Commuting to an office job can be expensive for both the employees struggling with gas prices, and the employer struggling with energy costs and sky high commercial real estate lease costs. The good news for those wanting to cut out the commute is that telecommuting jobs do exist. The bad news is that they can be hard to come by, and the search can be littered with scams and low paying jobs.

Here are a few resources to help you on your quest to the perfect at home job.

  • Monster or hotjobs: Try doing a keyword search for “telecommute” or “home”, and narrow your search by geographic location and occupation.
  • You can try a similar search at your local newspaper online want ads, or the craigslist job search.
  • Negotiate for telecommuting rights. If you spend much of your work day working independently, or on conference calls, negotiate for your rights to work one or more days at home.
  • Freelancing: If you have in demand skills, you may have luck searching for freelance assignments at oDesk or Elance.
  • If you don’t mind customer service, try some home call center work through West Corp, LiveOps or AlpineAccess
  • For the entrepreneurs in the audience, you can try your luck at opening one or more on line stores. Stores online offers all in one packages to get you started including training, hosting and easy to use ready made website templates. Hint: They often travel around the country giving free seminars that include deep discounts to the startup offers you will find directly from their site.
  • Become a “virtual assistant”. Either search for the term directly on the job boards already mentioned, or go to a site specializing in it at Team Double-Click.

Tips for work at home seekers to avoid scams:

  • If your dream telecommute job requires a sizeable up front investment, it may be a scam
  • Do a google search on the company name to see if anyone has written about any scams related to the “job”
  • You can also search FTC website to see if any scams were reported.
  • Lastly, make sure you are prepared to deal with the at home distractions of working at home!