How the work at home job listings work…

You probably know that I have work at home jobs listed at my site.  You may not know that every week I publish an email notification of the new listings that were posted each week- The Job Listings Weekly.  They go out each Tuesday morning.  Here’s a screenshot of this week’s issue:

At the top you’ll find the date of the issue and right below that is a paid sponsor ad.  There is only ever one ad in each issue.  Below that is a quick note from me.  Now, on to the next and most important part– the job listings.

In bold are the category headings.  It’s important to note that the Home Business category is the only category where the listings are not jobs, but home business opps.  Often there is an investment required to start a home business.  It doesn’t mean that it’s a scam, you have to expect there to be some kind of investment to start any business.

A job is a different story and all listings in all other categories should not involve any fees at all, they are actual telecommute job offers.

Now, let’s look at the listings…

When you click on one of the job titles it will take you to the detailed listing on the website.  This is where you will find the complete listing including the job description, job location (if any), application instructions, contact information, etc.

If you look at the first listing for the Administrative Assistant you’ll notice that it has a city and state in parenthesis as part of the title.  This means that the applicant must live in that location.  I can’t stress how important this is.  If you don’t already live in that location, you absolutely should not apply.  I have lost clients due to floods of inquiries and applications from people who don’t live anywhere near the required area.  It’s a frustrating waste of time for the employer.  The last thing you want to do when trying to land a job is to annoy the employer, right?

So, now we’ll click through to one of the job listings on the site…

Note how in the location field it says “See Post”.  When you read the job description it specifies that they are looking for candidates in Northern and Southern California, Texas, Mid-Atlantic and New England.  Sometimes a required location is put into the job title, sometimes it’s put in that location field up top and, as in this case, sometimes it’s included within the job description.  It’s important to read a listing thoroughly before firing off a response because you might miss something like that.

Below the description are the job requirements.  Most employers have very specific skills and experience requirements and they will most often list them here.  Others will include the requirements in the job description field.  Either way, just be sure to read the entire listing carefully.

This is the last part of the listing where the application instructions and/or contact information is listed.  I’ve shaded out the contact information to protect the employer’s privacy.  All listings will have either an email address, website, phone number or address.  If there are no instructions but there is an email address then a letter of interest would be appropriate.  If the listing includes a contact name then you should address your correspondence to that person.

Be sure to follow the application instructions.  If they specify that you should paste your resume into the body of an email rather than including it as an attachment, be sure to do so.  Nothing will disqualify you faster than demonstrating that you cannot follow directions.

Remember, you only get once chance to make a first impression.  Make sure that in addition to following the advice above you also conduct yourself with the utmost professionalism in all of your communications.

If you want to subscribe to The Job Listings Weekly, you can do that here.

Tags: job searching, work at home jobs