Beating a Dead Horse

An e-mailer comments:

In my searching for the past 5 years for real work at home jobs, I can safely say that unless you live in New York, Florida or California, your chances of coming across an at-home job that is for real and is still open is practically zero. Yet you or no one else has ever bothered to point this out.

What happened to the everyday secretarial work, the word processing, and the typing jobs? Those are the jobs that 99.9% of the people are actually qualified for.

These are the people who are out there looking for at home jobs, not those with extreme technical knowledge. Yet everyday I only keep finding the high-tech and advanced jobs for potential telecommuting, jobs that require applicants to possess master degrees, 7+ years of job experience etc.

My answer:

I have never pointed this out because I don't believe that the only telecommuting jobs are in New York, Florida and California. I personally work for a company in Connecticut, which is not in any of these three states. I also talk to and work with lots of other people from places such as Alaska, Hawaii, Nebraska, Mississippi and Canada. They are telecommuters just like myself and I work with them everyday, so I can't say in all honesty, that the only people that have telecommuting jobs are from those three states.

So what makes my telecommuting experience different from the above e-mailer? What is my secret of success in finding a telecommuting job?

1. I did not stop looking; I never gave up.
   
   
2. I did a full job search (not depending on one resource or one way to look for a job, but many).
   
   
3. I was flexible enough to note the skills the legitimate employers wanted and trained myself in those skills so I would become more marketable.
   
   

Understand that when I began looking for a telecommuting job I had 15 years of administrative experience, 20 years of writing experience yet I still had learn HTML and a couple of other things because these were the skills in demand -- not my typing speed or my MS Word knowledge. Once I could supply a skill that employers wanted, then finding a telecommuting job was much, much, easier.

It amazes me that people like the e-mailer above would search for 5 years and not begin noting the needs that the employers kept asking for over and over again. In 5 years she could have learned the required skills, maybe have gotten a degree and had a couple of years of work experience to boot. Instead she chooses to keep trying to put the square peg in the round hole and find that elusive home-based clerical job.

To successfully find a telecommuting job it is important to have specialized knowledge and offer skills in demand! Which brings me to the second point of this message. If 99.9% of the people are qualified for and looking for the same type of job, then the reason you are not getting the response you want is because the qualified pool has flooded the demand. This is why it's been so tough finding a clerical or data entry job to do from home. If only 3% of the home-based jobs is clerical related and 99% of the population is qualified to fill it, there is a big problem . . . 96% will be unemployed, unless they learn new skills and fill other types of home-based jobs!

The reason there are so many technical telecommuting job opportunities is because the pool of applicants are few. In other words, there are a few people and a high demand. That is why these employers are open to telecommuting; they are open to anything that will get the job filled!

So what is that saying to you? That you should get mad at websites that lists telecommuting jobs because they don't list enough jobs to employ 99.9% of the people? No, this is telling you that you must change, that you must learn a new skill that will make you more attractive to the employer offering telecommuting options.

Look at it this way, before the Industrial Age many people (90% of the people) were pickers of produce or livestock handlers. A specialty skill, a professional tradesman, would be a blacksmith. Blacksmiths were very revered and earned very nice salaries in exchange for this specialized skill.

The Industrial Age came around and factories were built. Suddenly, the demand was for factory workers. A specialty skill, the professional tradesman were mechanics (people who could repair machinery). After awhile society didn't need all those pickers and blacksmiths. Ninety percent of the working populace had to learn a new skill and quickly, because the economy needed someone that could work in factories and someone who could fix machines . . . not shoe horses.

Do you understand? The same thing is happening in this Information Age. People need to get out of the fields and learn how to work in the factories if they want to produce a living wage. We don't need to shoe horses anymore, because we all have automobiles now. We need a good, honest mechanic!

I hate to say this because, I myself have over 15 years of administrative experience but most employers no longer have secretaries due to the wonderful "computer age." Executives are writing their own correspondence, setting their own appointments, arranging their own schedules and so on. The clerical worker is quickly becoming the old dinosaur.

Those with technical knowledge are in demand. Do you see the "writing on the wall" for the above 99.9% of the people? If you are within the 99.9%, you are part of a "crowd" and that's a dangerous thing to be in. You must find a way to make yourself unique, you must find a way to meet a demand -- preferably several demands.

My grandmother always said, "If you're running and all around you are a lots of steer running with you, most likely you'll end up dead in the canyon." She was from Texas, can you tell?

In other words, being in the crowd and letting the crowd direct you only lead to your own demise. You have to think for yourself, be unique and fulfill a demand to be successful. But if your skills aren't in demand, then looking for a job using those skills is like beating a dead horse . . . a horse with no shoes, 'cause there are no more blacksmiths!

Happy Hunting!

Rosalind Mays, best-selling author of The Real Deal on Telecommuting, just finished co-authoring a new book Get Your Money Back, How to Stop Scammers and Save Your Dollars. She works at home as an Internet Researcher and is co-owner of Welch & Rochell Secretarial Support Service. She's a mother of three children all under the age of 7. And yes, she's very, very tired! To learn more about Rosalind and her e-books, visit our website at telejobs.cjb.net or Email: RozMW@aol.com copyright (c) Rosalind Mays

Take the Next Step:
-Dont be in Denial. If you feel that your job maybe at risk, have a contingency plan.
-Take action today, so you will be better off tomorrow. For instance: Find a New Job , Get Additional Training, and Pay Off Debts.
-How secure is your job? Modern statistics allows a calculation using key variables to give you a Scientific Evaluation. Get your free evaluation now.

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