Friday, January 23, 2015

Answering Questions about Working-from-Home

When friends and acquaintances find out that I work from home, most of the questions I get are:

"How did you start?"
"How much do you earn?"
"How do you get paid?"
"What kind of work do you do?"
"Do you think I can do that too?"

If you are one of those who ask at least one of these questions or at least curious about WAHMs (work-at-home moms) and WAHDs (work-at-home-dads), then this is for you.



Getting started takes a lot of hard work. You have to research the available platforms online that you can sign up to and then build your profile. Your profile serves as your online resume that the clients can view to learn more about you, your background and the previous work experience. A tip. Make this as enticing as possible. When you get started, expect to do a lot of reading. Sure there are support groups and all but you have to do everything by yourself. No one is going to hand over a project to you. You have to be out there, selling yourself and your skills.

How much you earn depends on the kind of work you do and your agreement with your client. It also depends on how many project you're working on and how much work you do. In short, you dictate how much you earn. There are no paid holidays or paid sick leaves. If you don't work, you don't earn anything. Sad, but true.

When I started working from home, I was amazed at the number of options one has. I am thankful that I have this blog because this was one of the references I used to showcase my writing skills and style. So I started with a few writing projects and blog commenting projects. A few months later I landed my "dream job." I am now working as a Quality Assurance Analyst. Why dream job? It's what I did when I was still working in the BPO industry. Doing that one thing that you love doing and have been doing for years, and you get to do that at home -- definitely a dream job for me.

Do I think anyone can do it? Maybe. I am not saying yes because some people are not cut to be working from home. Some people thrive when they physically work with someone on tasks. Remember, working from home means everything is done remotely, even conferences or meetings. But if you are one of those people who are considering this set up, do not immediately resign from your current job unless you have landed a good contract. Test the waters. If this works out for you, then great! If not, it's fine. This is not the only option to earn a living anyway.






2 comments:

  1. Happy New Year Tyna ! I had missed reading your posts online and I am glad that you found the time to write one. It is good to know that you were able to find your dream job working from home. Hopefully I will take the same route once my other two kids in college are done with their studies. Thanks for a very informative post and hope you could share your experiences and tips more once you have the time.

    Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Happy New Year to you too, Sarah. After landing the "big" contract, I sort of got overwhelmed because I had 2 other contracts then, so I stopped writing. Now, I'm making it a commitment to writing a blog post at least once a week. I'm glad to know that you find this informative. :) Thanks again. Let me know if I can help you get started working from home.

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