What do work-from-home jobs / remote jobs really look like?
  & how do you avoid scams?

credits and disclaimer

I'm writing this as someone who has worked from home, off and on, since 1998. And note my comment: "off and on." Most people who work from home do not do it for decades - they do it as positions they hold allow, and as positions change, so do work from home arrangements. Most people who work from home do a mix of onsite and remote work - for the same job, they may work from home some days in the office some days.

To get paid for any of these activities, you have to have the expertise necessary and you have to find a company or individual willing to pay you to do so. Most employers advertise for such jobs just like they do onsite jobs. It's possible to find many of these jobs via indeed.com. For some jobs, you can just google keywords and web sites will come up that advertise these jobs specifically.

Some people create their own web sites to advertise their services, and hope that potential clients will contact them (clients find them through web searches).

Some people advertise their professional services via TaskRabbit or Thumbtack or Fiverr.

Jobs where you will work talking with clients via audio or video may require that you can prove you will work in a space where you can close the door, where your children and your pets will not be in the same room when you are talking with a client, where no one else will be working, etc. They may require you to have a neutral background on any video that shows only a blank wall - no books, no posters, nothing visible that has any words on it. MANY require you to plug your computer directly into a device that is wired to the Internet - they do NOT allow you to use a wi-fi connection to work. Some require you to already have noise-canceling headphones and an external microphone.

There are some non-computer related work-from-home ideas near the end of the list.

Warning

Whatever you do: NEVER pay for an online or remote job. NEVER. Never pay a registration fee, a subscription, a deposit, NOTHING. Any job that asks you for money is a scam.

Credible jobs will NOT ask you to buy or rent equipment - but many may expect you to already have such (laptop or desktop, video camera, microphone, headset, etc.). If you are asked to buy equipment from the employer, it's a scam - DON'T DO IT.

Do not write me and say, "I got this offer for a job. Is it a scam?" I've told you everything you need to know if it's a scam. If you write me and ask me this I'm not going to reply.

Do not write me and say, "How do I get to be an online tutor" or psychic or whatever. Search through indeed.com, go to the web sites of companies where you want to work, do Google searches - but don't ask me on how to find an online job.

If you are in a developing country

Examples of Roles & Tasks By Remote, At-Home Workers

• staffing a customer service phone line or email in-box. Maybe you'll take calls from U-Haul customers who encounter issues with their rented vehicle, maybe you'll verify information submitted by new customers to an insurance agency, maybe you will take orders or schedule appointments or book reservations - so many possibilities. For these jobs, you may be required to live in a certain time zone, have a landline, complete extensive training, have excellent written communication skills (free of grammar and spelling errors), a very clear speaking voice and the ability to stay calm.
   
• providing technical assistance to customers (see the previous bullet for what this might be like and qualities you will need).
   
• processing insurance claims.
   
• transcribing scanned documents.
   
• translating documents from one language to another, or proofreading translations by others.
   
• researching topics and gathering information for a newsletter article, a new web site section, a business plan or proposal, an upcoming software purchase, a program or project, and on and on. Many writing and editing jobs for experienced writers and editors in the USA are advertised at mediabistro. (meaning you have a portfolio of your PUBLISHED writing and job references for your editing).
   
• designing web pages and developing entire web sites.
   
• editing or writing proposals, press releases, newsletter articles, video scripts, web pages, term papers, news articles, white papers, etc.
   
• designing any publication, for print or for online.
   
• developing material for a curriculum.
   
• designing a database.
   
• designing graphics.
   
• providing legal, business, medical, agricultural, financial or any other donated professional expertise (answering questions, creating a strategy, commenting on a strategy, reviewing or evaluating data, evaluating a policy, tax preparation, financial audit, etc.).
   
• serving on a focus group for a product or service.
   
• counseling people, as a professional, fully-licensed counselor. 
   
• tutoring students.
   
• training people.
   
• moderating or facilitating online discussion groups groups or live online events, to answer questions, to refer people to FAQs, to facilitate disagreements, to address harassment and cyber bullying, to counter fake news/misinformation, offer technical assistance, etc., or to provide technical support during live events.
   
• managing social media accounts (providing content, or even just replying to people who DM the company account.
   
• populating a database with information, such as recipes for people with diabetes, or recycling ideas, or information about access points into a mass transit system accessible for people with mobility issues, or wheelchair-accessible music venues, and on and on. 
   
• interviewing and recording clients or community members for a project or survey.
   
• analyzing survey data and providing a report on this analysis.
   
• interviewing candidates for a job.
   
• creating a podcast for a company or individual (writing the script, editing the audio, adding in intro and exit music, reading text, etc.).
   
• creating a video for a company or individual.
   
• editing a video for a company or individual.
   
• captioning a video for a company or individual.
   
• transcribing a podcast or meeting so that people can read it (not everyone can listen to such - some prefer to read it as well).
   
• putting in short descriptions of images on a web site or community, or transcribe images of text that is on a web site or online community, so that people that rely on text-to-speech or other assistive software (mostly these are people with disabilities) can access the information as well. This makes a web site or online community more accessible.
   
• redesigning or redesigning a web site so that it is accessible for people with disabilities, such as getting rid of all "read more" and "click here" links on a web site, replacing them with descriptive links, so that the web site is more accessible for people with disabilities, adding alt texts to all images and graphics on a web site, so that the web site is more accessible for people with disabilities.
   
• making all PDFs on a web site accessible for different screen readers (and therefore for people with disabilities), or converting key information in PDF files to HTML to be shared as web pages.
   
• evaluating a web site and offering advice on text changes that can improve its search engine optimization or improve its accessibility.
   
• teaching language classes for your native language on Duolingo (once you have completed at least two sections of one Duolingo course and logged in for at least one lesson every day, you will get an invitation to apply to do this). The company prefers that you have taken some of these classes yourself on their platform, in a language different than your own, before you attempt to do such a class yourself.
   
• monitoring the news to look for specific subjects or mentions of a person or organization.
   
• monitoring Quora, Reddit or other popular online communities on behalf of a company, to answer questions on a particular subject or about a particular organization, to refer people to a web site that will answer their questions, to counter fake news/misinformation on a particular subject, etc.
   
• tagging photos and files with keywords (so that they can be more easily found by internal staff, search engines, the press, etc.).
   
• managing other employees or consultants.
   
• taking in laundry (washing other people's clothes).
   
• home-based childcare.
   
• in-home pet sitting.
   
• making something and then selling it online (such as via eBay or Etsy - though you can also sell it out of your garage.)
   
• psychic services. Go look at online psychic sites and look under "jobs" or "careers" - many of them are actively looking for psychics. Or, just use your psychic powers to know who is looking and contact them accordingly.
   
• life coach. This is where you promote yourself as someone who can help others improve their lives, by advising them on relationships, social activities they should pursue, hobbies they should undertake, classes they should take, etc. Life coaches are "self made" - they promote themselves as such (no company is recruiting life coaches).
   
• online influencer - this is where you have thousands and thousands of followers and subscribers on Instagram and YouTube, so many that advertisers send you money to advertise on your channel. How much have I made as an online influencer? $100. Yup, enough to almost pay for a week of groceries one time.

Reminders

If you want to translate this document into another language and post it on your own web site, feel free - however, please do not use the author's name anywhere on the site.

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