Digest 79th Annual Writing Competition ($30,000 in Cash Prizes – Deadline May 14))

SubTerrain’s Annual Lush Triumphant Literary Awards Competition ($3,000 in Cash Prizes – Deadline May 15)

2010 Elizabeth Simpson Smith Short Story Contest ($500 Grand Prize – Deadline May 28)

Olive Garden Pasta Tales Essay Writing Contest (Contest is for school-age youth – 3-day trip to NY and $2,500 Savings Bond Grand Prize – Deadline December 11)

For more work at home jobs for moms, check out our job leads.

Happy Writing to All!

In yesterday’s post, we discussed the importance of knowing what kind of work at home job you’re looking for and we even offered you a quiz to help you get started. We also offered you a few tips for how to search for work at home jobs for moms online. If you are just tuning in, we encourage you go read part one of this series before going any further.

Now, continuing where we left off, here are a few more ways that you can find work at home jobs for moms on your own:

Going Direct

If you have an idea of the exact type of work at home job that you’re looking for, consider making a list of companies that may offer telecommute positions. Often, you’ll find that companies don’t advertise jobs in classified ads, but list them on their company website instead. Visit their sites regularly and check their ‘careers’ or ‘jobs’ sections while keeping an eye out for possible work at home positions.

Job Aggregators

Of course, checking job boards, like Monster or HotJobs is a good idea, too. However, this can be a time consuming task if going one by one to large job sites. Instead, try sites that aggregate results from these and make it a part of your daily routine to check them out. Some of the ones that we like are Indeed.com or SimplyHired.com, but there are a ton of others that you can explore during your search.

Social Networking

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others can be a great source for job searches. Not only can you network with other home workers, but opportunities for work at home jobs for moms are often posted or mentioned on these sites.

Our Friends

We have a growing list of other work at home mom sites listed in our sidebar. After you’ve checked our job listings and read through any news that we’ve updated, you may want to take a gander at some of our friend’s sites to see what’s new there. By networking and staying up to date on what’s going on in the work at home mom community, you will not only make strong contacts, but you will also be led to other opportunities for working at home.

A Work at Home Job or a Home-Based Business?

After looking for employers who hire employees to work at home, you’ll undoubtedly run across home-based business opportunities. Perhaps it’s time to reassess what it is that you’d like to do. Unless you’re working for a commission, having an employer means that you’re guaranteed a wage for the time that you spend working. Owning your own home-based business, however, doesn’t guarantee you a salary, but there is the unlimited income potential, as well as the freedom and flexibility to do what you want, when you want. Often, there’s an investment involved in owning your own business, but there are a ton of opportunities out there.

Whether you decide on a work at home job or a small business opportunity, knowing how to find what you’re looking for is crucial. Continue to visit the Work at Home Mom Center for information and resources that you can use while you’re looking for a gig and even after you’ve secured one. We’ll always do our best to offer you tips, advice and leads to help make your work at home mom experience the best that it can be.

So, tell us, what’s your best method of finding work at home jobs for moms?

As you can tell by our job listings, legitimate work at home jobs for moms (and others!) do exist. If you’re determined to join this growing workforce, you’re going to have to know how to find work at home jobs on your own. Sure, we’ll continue to help by directing you to available jobs, but we also want you to know how to sniff opportunities out, as well.

Assess Your Skills and Strengths

To begin with, it helps to know what it is that you want to do. What kind of work have you done in the past? What special skills do you have? Where do your interests lie? Are you looking for full-time work, part-time work or are you just interested in working when the mood strikes? How much money do you need to earn? Ask yourself all of these questions in order to formulate an idea about what kind of work you’d like to do from home. If you find that you’re struggling with an answer, try taking this work at home quiz and see what you come up with.

Do You Need Special Training?

Perhaps you’re not interested in performing the same duties that you’re experienced in and are looking for a career change. For instance, you may have once worked as a secretary, but you’re now interested in a medical transcription career for which you’ll need additional training. Now is the time to broaden your horizons and set new goals to attain the education you need for the career you want. If you need further job training, it’s better not to put it off until later, but dive in and start studying now. A lot of courses can be completed online or during the evening hours so as not to disrupt your current schedule too terribly. Making a small sacrifice to obtain quality job training today can definitely create a stronger future for you and your family.

Where Are the Jobs?

Work at home jobs for moms are all around you. When searching, of course most people start locally. Your local newspaper, as well as online classifieds, such as CraigsList, is a good place to start. Don’t stop there, however. Since you’re working at home, it’s not necessary for you to limit yourself to local searches. Your employer can literally be on the other side of the world, so you should think in terms of searching globally.

Internet Search

When searching online for work at home jobs for moms, try the following search terms:

“work from home”

“own computer”

“telecommute position”

“freelancer needed”

Of course, there are all sorts of variations that you can search, which are particular to your needs. However, notice that each search term above is nestled between quotes. The reason for this is that doing so tells the search engine that you only want to see results with those exact phrases.

If you find that you are receiving results that you do not want, try adding a minus sign before the words that you do not want to appear in your results.

Example:

“work from home” –surveys

With this example, you will receive results containing your requested keywords, “work from home”, but those that include the word “surveys” will automatically be omitted.

If you are using Google for your search, you can narrow your search even further simply by clicking the ‘options’ link at the top of your search results. Among the options listed on the menu, you can narrow your results down to the latest or to a specific timeframe that you’d like to see results from.

Tomorrow, we’ll delve a little deeper into tips to help you find work at home jobs for moms. For now, though, spend some time applying what you’ve learned today and see what you discover. Be sure to bookmark this site and add us to your RSS feed so that you don’t miss future updates or work at home job listings.

Click here for Finding a Work at Home Job – Part 2

Childcare continues to be one of the largest barriers work at home moms struggle to overcome. While many of you may think this is a non-issue since moms are at home anyway, it is a major issue for moms with very young children. How do you find quiet time to work when your toddler insists on singing Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! at the top of her lungs? Or when an inquisitive little one insists on talking your ears off for hours on end? While every mother longs to be there for her child, which is part of the reason she opts to work at home, the fact is that she still needs time to focus her energy on work. To these moms we ask, “Have you ever considered a babysitting co-op?”

What is a Babysitting Co-op?

If the concept sounds foreign to you, don’t worry you’re not alone. A babysitting co-op is comprised of parents who agree to exchange babysitting responsibilities within the group. Such gives members a one-stop shop for babysitting, which is always available, dependable and, most of all, affordable…because it’s free!

Specifically, How Does a Babysitting Co-op Work?

When members sit for one another, points are earned. In turn, when members need a sitter, they spend their points by offering them to another member who does the actual sitting. While there is a time investment involved and this is not full-time childcare, it is a way for work at home moms to create quiet work hours or to get out of the house for appointments without having to pay high babysitting costs.

Members meet at regular intervals to handle the business of the co-op, as well as to socialize. In this way, familiarity is bred and members do not feel as though they are leaving their children with strangers. Lifelong friendships and support systems often grow out of babysitting co-ops.

How to Start Your Own Work at Home Mom Babysitting Co-op

All you need is one or more other work at home moms who are interested in forming a co-op. Of course, the more the merrier, but we don’t want you to feel like you need twenty other moms to get started. Even if you don’t know other work at home moms (or moms that may have a need to join the co-op for other reasons), don’t sweat it, because you can always recruit others in your area using the methods detailed in The Smart Mom’s Baby-Sitting Co-op Handbook, which can be found in the Work at Home Mom Center Bookstore.

Never Pay for Babysitting Again

Let’s face it, working at home is as challenging as it is rewarding. Childcare can be expensive and, at least in part, defeats the purpose of why you chose to work at home in the first place. Being the superwoman that you are, you’d like to do it all, but it’s just not possible. Even though you have the luxury of defining your own schedule, no one ever said that your kids would automatically cooperate with it. When you’re on a tight deadline and work simply must be done, why not let the kids play for a while with the children of another co-op member while you handle your business? Journey on over to the bookstore now and pick up The Smart Mom’s Baby-Sitting Co-op Handbook and never pay for babysitting again!

What does your workspace look like?

Does it inspire you to be productive?

Is it well-organized?

Are you comfortable in it?

All of these questions, and more, are what you need to ask yourself in order to get the most from your designated space (and you should definitely have a “designated space”!). Even if you only work from home part time, it’s important that your home office is one where you can produce and effectively grow your output.

If you feel as though you’re struggling in this area, then we invite you to take a look at Maggie Shoonmaker’s article on ways to Design and Organize a Great Home Office over at the Daily Camera website.

For many who are starting out on a tight budget, it may not be feasible to shop for new furnishings for a home office, but we suggest that you regularly check with your local Freecycle, as well as with CraigsList (including their freebie section) for items that you can pick up for free, or at a very low cost, to decorate your home office. At this time of year, especially, a lot of college students are preparing to break for the summer and need to get rid of dorm and apartment furnishings fast. From one of these, you may be able to secure a great deal on a used desk, chair or any number of other needed office furnishings.

The bottom line is that a dedicated office space is simply a MUST for all work at home moms. Even if you’re working at the kitchen table for now, be sure that everything that you need is within reach, thoughtfully organized and that it is physically comfortable.