Find Real Telecommute Careers

Before traipsing onto the web, wading through the muck of telecommute web sites, the first thing you want to do is create a professional website. I created my site and professional email inbox at Microsoft Office Live. It's free, easy and they have additional tools you can use as a Virtual Professional, such as SkyDrive, for document storage.

The main thing to remember is NEVER, EVER under ANY circumstances pay a fee or for a "list" of companies that hire telelcommuters. Why? Not necessarily because it's a ripoff but they aren't offering anything that you can't get for free.

Having spent so much time on various sites and applying, bidding and getting nowhere, I can, without reservation recommend the following sites... FREE SITES, for you to create an account with and place bids for jobs. (For more information on bidding, follow my articles. I'll be writing that article next).

Elance

Elance is one of the most well-known bid platforms. You get a free account and 10 free bids per month. There are options for paid membership but it is up to you to determine when, and if, you want to go that route. They charge a fee, per hour, but that is added to the payment the Client/Vendor makes to you AFTER you've done the job and they submit payment. The other benefits of Elance are the online timer, which takes webshots to verify to the employer you are working on their project when you say you are; and, Escrow. With Escrow, the Client/Vendor has to put the funds with Elance. In the event there would be a dispute, Elance uses the online tracker and information to determine if you've worked and should get paid or if the Client is right not to pay you. In over a year, with Elance, I have never had this issue. With the free account, you can only bid on one Category; however, if you want to change it, you can.

Freelancer

Freelancer is also free to join. They, too, charge a fee from the Client/Vendor. They also offer paid memberships but allow 40 bids per month. They don't offer a tracking system, like Elance. And, although they do not require payment verification, they offer the ability for you, as the job seeker, to click on a link under the Clients name to see if their payment has been verified so you KNOW you will get paid for the work. A bid plus for this site is you can choose up to 25 categories to bid in, which can be changed at any time.

Guru

Guru also has free membership services; however, unlike Elance and Freelancer, the fee is charged to the worker (you) so that needs to be kept in mind when placing bids on projects. With their free account, you get 10 free bids per month but they do offer Bid Packs, where you can purchase a small or large amount of additional bids. The drawback here is you can only sign up for one specialty, such as Admin Support, Legal, Finance, Web... and so on. You can only bid on those requests that a Client lists in your category. Once you select that category, it cannot be changed. A new profile would have to be created.

There are also a few sites that list companies that list legitimate freelance/telecommute jobs, with no strings attached.

Rat Race Rebellion

This site is provided by Staffcentrix, a training and development company that designed the first virtual-work training programs for the US Department of State and the US Armed Forces. Since 1999, they have been showing organizations and people how to work virtually. They were also premiered on The View in December.

Homeworkers

They have a work at home database that allows you to enter criteria and locate companies that are hiring for positions you want to fill. No strings attached!

I am certain there are other legitimate sites like ODesk and People Per Hour; however, I have had no luck getting any projects with them at this time so I cannot really promote how good or bad they are.

Laura Smith

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