Finding Online Jobs

Are you looking for a work-at-home job? Have you searched online only to become frustrated and confused with the array of offerings? Are you weary of looking at site after site trying to make sense of what is real and what is a scam? How can you know whether or not a work-at-home offer is legitimate?

YOU SHOULD BEWARE OF THE FOLLOWING:

Sites that make outrageous claims about earning potentials; they should be considered scams.

• Outdated listings containing phone numbers, links and/or email addresses that don't work.
• Work-at-home sites and companies that claim to find you jobs but only sell you information on how you might be able to make money.
• Pyramid or MLM schemes that try to get you to join them without selling a product or service.
• Someone who asks for your money without answering your questions.
• Use your common sense. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

LEGITIMATE WORK AT HOME JOBS:

Legitimate work-at-home jobs can be found if you know where to look. There are thousands of companies worldwide, on and off the Internet, who are willing to pay people to work from home.

Some companies require you to spend some time working at home and some time in a regular office environment. There are many major corporations now that offer this kind of flexibility for their employees. You might even be able to convert your present job into a telecommuting one. It never hurts to ask your employer.

There are many companies that allow you to work exclusively from home. The many possibilities in this category can include customer service, telemarketing, writing, sales, and graphic design. These jobs are usually pay-per-project or commission-based and can be full-time or part-time. If they are full-time, they may provide benefits such as health insurance, vacation time, and retirement plans.

There are many web sites that specialize in work-at-home jobs. Some sites offer a list of job openings that can be viewed by category. These categories include, but are not limited to, accounting, administration, clerical, finance, graphic design, marketing, sales, web development, and writing.

Other work-at home sites provide only a list of companies that will hire employees to work from home. A lot of these websites also offer excellent information on starting and maintaining a home business.

Legitimate work-at-home opportunities require certain skills and experience just as any regular position would. For some of these jobs you will also need office equipment such as a computer, software, printer, Internet access, phone, and maybe a fax machine.

In your quest to find a job, you should research all opportunities available in the work-at-home industry, as well as other online resources. There are many sites where you can search for home-based work.

THE BEST PLACES TO SEARCH FOR HOME-BASED WORK:

• Company and corporate websites - (IBM, Penney's, Disney, etc.) Whatever store, company or corporation you can think of, they will probably have a website. If they have a website, there will be a link for jobs.
• General employment sites - (jobs.com, monster.com, careerbuilder.com, etc.) There are MANY websites for general job searches. Just do a search for 'jobs' and you're off!
• Online Newspaper Classified Ads - Whatever newspaper you can think of, they will most likely have a website. You can also do a general search online for 'online newspaper classifieds' and you will get thousands of links.
• Work-at-Home Directory listings - If you do a search for 'work at home' or 'work at home directories', you will receive thousands of possibilities.
• Paid online survey sites listing companies seeking marketing research participants - Do a search for 'paid online surveys' and you will amazed by the number of results that come up!

The only requirements to finding a job online are time, commitment and perseverance. If you stick with it and stay focused, you WILL find something that works for you. There ARE jobs out there and there are good jobs out there. Hopefully, the tips listed above will help you in your quest to work from home.

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Jobs Hunting Through Social Networking Sites?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - – Nearly half of US employers research the online profiles of job candidates on social networks such as Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn, according to a new survey.

Forty-five percent of the employers surveyed for CareerBuilder.com, the largest US online job site, said they use social networking sites to check on job candidates, up from just 22 percent in a survey conducted last year.

Another 11 percent said they plan to start using social networking sites for screening.

"As social networking grows increasingly pervasive, more employers are utilizing these sites to screen potential employees," CareerBuilder said in a statement.

It said job seekers should "be mindful of the information they post online."

CareerBuilder said that of those who conduct online searches as background checks on job candidates, 29 percent use Facebook, 26 percent use LinkedIn and 21 percent use MySpace.

Eleven percent search blogs while seven percent follow candidates on micro-blogging service Twitter.

Thirty-five percent of those surveyed said they have found content on a social network that caused them not to hire a candidate, CareerBuilder said.

Examples included "provocative or inappropriate photographs or information" or content about drinking or using drugs.

Other reasons cited were badmouthing a previous employer, co-workers or clients, poor communication skills, making discriminatory comments, lying about qualifications or sharing confidential information from a previous employer.

Information found on social networking profiles was not always a negative factor in finding a job.

Eighteen percent of employers said they have found content on social networking sites that caused them to hire the candidate, CareerBuilder said.

Some profiles "provided a good feel for the candidates personality" or supported their professional qualifications while others demonstrated creativity or solid communication skills.

Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, recommended that candidates "clean up digital dirt" before beginning a job search by removing photos, content and links which could hurt their chances.

The survey of 2,667 hiring managers and human resource professionals was conducted by Harris Interactive between May 22 and June 10. It has a sampling error of plus or minus 1.9 percentage points.

Source: Yahoo News!


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Free e-books offerings

NEW YORK - James Patterson's latest best seller, "The Angel Experiment," is a little different from his usual hits. The novel isn't new; it came out four years ago. Readers aren't picking it up at bookstores, but mostly on the Kindle site at Amazon.com.

And the price is low even for an old release: $0.00.

"I like the notion of introducing people to one book, while promoting the sales of another," says the prolific and mega-selling author (and co-author) of numerous thrillers." His Kindle download is the first book of Patterson's "Maximum Ride" young adult series.

"We've given away thousands of free e-copies," Patterson said. "`Maximum Ride' is big already and we think it could be a lot bigger. That requires getting people to read it."

Patterson is among the biggest brands added to the growing list of free e-book offerings. Over the past few months, top sellers on the Kindle — with downloads in the tens of thousands, authors and publishers say — have included such public domain titles as "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and novels by Jennifer Stevenson and Greg Keyes.

In recent days, the top three Kindle sellers have been free books: Patterson's, Joseph Finder's "Paranoia" and Keyes' "The Briar King."

"There's always going to be someone who wants free things. What we're trying to do is link free with paid," Maja Thomas, senior vice president of digital media at Patterson's publisher, the Hachette Book Group, said. "It's like priming the pump."

"What we like to do is make the first book in a series free, usually a series that has multiple books," said Scott Shannon, publisher of the Del Rey/Spectra imprint at Random House, Inc., which published Keyes' fantasy novel.

Shannon said Del Rey has had especially good luck with Naomi Novik's "Temeraire" fantasy series after offering the first book for free. He said sales for the other Temeraire novels increased by more than 1,000 percent. "It's been stunning," he said.

Publishers and authors have been nervous that the standard cost for electronic editions of new releases, just under $10, will take away sales from the more expensive hardcovers and set an unrealistically low price for the future. They are concerned, but open-minded, about free books, which present a chance and a challenge: Readers may buy other books, or, they may simply seek more free titles.

"It's a huge hot-button topic we've been discussing within our division and at the corporate level," Shannon said. "We have had phenomenal success with using free books to get people to buy others by an author. But in the long term, we have to guard the market. We have to make sure people understand that time and energy goes into writing a book."

"Consumers love free — free is a good price. But the opportunity they present to publishers is to experiment, and I stress experiment," Ellie Hirschhorn, Simon & Schuster's chief digital officer, said.

The dominant e-book seller Amazon.com has been aggressive about keeping prices low, and has given free e-books high visibility by including them on the Kindle best-seller list. A leading rival, Sony, does not include free works among its best sellers, although some free books have popular downloads.

"We do withhold them from the best-seller list, so that it's an accurate reflection of what people are actually buying," says Sony eBook store director Chris Smythe.

In an e-mail statement about free ebooks, Amazon.com spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal, said, "We work hard to provide customers with the best value possible and pass savings on to them whenever possible." Portugal added that Amazon includes free books among its top sellers because the list is "based on customer orders — customers are still ordering these books, they just have a price tag of $0.00."

David Bailey, 56, a systems analyst in Tacoma, Wash., is the kind of customer publishers and authors want to get. He has downloaded free texts by Kelly Link, Scott Sigler and others, but has then purchased other books by those authors, sometimes "just to support them."

One of Bailey's free downloads was Finder's "Paranoia," a thriller first published in 2004. Finder, whose "Vanished" comes out Aug. 18, said he initially saw the free offering as a "no lose" deal since "Paranoia" wasn't selling many copies anyway and sales for his other books, including "Power Play" and "Killer Instinct," have gone up. But, noticing all the free best sellers on the Kindle, he wondered if readers will get used to not paying.

"I get a lot of e-mails from people, saying, `I hadn't even heard of you until I read your free book.' So no question, it does bring in free riders," Finder said. "But I'm also increasingly concerned. There are so many free e-books that basically you could stuff your Kindle or Sony Reader with free books and never have to buy anything."


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