You have to remember that hundreds of thousands of people who have given up their job search in the depths of the recession are all going to pile back onto the job market quicker than you can say ‘credit crunch’.

So I thought I’d share with you a tip I use when I’m looking for more blogging jobs. This tip can be applied for when you’re looking for work, a new house, great deals and other thing that are hard to come by. I simply set up iGoogle to perform how I want it to so it can become my Mission HQ.

Firstly, go to Google (if you don’t already have an account, create one). In the top right-hand corner click iGoogle. Then, from the tabs located to the left of the screen click ‘Add a tab‘ and give it an appropriate name in the box which appears.

Now that your new tab is created we have to add some gadgets which will help you in your job search. Our main tool here will be the RSS gadget so I need you to do the following.

Visit sites specific to your job search. Craigslist will cover pretty much everything from jobs to houses to items for sale. Most other jobs search websites also offer RSS feeds as a way of bringing you back to the site with the promise of alerts. Right-click on the feed’s icon and copy the address. Then go back to iGoogle.

Click on the ‘Add Stuff‘ link at the top right of the screen. Along the left-hand side in the sidebar you’ll see an Add Feed or Gadget link. Click on that and paste in the link address you copied from the RSS link on the job site and click ‘Add‘.

The RSS feed should now appear in iGoogle like my example at the bottom of this post. Keep repeating this procedure for all the job searches (or any other search) you like. Here are some popular websites which offer RSS feeds and jobs, apartments and more are frequently posted.

• Craigslist
• Twitter (perform a search and then use the RSS feed for that search)
• Indeed
• Yahoo HotJobs
• Monster

For more job search websites, click here.

Finally, click on ‘Change Theme from Classic‘ and select one of the cool themes they have there. This doesn’t really improve your iGoogle HQ but you don’t want to turn on your computer every day and see the same generic theme, do you?

Now all you have to do is check back daily and follow up on anything promising. Without a doubt you’re ahead of the competition by making iGoogle your search HQ because while you’re giving the advertisers a call they’re still rummaging through search results.

Photo Credit: Danard Vincente

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Today, I will continue with the article in a slightly different perspective and add four more entries to the list. Hopefully, they will prove to be of good use to bored teenagers with too much time on their hands. Again, these will all be things that can be done online.

5. Start a blog, Tumblelog or Twitter

In this time and age, I won’t be surprised if every teen has their personal blog or a Twitter account. If you don’t, sign up for one. Start a blog, Tumblelog or Twitter account and use it as an emotional and creative outlet. Start by jotting down how you feel, what you’ve done, what you’re looking forward to. Think of it as a diary for the world to read.

Personally, I prefer a Tumblr account to a Blogger or Wordpress blog. It’s much easier to set up and is perfectly suited for those with very short attention spans who couldn’t be bothered to compose full-length posts all the time. Tumblelogs allow its users to upload short blips of text, photos, links and quotes quickly and easily. However, don’t feel restricted — this doesn’t mean that you can’t try your hand at a short story or other works of the written word. Let your creativity flow. Who knows, blogging could just be your sally forth into professional writing or journalism.

6. Read

“The person who deserves most pity is a lonesome one on a rainy day who doesn’t know how to read.” — Benjamin Franklin.

Reading is, without a doubt, one of the most rewarding past times. Why waste a perfectly good chance to get some reading done? There are an abundance of sites which provide you access to free ebooks, both fictional and non-fictional. The most widely known one is probably Project Gutenberg – a collection of over 30,000 free ebooks in over 50 languages. They also serve up audiobooks (either human-read or computer generated) and loads of other stuff. Their site is massive and navigating around can get pretty messy. Start by checking out their Top 100 books or the ones which were most recently added.

Our next candidate spreads its wings over more than just fictional work. ibiblio is the fruit of collaborative efforts between two departments at the University of North Carolina. The result – one of the Internet’s largest collections of software, literature, music, art, science, politics, and cultural studies.

Munseys is where you should go if you’re looking for a good read. Most of their 20,000 books are off-mainstream titles and are available in 10 different formats including PDF, Plucker, iSilo, Kindle and MS-reader.

7. Get an online job

Probably one of the best ways to spend your time online is to make some money while you’re at it. Be aware, there are currently a lot of scams going on that require you to sign up for a membership before given a chance to work. Personally, I’m very skeptical and prefer not to part with my money before I can earn any.

Thankfully, there are some safer job alternatives. If you have a good grasp of the English language, you can easily earn a buck working online. Ryan Dube shared some of his suggestions, which include working as a freelance writer and getting paid to review movies.

Or if you prefer (or think that you spend too much time online anyway), you could spend some time looking for a part-time job. Interacting with others in the workplace will teach you to harness the essential communication and public relations skills required after you graduate and step forth into the job market. Furthermore, work trains you to be responsible and to adopt proper time and money management.

Having several previous jobs listed in your CV with good references will certainly impress your future employer and provide you with an advantage among your potential colleagues.

If the idea of holding a job sounds attractive to you, we’ll go on step further and point you in the right direction. Charnita described 8 sites to hunt for the job you want, provided you already roughly know what you want to do. In another article, Ryan listed 10 more sites to help you with your job search. You shouldn’t have trouble looking for a job with all those resources!

Or, closer to home, MakeUseOf is always hiring.

8. Plan Your Career

Before graduating from high school, you should already have an idea about your job choices. If you still haven’t made up your mind about your future profession, you should start now. What exactly does an editor do? What qualifications are required to pursue a career in fashion? What makes a great CV?

There are several great websites that will guide you while you’re making these tough decisions.

CareerAdvice springs straight to mind. This UK-based website details everything you need to know when making career decisions i.e. what the job involves, what qualifications and experiences employers look for, working hours and of course, the expected salary. It’s a fantastic place for teens to spend their free time, researching on the types of work they’re interested in. It also shares valuable advice on nailing an interview and how to come up with an impressive CV.

Another great site is the Occupational Outlook Handbook by the US Department of Labor. The handbook is basically a collection of every known profession in the United States, with detailed descriptions about the job nature, work environment, required qualifications, earnings and employment rates.

The last career-related website that I’d like to feature is CareerOneStop. As the name implies, it is a one-stop resource for information about the different types of jobs in the US, sub-categorised by states. On top of offering CV and interview advice, the site also features the hottest jobs, jobs with the most openings as well as the highest paying jobs in the country.

That wraps up my post and the top 8 things for bored teenagers to do online. I hope that you’ve enjoyed the article and got an idea or two on how to spend your free time online. As a wise man once said, “Lost time is never found again.” Make full use of the time you have today!

Image credit: SAMAEL TRIP

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With the Web, information isn’t a problem…information overload is. A few clicks and you find yourself navigating away from the information you wanted. What we all want is a single window giving us career occupation descriptions on a list of different career choices.

Mindopia seeks to answer that call by cutting short the path from career research to job hunting. Mindopia calls itself a career discovery website. Positioning itself as a single point source for job seekers to get the ‘inside scoop on careers’.

Old fashioned career planning wasn’t bad, was it?

Not at all, but don’t you feel that it was a bit too toilsome? Starting with a gut feeling about what we wanted to do…getting influenced by our peers or parents…going after subjects of our interest…oops, only to find that the reality of 9 to 5 work life was a bit different from what we had conjured up. A generation back we leapt before we looked. Some of us landed on our feet and some didn’t. Those of us who didn’t, started wishing that we researched a bit more before the leap.

Is the web a better career hunting ground?

Mindopia (beta) is a new fangled Web 2.0 career discovery site to view career occupation descriptions and other details about a comprehensive list of different careers. So let me roll back my years and see how I would approach a writing career with journalism.

1. The homepage looks clean and uncluttered with a list of featured careers, a career search bar and six tiny video thumbnails which looks like video clips of old pros giving advice on their particular expertise.



2. A little My Page link on the top tells me that it would be better if I register and create a profile of my own. It’s easy because it’s free. Add and edit your profile with details to make it complete.



3. That done, let’s see what I can find for my interest in a journalism career. From My Page, I can click on the Explore careers dropdown which lists all careers currently covered by the site or I can use the top search bar.



4. My selection takes me to the career page with all of its laid out sections. The information covers the following areas –
   • Career Advice from Those in the Field.
   • Salary Potential.
   • Find Schools.
   • Top Job Skills Needed.
   • Top Companies.
   • Jobs in your area.
   • Headline News.
   • Top Websites.
   • Top Books/DVDs.
   • About (which covers the significant details about the field).
5. Three sections are of immediate interest to me as a first timer. Career Advice from Those in the Field is a bunch of video podcasts by veterans who answer the fundamentals a career seeker might ask.



6. The About section also delivers a lot of background info I need on my profession of choice.



7. The third area of immediate interest is of course the Salary Potential section. Clicking on the graph takes me into a page with a few wizards that let me assess the financial attributes of my job.



8. The other sections add to all the inputs I will need to make an informed decision. Each detail is also a link which serves to expand on the info given. For instance, clicking on one of the resources under Top Companies takes me to a more expanded list of companies in this profession. I can click on Add to Favorites to add the resource to my profile or I can click on Find Jobs to see the kind of opportunities available near my area. Clicking on the job listings takes me to the recruitment site page where I can apply for the job.



9. Similarly, I can expand Find Schools to use the search tool for locating a training resource.



10. Each section also has the social networking angle covered through a Contribute link. Members can recommend any career worthy info by clicking the link. The Discussions section is the message board where members can chit chat and add there two bits worth. Though, I couldn’t find any ongoing thread on Editor/Journalism careers.

Trawling through the Editor/Journalism info given on Mindopia, I have got a fair idea of how to approach my choice of vocation. Mindopia succeeds to an extent in bringing me closer to my career.

Is Mindopia a one stop solution?

It can be a stepping stone but being a beta site it still suffers a few drawbacks. The first noticeable one is the still limited selection of careers. New age careers like being a radio jockey or an instructional designer are absent. Topical careers like environmental sciences should have been a default addition.

The profile page also seems a bit threadbare. A more targeted bio would have served a candidate better than generic information. I found uploading a photo particularly hard with its limitation of 104×25 maximum sizes.

The absence of a Help section or a FAQ also sometimes made me feel lost.

But the cons apart, what I really liked about this work in progress site were its comprehensive sections on the careers. Expert-speak videos arranged around questions a beginner usually asks, makes taking the first step a lot easier. Job searching is generally a local activity so it will benefit US residents directly. Of course, international students can find it worthy of a visit too.

A beta site needs all the feedback it can get. Let us know if you like what Mindopia offers in theory and fact.

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• 5 Really Popular Online Job Application Forms: Burger King, Mcdonald’s, Wal Mart etc. (7)
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Having that unique “from-the-ground-up” perspective on the growth of the Internet (as most of the folks reading this have as well), I became fascinated with how the growing population of Internet users were making use of the Internet.

Today, Internet search trends can tell you some fascinating things about the world, such as Google Flu Trends, which gives you insight into where clusters of people are searching the Internet for flu symptom information. In much the same way, SEO search tools reveal major political, social and economic trends from around the world.

I would like to share one of those recent trends that I stumbled upon when I was doing my own SEO research. The trend is this: The 5 most popular online job application forms reveal where the majority of people are seeking out work in these difficult economic times.

There are many online resources for finding jobs, such as the 8 sites listed by Charnita, or the 10 job search websites I wrote about in June -  but going directly to the employer is another option people use. The following list represents the top 5 searched-for online job application forms on the Internet.

#1 - The Burger King Application Online : Make It They Way They Want It

I love the way Burger King makes it my way – but is there any conceivable reason why Burger King applications are searched for 500% more often than say, college applications or passport applications? First of all, joking aside, Burger King is much more than just flippin’ burgers. Just go to their main website and you can see that this is a giant, global company.

Once you dig down into your own country, you’ll eventually find the Burger King application online. Hint: To find the online application for any company, just find the area of the site for “Company Information” and look for “Careers”

To find the Burger King application online, you need to drill down into the job type that you’re looking for. If you have the background, you may consider Corporate opportunities. For the rest of you patty-flippers, you’re stuck applying for the “In-Restaurant” opportunities – at least until you build up a bit of experience.

On the quick online form, make sure to fill in as many available hours as you’re capable of working. And another hint if you want to land that job – take advantage of every text box where you’re allowed to provide additional information, and give them every reason why you’re the most responsible, motivated worker on the planet.

#2 – The McDonald’s Application : You’ll Be Lovin’ It

The McDonald’s application, the other burger giant, is just as sought out as Burger King’s is, with only slightly fewer search queries. People are clearly flocking to the two major global burger joints for economic relief, and according to the job search engines, there are still opportunities out there.

The McDonalds application is simple, but first make sure you’re on the right country website. The link here is for the U.S., but McDonald’s has a site for all locations, just check the country map. To get to the online application, just click the job type that you want (and that you’re qualified for, obviously), and the drill down to your state and city. Trust me – almost every major area has job openings at McDonalds, even in some of the more rural areas that you wouldn’t expect.

As you can see, it’s not all just about flipping burgers. For folks with motivation and drive, it’s certainly possible to get into a “Manager Trainee” position and then work your way up the career path into corporate levels. People may joke – but there’s money in beef.

#3 – The Wal Mart Employment Application Form

You knew it was coming. Sure enough, the third most sought after job form is the Wal Mart employment application form. It’s the store that you may love to hate, but when push comes to shove, you shop there because the prices are just so good – you can’t resist.

Rumor has it that the pay isn’t all that great, but that’s not stopping folks from seeking out the retail king as an employer. Everyone can easily track down WalMart.com, but the Wal-Mart employment application form is buried down a few levels in the “Careers” section.

The Wal-Mart career section is huge, incorporating careers in pharmacy, Sam’s club, optometry, logistics, corporate and more. Clicking on any one of those options, you are sent to a career page (for pharmacy for example) where you can access the Wal-Mart employment application form.

Use the search form to locate an opening near you, and when you click on it you’ll find that the Wal-Mart employment application form is actually a resume submission form – so have your resume updated and ready!

#4 – The Toys R Us Application For The Kid at Heart

Why do almost 2,300 people a day look for the Toys R Us application for employment? Probably because it’s a store that folks picture when they imagine a fun place to work. I mean, it’s a toy store right? What could be more fun? For the kid at heart, it’s like a dream job. I imagine getting a job in the video games department and messing around on the demo gaming systems all day – how cool!

Well, the career section of the Toys R Us website certainly puts a damper on those dreams. Apparently you can find yourself a legitimate corporate career working behind a desk for the baby and toy retail chain.

The Toys R Us application online is a process of several steps. First you upload your resume, and then you fill out your details as well such as your education, work experience, etc… Before, while you had to drive around for miles just to collect these forms to fill out – now you can do it all online from the comfort of your home. Isn’t technology grand?

#5 - Submitting Old Navy Applications : Can I Wear the Cool Headset?

Maybe it’s the witty commercials, or maybe it’s just those really cool walkie-talkie headsets the workers get to wear to talk to each other across the store, but apparently Old Navy is a very sought after place of employment, making #5 on the list with search trends reflecting over 2,000 people a day looking for Old Navy applications.

When you go to the career section of the Old Navy site, you’ll find yourself on the GAP career site, as GAP is the mothership company for Old Navy.

After you conduct a job search and locate a job opening, you can click “apply online.” Apparently GAP uses the same online application submission platform as Toys R Us, because the process for submitting Old Navy applications is almost identical.  First, submit your resume, fill out additional forms with your experience and qualifications, and you’re good to go.

Times are tough, and folks are realizing that you have to do whatever it takes to put food on the table for your family. While some of these service or retail jobs have had a social stigma attached to them, the truth is that motivated and driven people can succeed no matter where they work – there’s always a potential for a fantastic career for people like that.

In case you’re wondering, the runner’s up include: Target, Taco Bell, Home Depot, Menards, Wendy’s, GameStop and Kmart.

Have you ever applied for a job online? Was your experience a good one? Share your experiences in the comments section below!

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• Mindopia – Check out Occupation Descriptions for a List of Different Careers (4)
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• How To Use iGoogle To Get Ahead In Your Job Searches (2)

So, you can use all the help you can get. I am going to show you a few sites where you can grab free downloadable resume templates. Some of the templates are in PDF format and some of them are in Word format.

The first thing you should do is grab an old copy of your resumé or a list of your past jobs and accomplishments.

That will help you immensely when you need to replace the generic information with your own.

The first site I found has very generic templates that will allow you to totally customize the resumé. This is just for the formatting, there is little to no content that you will be able to use.

These are called Blank Resumé Templates and can be found here: http://www.professional-resume-example.com/free-blank-resume-template.html

They offer three types of resumé templates and they are Chronological format, Functional Format and Combination. We will show you each of them here with a link to their respective PDFs

This is the plain Jane old school format. Still expected by older companies and should not exceed one page. The next up is a variation on the classic resumé and called the Functional resumé seen below:

And then there is the combination of the both of them:

And next up, we have http://www.collegegrad.com/ with their resumé section located at http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/quickstart. The difference between these two sites is that Collegegrad breaks up their resumés by major. So, you can find a more specific resumé geared towards you to customize. I choose computer science and got this: http://www.collegegrad.com/resumes/quickstart/compsci.doc

And last but not least, http://www.easyjob.net has free downloadable resumé templates broken down in 3 categories:

And best of all – all this information is FREE! Between this site and browsing other people’s resumés on Monster.com, Hotjobs.com or any of the other popular job seeking sites you can customize your resumé and make it pop! Remember a direct cover letter is just as important as a great resume!

Do you have a favorite free resume template website? Maybe you have some other job seeking tips? Well, if you do, leave them in the comments!

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Looking for Work? Spread Around Your Efforts

The most important thing that any job seeker can do to improve their chances of landing a job is using multiple resources in their job hunting efforts. This means posting your resume online, as Mahendra described in Top 5 Free Resume Hosting Websites, or using social networks as Charnita described in 8 Sites For Beating The Job Hunting Blues. However, the core of your efforts should be focused on websites that bring all of the world’s jobs to your doorstep.

1. Monster.com – The Monster of Online Job Hunting

Whenever anyone needs access to job markets across the world, Monster is an obvious place to start. Monster has grown into the largest job search site on the Internet, and serves just about every community across the world.

What makes the Monster of job search sites so useful is that the "International Search" will net you a pretty nice catch of job opportunities all across the globe. Of course, Monster also offers a free "home page", a place for you to post your resume, and an entire section of some pretty cool "career tools" to help you research every step of the job hunting process.

2. Job.com - An Obvious Choice Among Job Search Websites 

I guess when it comes to finding a job, visiting a website like Job.com makes sense. Like Monster, it is one of the few job search websites that offers the ability to search Internationally.

Under "Additional Search Options", you can search from general areas of the globe, such as Middle East, United Kingdom or Pacific Rim. The site boasts over 700,000 listings, and they all seem fairly current. It also has the ability to publish your resume so that employers can view it.

3. HotJobs - When You Can’t Get Enough of Job Hunting 

Yahoo! Hotjobs is definitely Monster’s greatest competition. One of the things that Yahoo is very good at is providing content, and job seekers who visit Hotjobs are going to get exactly that.

The site itself has the same "look and feel" of other Yahoo pages, and it has lots of articles and widgets from tools like Yahoo Answers. Aside from all that bonus content, it offers a powerful job search engine that includes many thousands of listings from all throughout the world.

4. Net Temps - Full or Part Time Jobs

Net-Temps is primarily a website devoted to temporary workers who were looking for the "next gig.". However, it is not a whole lot difference than the rest of the job search websites, except for the fact that it allows job hunters to filter search results by temp or full-time work.

For most folks looking for a job, the difference is irrelevant – they need a job to pay the bills. But for freelancers who work for themselves, temp jobs give them the flexibility of a short term client contract, so that afterwards the freelancer can move on to the next job in their schedule. 

5. Indeed  - Simple and Effective

This site is quite a job search engine indeed! Sick of sifting through dozens of individual job search sites? Indeed is a job meta-search engine which means that employers don’t actually have to list jobs with Indeed. Much like how Dogpile provides results from multiple search engines like Google and Yahoo, Indeed offers you job listings from not only sites like Hotjobs and CareerBuilder, but even the individual employer websites – now that’s cool. 

6. CareerBuilder – The Name Says It All

There’s little question that CareerBuilder is one of the "big boys" of the job search websites. Like Monster and Hotjobs, you’ll find a resume posting section, the ability to find jobs by company or industry, and a very cool "job alerts" feature. What sets CareerBuilder apart from the others? Not a lot. But if you need another source that may have job listings the others don’t – it’s best to check it out, as there are quite a library of job listings stored there.

7. All Job Search – It Really Does Search Them All

AllJobSearch’s claim to fame is it’s ability, like Indeed, to search through multiple sources. The service covers the U.S., Canada and the UK. It boasts the ability to search over 200 websites, over 500 newspapers and over 300 newsgroups. Impressive.

Unfortunately, you’re provided a list of links to outside sources like an online newspaper or Monster, and if you click the link, AllJobSearch will automatically search that engine with your job search terms. While it probably saves time searching for the many job sources around the Net, it doesn’t exactly provide the search results as you’d normally expect.

8. Simply Hired – You’re Hired!

I have to say, of all of the job listings sites that you’ll find on the web, SimplyHired takes the cake simply for the sites "tools" section, where you’ll find some of the coolest widgets, like email alerts, trend research and salary information broken down by location and occupation. If you haven’t yet decided what you want to be when you grow up – this is the first site you should visit.

9. USA.gov – It’s Good Enough for Gov’ment Work

One of the world’s wealthiest countries in the world is also one of the world’s largest employers. The U.S. Federal government has its own giant online job database that you can search under whatever industry or discipline you’re interested in.

These jobs are worldwide, and the U.S. government isn’t shy about listing the actual salary ranges right there in the listing. Some of those salaries aren’t too shabby either.

10. College Recruiter – Not Only for Students

Over the years, employers got into the habit of going to college career centers to advertise their entry level positions. In fact, sometimes those are the only places they’ll advertise those openings. The CollegeRecruiter search engine is networked with 11,000 career sites around the country including college, university and military offices. Yes, these are entry level positions, but when you want to get your foot in the door, taking an entry level position is often the best way to go.

Have you ever found a job through an online job search site? Do you have other job hunting resources that you prefer? Share them in the comments section below.

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• Top 5 Free Resume Hosting Websites (30)
• Mindopia – Check out Occupation Descriptions for a List of Different Careers (4)
• How To Use iGoogle To Get Ahead In Your Job Searches (2)
• 5 Really Popular Online Job Application Forms: Burger King, Mcdonald’s, Wal Mart etc. (7)
• 4 More Somewhat Interesting Ways to Earn Money Online (18)

The best thing about making money online is that it is fun. You can do what you really enjoy and get paid for that!

So besides obvious making-money-from-your-website thing, what are other reliable ways to earn some extra cash?

(1) Get Paid for Reviewing Software

What kind of a geek are you if you don’t love playing with new software? I am sure you do. Have you ever considered getting paid for that?

Software Judge is the most popular site that allows to be paid (up to $50 per review) for software reviews. The rules are as follows:

• Review it as it is: the review shouldn’t be positive; it should be constructive and honest;
• Pick the software listed on the site;
• No more than 3 reviews per day.

You get paid the following ways:

• Digital freebies (e.g. free reg keys and free games);
• Cash via Western Union (if you have at least $200 in your account);
• Software exchange (if you have at least $20 you can exchange your money for any downloadable software listed on site).

(2) Get Paid for Bargain Hunting

Bargain hunting is fun and can save you a bunch of money. The key is to know how and when to track. It’s nice that active bargain hunters can now be rewarded with cash (because many people can be grateful to them for a timely spotted deal).

Buxr is a user-generated coupon code and deal directory that rewards most active and active users with daily and monthly cash.

The rules are pretty simple: the deal that gets most votes from other users wins the contest. The daily prize is $10 and monthly prizes vary from $100 to $200. If you refer friends to join the site, you’ll also get a prize:

The top 3 memberswho refer at least 5 ‘Good Members’ will be awarded. The first, the second and the the third place prize is $50.

(3) Get Paid for Consulting Others

Do you consider yourself an expert in anything? Do you think your advice may be useful? Let people pay you for it!

Ether.com offers you to get paid for your expert advice. I can’t say the site is too active and you will get hundreds of phone calls but you can try it.

Here’s how it works:

• Get your free Ether phone number;
• Set your rate per hour;
• Get pre-paid phone calls.

The site also offers "Call me" buttons for your website or blog as well as some advice on how to market yourself to get more calls. It also enables you to sell digital products via email and "Buy" button on the website.

(4) Get Paid for Reviewing Products and Completing Offers

Getting paid for reviews has double benefit: cash and the product itself you are reviewing. Here are some well-trusted sites that allow you to earn money by reviewing products (there are more of course, so if you personally tried and liked another one, please share):

• Cash Crate: Make sure to also check their Contests page for more fun;
• Gangster Greed pays money for completing (free trial) offers. Payout threshold is $10; Payouts on demand;
• Treasure Trooper: monthly payouts with $20 threshold;
• Instant Profitz.

Are you aware of more fun legit ways to earn money online? Share them in the comments!

Oh and those of you who are still in college should also check out our Ryan’s article om best websites for teens to earn money online.

Note: Internet is full of scams. If you come across any site that offers to pay you in cash, make sure to do at least some research: check scam forum and just Google it.

Disclaimer: I didn’t personally try all the sites listed above but I took time to research reviews by others before listing them here.

image credit: AMagil

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There are dozens of resume building websites offering a combination of free and paid services. Many sites have excellent resume building tools, a wide variety of templates and formatting options,  but do not allow you to host your resume with a personalized URL for free. From this crowd, we have distilled those sites that allow you to host your online resumes for free.

EMurse

This site allows you to create your resume in sections, and choose a design from many different templates. The resumes are suited for more conventional formats. The exclusive feature of this site is that you can publicize one URL for your resume from where employers can download your resume in various formats such as DOC, PDF, RTF, etc. Read more about EMurse in our previous coverage here.

Visual CV

Visual CV allows you to create multiple online resumes easily, with a variety of different templates. You can directly import your LinkedIn profile to jump-start resume creation, and easily incorporate multimedia elements in your portfolio. Read more about Visual CV in our previous coverage here.

Lead You

This site is geared towards artists and other creative professionals looking for a snazzy online resume. It has a wide variety of templates, and allows you to attach documents, presentations, video and audio clips to your portfolio.

How To Write A Resume.Net

This is a clean site with simple resume building tools. The unique feature of this site is the ‘Headline Helper’, which allows you to tweak the Objective/Summary sections of your resume.

If you are stuck for words, this is a great tool. The free option allows only the basic template and HTML/text download, other options require a membership.

My Resume Online

For those looking for a minimalist Google-like interface, My Resume Online offers a barebones but fully functional and free solution. You can attach your photo, MS Office documents (including Access databases), PDF, and GIF/JPG images to your resume.

The site also gives you monthly visitor stats, and your resume is accessible via multiple URLs like www.myresumeonline.org/yourname and www.mycvonline.org/yourname. Unfortunately, there are no templates to choose from, though the built-in template looks clean.

Are there any sites we have missed? Let us know your favorite resume hosting sites in the comments!

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Even though it can get extremely frustrating (I know first hand), the best thing you can do is not give up and keep searching on a consistent basis. If you’ve tried all the usual places like CareerBuilder and Monster and had no luck, here are 8 more that will hopefully get the ball rolling for you.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is definitely growing in popularity for job searching. When searching for jobs, you have the option view jobs that are exclusively on LinkedIn or jobs from the Web.

My favorite thing about LinkedIn is the ability to send and receive recommendations from co-workers and peers. Recommendations are the best way for a company to learn more about you from the people that know you best.

Of course, a complete and up-to-date profile will also give you a better chance of being recruited by employers.

Indeed

Indeed is one of the job search engines I use regularly and is very easy to use. To start, simply enter the type of job you’re looking for and the desired location. There are a lot of options for refining your results such as by salary estimate, title, company, location and more. You can also save any search as an email alert or subscribe to the RSS feed.

As you can see below, Indeed also has extensive advanced search features.

Yahoo! HotJobs

Many people already know about Yahoo! HotJobs. If you have a Yahoo! account, once logged in you will have the pleasure of seeing recommended jobs for you right on the homepage. Also, just like Indeed you can save your search as en email job alert.

What I like best about HotJobs is that you can hide jobs from certain companies. The only downside to that is that there’s a limit of 20 companies so, you can’t hide anymore than that.

TwitterJobSearch

Since Twitter is growing more popular each day, there’s no surprise that there’s a Twitter job search engine. To start just enter the type of job you’re looking for and location (optional) or, click the “Browse” button up top to browse by category. Jobs are listed as tweets so you can see who tweeted it and when. You then have the option to view the actual job listing, retweet it, or follow the user that tweeted it.

SimplyHired

SimplyHired powers a lot of the job search engines that you can find on numerous social networks such as LinkedIn, MySpace, and Plaxo. Once again, searches can be saved as email alerts or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

SimplyHired goes a step further than Yahoo! Hotjobs with the blocking feature; you can block all jobs from a certain company or from a certain website. The best feature, in my opinion, is the option to allow access to your LinkedIn account. By doing this, you can make connections with others that work at a company you’re applying to.

LinkUp

LinkUp is one of the most unique search engines I’ve seen mainly because everything is done in the same window; no need to open other tabs or windows. After getting your search results, clicking on a listing will open it up a new tab (as pictured below) in the same window, which saves you time and helps reduce screen clutter. You can also apply to jobs right in the same window. From within the LinkUp tabs you can then view other jobs from the same company, view or make connections from LinkedIn (just like SimplyHired) or pick a suggested category.

Craigslist

A well known site for everything from selling items to finding an apartment, Craigslist is also a great site for job hunting. With Craigslist you can search by specific cities and regions.

What I like about Craigslist is that you don’t have to sign up in order to search or respond to listings. Most listings include an email, so applying for a job is as easy as clicking the email link, writing a quick message and attaching your resume. The job section is broken down by categories and you can even subscribe to the RSS feed for a certain category so that you can stay updated on new job listings.

NotchUp

NotchUp is also very unique in that it serves as your own personal career agent. Although it is free to join and use, membership is by application or invitation only. Once you are a member, NotchUp allows you to set a price of what your time is worth and upload your resume. From there, your only job is to sit back and wait to be contacted by potential employers.

Once contacted, these companies will then have to pay you to interview with them. Yes, you heard that right, you get paid to interview for jobs! Applying for membership literally takes 30 seconds, as you can see below there’s not much to fill in.

I wish everyone the best of luck with their job searches. If you know of any other great sites for job hunting please feel free to let us know in the comments.

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Unfortunately, there aren’t many decent paying jobs available for teens, especially in a rough economic climate. However, there are a number of websites that offer very easy money for teens online. For a teenager who is disciplined and responsible, online jobs are the easiest way to earn a significant wad of cash this summer.

Websites That Offer Easy Money for Teens

Teenagers today typically have an assortment of skills that are useful and valuable on the Internet. For teens who are skilled writers, earning money will be that much simpler. Additionally, there are also well paying jobs available for teenagers who know how to write web pages, write high-volume blogs or forum posts, or program in different Internet or desktop programming languages. However, finding those opportunities often involves wading through a mountain of garbage and scams. This article will provide teens with a guideline for the best opportunities on the web that offer easy money for teens.

1. Easy Income for Teens Who Can Write Articles

For any teen that has excellent writing skills, the Internet offers an abundance of cash just sitting there for the taking. Yes, it may take a full eight hours a day of good solid writing work – but what could be better than rolling out of bed at ten in the morning and going to work at home, in your pajamas? Sound too good to be true? Well put on your pajamas and check out these opportunities.

Associated Content

Associated Content is one of the most popular “user-generated content” sites that offers articles on just about every topic under the sun. 

At Associated Content, you can either “claim” topics from the assignment desk, or you can submit topics of your choosing. You can earn both upfront payments, as well as monthly payments based on traffic to your articles. Starting out, you might only earn $3 to $4 per article you write, plus $1 to $2 for traffic – but if you wrote 5 articles a day, that’s $400 a month, plus additional monthly royalty payments.

Not only does writing for a site like AC establish you as a writer, but if your writing is exceptional, AC will even consider you as a preferred content producer, and their clients may ofter you writing gigs that pay $20 and up for an article.

Helium

Helium is another user-generated content forum that pays you both upfront fees as well as traffic royalties.

Helium is unfortunately a bit cheaper with their payments, and they’ve established a bunch of loopholes you need to jump through. You can earn about $1 per article plus traffic payments. However, to earn those payments you have to spend time “rating” articles – a painful and tedious process of comparing two articles and picking the one that’s better. But with Helium, the real money is in the “marketplace” section, where you can compete on client writing gigs worth anywhere from $5 to $100 or more.

Triond

Triond is another content site that accepts your articles and pays you royalties for traffic.

Triond is one of the few sites known for actually sending authors the payouts they’ve earned, so it deserves mention here. However, if you want to use Triond to add an income stream to your summer writing, you’ll need to submit a very large quantity of articles that are well written with SEO in mind, and can attract a very large stream of readers from the search engines. If you can accomplish that, then yes – you can earn money from Triond.

2. Make Money Writing Reviews or Writing Letters

One of the most popular reasons many people use the Internet is to research products before buying them. This has turned “reviews” into one of the most popular types of content online. If you like writing up product reviews, then there are countless opportunities to earn income from your written opinions.

I’ve written for Shared Reviews (the image above) before, because they do legitimately pay their authors. However, I’ve also heard that Epinions is another great review site to earn money from.

Have your friends ever told you that you’re amazing at writing letters? Then consider spending your summer creating custom letters at Letter Rep. Yes, the website isn’t exactly the prettiest site in the world – but by submitting letters to custom letter requests that visitors submit to the site, you stand to earn $10 per letter. Not only that, future visitors to the site can also purchase your letters, making your pile of work a wonderful source of residual income, not only throughout the summer, but even throughout the school year.

3. Quick Money for Teen Programmers

If you are an ace programmer with any programming language, you could spend your summer doing programming freelance jobs for some real cash. However, when it comes to finding freelance work, you have to be very careful what websites you visit – as most of them are useless or flat out scams.

Scriptlance is about as far from a scam as you can get. At the beginning of my online writing career, I spent months sifting through the latest project postings there (there are dozens per hour), and bidding on the ones that matched my skill set. There’s writing work, but the bulk of Scriptlance is programming work. If you post a professionally written proposal to the person who posted the project, your chance of landing the gig will be excellent. Just working on scriptlance projects alone, you could easily earn several thousand dollars by the end of the summer.

Other legitimate freelancing sites (although none quite as big as Scriptlance), include Rent A Ghost Writer, Elance, and iFreelance. Be sure to watch for new updates often, and be the first to post a bid.

Work Hard, Be Persistent, and Rake in the Dough!

The key for teens to successfully earn a small fortune during summer break through online work is by staying persistent, even when it looks like you’ll never land that first gig. Keep posting your daily articles to the royalty paying websites, and bid on freelance projects constantly. Soon, you’ll find that you have more work than you know what to do with. If you can discipline yourself to work for at least eight hours straight for every weekday during the summer – you’ll save far more money than any of your friends could earn waiting tables or mowing lawns!

Have you ever earned money from any of the sites listed in this article? Are there any good opportunities missing? Share your opinion in the comments section below.W

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Much of the power of the multitude of Craigslists are that while they certainly cover local communities, the lists are spread throughout the entire world. With Craigslist, it’s just as easy to search through electronics for sale in Poland as it is to search for auto parts for sale in Greece. The scope of the Craigslist database is just staggering.

However, this size also represents a significant search problem. While it’s fairly easy to search through listings within a specific city or town, how do you search listings posted throughout an entire country, or even the entire world?

Solving The Craigslist Search Dilemma

Everyone who has ever used Craigslist knows that the site is about as non-user friendly as it could possibly be. The front page consists of nothing more than a huge listing of locations that stretch from the U.S. all the way throughout Europe and Asia.

The front page offers not a single search feature. Instead, you must select a location first, and then you can search. A few MakeUseOf articles have covered some potential solutions, such as this article by Abhijeet which discusses the website SearchAllCraigs.com, or CLHack which lets you search Craigslist for listings with pictures.

However, by far the best free tool I’ve found for searching all of the Craigslists is the free CraigsList Reader by Motion Technologies.

Overview of The CraigsList Reader

The CraigsList Reader is a well written application that allows users to drill through the entire database of Craigslists, based on any search criteria whatsoever. The application is aesthetically impressive considering it’s a completely free application. Search results are displayed in the pane to the right, and individual ad content is displayed in the panel below it.

The Reader offers users a comprehensive search based on categories, geographic locations, and even subcategories and ranges (such as price ranges) depending on which category you choose. The selection boxes at the lower left hand portion of the screen allow you to select which demographics and categories to search through, view your saved favorites from previous searches, set up notifications (see below), or configure your Craigslist Reader options.

This is also the corner of the screen where you can view the search status and number of results as the Reader application sifts through the millions of Craigslist listings.

How It Works

The power of this application really comes out when you start using it. While the search itself can take a fair amount of time depending on the number of connections you allow (consider the fact that it’s sifting through millions of ads across the world), the results are more useful than anything you’ll find trying to sift through the website yourself.

For example, whenever I’m hungry for writing work, I will often search the entire world for writing gigs. While this may sound like a bit of a stretch, I’ve found some of my best clients in countries like China, Australia, and even Ireland. The Craigslist Reader is useful for local searches as well, but when you can do work on a global scale, this application can really come in handy. The results for such a search typically take about 20 minutes or more to complete (with 5 connections), but by the time it’s finished there are thousands of results to sift through.

While doing manual searches yourself can provide a lot of opportunities, eventually you’ll make it to the bottom of the list. At that point, the real game on Craigslist is getting to the opportunity faster than anyone else. That’s where the “notifications” feature of Craigslist Reader is useful.

When you click the “Add as Notification” box before performing a search, you can add that search to your notification list. What that means is that the Craigslist Reader will repeat the search as often as you tell it to, and when there are any new results, it will immediately notify you through a display, sound, or even an email alert.

This is an excellent feature, especially if you’re in a highly competitive industry and need to jump on opportunities before your competition. You can also tweak the Craigslists search by modifying the application options.

The key feature in the Options section is the ability to modify how many connections, or threads, you want to allow the application to use. This lets you scale back the bandwidth that the Craigslist Reader uses if you want to just let it run in the background while you surf the Internet. By carefully selecting the right thread count, you can tweak the Reader to make the most efficient use of your broadband Internet connection.

Why Craigslist Reader is Unique

While there are a number of web based and application based Craigslist readers out there, Motion Technologies really nailed it with this particular free reader. The search capacity, bug-free features, and the ability to tweak the application and alert settings to your particular needs sets this reader well above the rest.

In particular, if you are looking for job opportunities, just set up your search notifications, let the application run in the background, and before you know it countless job opportunities will be knocking down your door.

Do you have a particular method or tool that you like to use to search the Craigslists?  Share your opinion in the comments section below.

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1. Your online resume should be indexed by Google (and get ranked on the first page when a search for your name is performed). A good recruiter or a potential employer is likely to search for your full name in Google before even interviewing you;

2. Your online resume should have your full name (and probably occupation) in the page title – this makes your resume listing stand out within Google search results;

3. (well, an obvious one but not all online resume builders allow for that) Your online resume should be properly organized and look neat.

While #1 seems the most important to me (as all other features are pointless unless your online resume can be found at all), I have found three free online makers that have good indexing and ranking abilities:

PeopleJar

This social media startup allows for plenty of self-promotional options (resume and portfolio hosting, samples of work showcasing, networking, etc).

How well are resumes ranked in Google?

• the site architecture (members spotlight, networks, etc) allows for deep Google indexing, so all resumes are very well indexed and ranked;
• each resume page title consists of the full name and the area of expertise (pattern: Your Name’s Makeup Artist Profile);
• search-friendly URLs (a profile URL contains the member’s full name) also contribute to better rankings.

How well are resumes organized?

• Each profile is broken into several sections (”General”, “Education”, “Career”, “Traits”, etc) that makes a resume concise and easily read and well-structured;
• Members are also allowed to upload videos and photos (for example, a makeup artist resume can be enhanced by showcasing the artist’s previous work photos).

Emurse

This online resume creator (reviewed previously at MakeUseOf) allows you to create very detailed and well-organized (and more traditional-looking) resumes.

How well are resumes ranked in Google?

• resumes are mainly indexed from the home page (which links to recent and popular resumes) – so unless linked from other sites, your resume can perform rather poorly in Google;
• the resume page title consists only of the full name (the format: Full Name’s Resume);
• each resume is hosted on a sub domain (http://fullname.emurse.com).

How well are resumes organized?

Like I said, Emurse builds more traditionally-looking resumes: more text and less design. Each resume contains plenty of information all displayed on one page – however HTML editing is allowed to make it look more attractive and eye-catching.

JukeDuke

While this resume maker does allow for a few pretty fun options (for instance, availability schedule), its features could have been organized better, I guess.

How well are resumes ranked in Google?

• Profiles are indexed via links in the sidebar (that contains too many links to allow for good indexing);
• Each resume title contains the member’s full name and location.

How well are resumes organized?

All information is performed on one page in blocks – which looks a bit fuzzy. You can try to change the look and feel of your resume – but even best resumes look a bit overwhelming to my mind.

Are you aware of more good resume hosting services? Please share!

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Once you’ve found an opportunity or two that looks interesting to you, vet it a little bit. What kinds of time commitments are they asking? What topics are they looking for? Do they want a lot of experience or is it a low-end job? How do they pay you (by the post, by the month, sliding scale, Adsense-only, etc…)?

Most of these are self-explanatory and you can judge how well you fit into the mold they are looking for. Usually blog owners are looking for a very specific kind of content, but if you really like their blog, don’t be afraid to offer something slightly different. Some people are very flexible and email is free.

When sending an email to a potential employer, remember to be fairly formal. Usually you can refer to them by whatever their name is on their website. Once they reply, switch to whatever they sign-off as. Feel free to upgrade to a little more formality if you’re not comfortable with that though. Also, be sure to check over your spelling and grammar, as any editor who gets a shoddy email will probably not even respond to you.

Make sure that you get your pay grade straight as soon as is polite. State how you prefer to be paid (Paypal is the industry standard for regular blogs) as well as a rate per post. This is the best way to get started because Adsense-only pay won’t get you much money for a long time (if ever) and monthly salaries will probably require more work than you’re ready for.

A sliding scale, as I mentioned above, is how I term a system where you earn more by posting more per month. While this can be a great way to make yourself write a lot, if you ever slow down in your posting you may find the job is no longer worth the pay. It’s also an easy way to get burned-out because you push yourself too hard to get the highest pay grade.

Here is an article Wendy published about a week ago that includes a section on freelance writing relevant to this part of the process.

Be sure that you are clear about what you can actually do for your employer. If you’re new, let them know. If you’re experienced, prove it to them with an intelligent game-plan. Tell them exactly what areas you are good at writing about and what kind of work you are comfortable with.

If you want to add a bit of pizazz to your email, I suggest making an email signature. Without saying it should be the name by which you want to be known, but it should also include a link to your blog (or blogs). Don’t go overboard, though, as a super-long signature can gum up an email with many replies. Personally I prefer Retagger for my email signatures:

Notice that the badge has a picture of me, clear statements of my interests and expertise, and numerous ways to contact me. Unfortunately this badge doesn’t contain a direct link to my blog, so I typically put in a a separate line just under my name for that. All of this can be saved as HTML in most mail clients or webmail accounts, so it’s an easy habit to build into your emailing.

Now once you have a few blogging jobs under your belt, you may be tempted to forget about the personal blog you started out with. While you are not required to keep this blog at all, it may serve a useful purpose or two. First of all, depending on the quality of the blogs you write for, they may give you the ability to link back to your personal blog.If they do, and their PageRank is high, you may find your blog taking on more traffic than you ever expected. Also, if you ever have a piece that is either rejected or is simply too “hot” for any of your paid gigs, a personal blog is a great place to put it up and not waste it completely.

If you don’t want to preserve your blog for posterity, there are other ways to market yourself. A great way to do this is by keeping a microblog. Twitter, Plurk (if you’ve never heard of Plurk, here’s an introduction), and others not only let you quickly reference your pursuits around the web, but they will let you connect to other bloggers who you might not talk to much otherwise. Getting to know who’s who in your field of interest can be a great boon and might lead to interviews with that person (for later use in a blog entry).

Twitter is by far the most popular microblogging service and most bloggers I know at least have an account, even if they’re not incredibly active on it. Here are some recent posts about Twitter that can help get you started:

• Twitter Related Apps in MakeUseOf Directory
• Track Your Twitter Popularity With TwitterCounter
• 4 Tools for More Productive Twittering
• Tools, Apps and Bots to Improve your Twitter Experience
• TwitterFeed – Post Your RSS Feeds to Twitter
• Follow MakeUseOf and Our Writers on Twitter

While this article covers a lot of different aspects of blogging, I believe this is because of the wild and varied nature of the blogosphere itself. Some may find these tips almost exactly the rules you need in order to stay on top of your blogging life. Others may toss them all out and proceed successfully in an entirely different manner.

If you’re in either category, let us know what you think about the freelance process and any pointers you’ve picked up on your cyber travels!

[Keyboard image from peopleperhour.com]

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First of all, remember that like any job, blogging requires your time and talent. It can be really tough and it can also be really rewarding. There are a few prerequisites you need to have in place before beginning even a small freelance writing job on the blogosphere:

• Do you enjoy writing? Can you say what you want to say in a reasonable number of words?
• Do you have a voice? Do you have a distinctive writing style? If your writing sounds like a press-release, you might want to experiment with new types of writing.
• Can you get yourself to write regularly? If you’re not sure, try making a blog on Blogger or Wordpress and play around with regular posting.

In fact, this last point outlines how I started out in the freelancing world. The best resume is experience and a personal blog can be a testament to that experience. Long ago, I ran a personal blog that was more or less commentary on the things I did in my everyday life. Exactly 5 people in the world actually read that blog. If you want your own blog to have a little wider reach and even serve you in getting a future job, you’ll need to make the content a little more compelling.

The change came for me well over a year ago when I began to blog in earnest about technology news. At the time, I was doing it in collaboration with my university’s news website and I even had an editor to nag me. Contrary to what you might think, editors can be wonderful people. While some of them can be penny-pinching blog owners, most just want to help you produce the best content you possibly can. Anyway, after a year of forcing myself to go out and find new and interesting things to write about, I had a pretty stable blog.

Regardless of whether you do this last bit, once you have the prerequisites, you’re ready to start job hunting. Where should you go? Well now I’m going to share with you my top four favorite places to find blogger jobs (keep them in your RSS reader). 80% of the blogging opportunities I have had came from these sources:

(1) Simply Hired: Blogger Jobs – A general job aggregator that probably won’t get you many decent opportunities, but sometimes wacky stuff pops up.

(2) ProBlogger Job Board – Slightly better than Simply Hired, but often they have the same kinds of opportunities. Even so, the clientele is usually slightly more blog-oriented.

(3) Freelance Switch – Often has a number of good opportunities but the site is pay-oriented. To get the contact info you usually need to pay. Fortunately many employers list their link in the ad and you can simply use the contact form.

(4) BloggerJobs.biz – The cream of the crop in my opinion. Not only are some great jobs listed on this site, but if you request it, they’ll put up your bio so others can contact you directly (definitely worth the time it takes to write up a personal bio).

Another great place to look for jobs is right on your very own feed or list of favorite blogs. Don’t underestimate yourself. Most low to medium level blogs are more likely to risk a few articles on you than potentially miss out on a great new addition to their team. Unlike the “real world,” the internet really levels the playing field. As long as you have a decent writing sample or two (especially if those pages have gotten popular anywhere), you have enough to get in with a lot of great blogs.

Case in point, MakeUseOf is almost ALWAYS looking for talented new bloggers to fill the ranks of our contributors. I can tell you for a fact that this is one of the best sites I’ve ever blogged for in my short but varied career as a freelance writer. If you feel you’re already up to speed with some of the points in the first part of this article, I strongly encourage you to apply.

Next week I’ll go over the important aspects of picking which blogs to write for and how to avoid some common blogger downfalls. In the meantime, why don’t you share some of the sources where you’ve managed to find your blogging opportunities? How did YOU get started?

[Cartoon from Blaugh]

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• Top 8 Things For Bored Teenagers To Do Online [Part II] (9)
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• 5 Legitimate Online Self-Employment Opportunities (26)
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Whatever the case, if you want to set your own hours, work at home, and possibly have some fun then read on! We go over some of the best online self-employment opportunities here.

As with any of these at-home positions you will find key benefits and drawbacks.

Let’s take a look at some of them.

Key benefits include:

• Flexible hours
• Convenience of working at home
• Convenience of setting your own hours
• Free training (depending on the job)
• The more you work the more you earn

Can you think of some other benefits?

Drawbacks may include:

• No benefits such as health insurance or overtime
• You must keep your own records and submit invoices for payment
• Pay your own employment taxes
• Repetitive nature of the job
• Being alone for a long period of time with no one to talk to
• Having to motivate yourself to work

What other drawbacks do you see or have experienced?

If you find that working at home is for you, here is a list of opportunities you may want to consider:

1 – Virtual Call Center Representative

The need for At-Home Call Center Reps is growing. This is a job opportunity with long-term growth potential. This type of at-home work involves answering in-coming calls for companies and can range from taking customer product orders to answering questions, or scheduling appointments. Many companies will allow you to work at-home as little as fifteen minutes a day to full-time hours each week. Some companies may want you to do the calling. It all depends on the needs of the company you work for. Always ask questions about the work involved and never pay any upfront fees to get started. Legitimate call center companies will pay and train you.

Some requirements for this type of work may include:

• Minimum of 18 years of age to apply
• Legally permitted to work in the United States
• Criminal and credit background check required
• You must like talking on the phone
• Must have good typing skills
• Having a room that is free from outside noise and distractions
• Have excellent verbal skills
• Basic computer knowledge
• Have attention to detail
• The ability to set aside certain blocks of time for work

Optional but often necessary requirements are sales skills and data entry knowledge.

Some Equipment that is needed:

• A computer with high-speed Internet access
• A dedicated land line telephone line
• Telephone (not a cell phone)

I tested LiveOps which is a Virtual Call Center. The registration process was quite easy. You have to fill out your basic contact and background information, take a reading comprehension test and record a voice audition. You do all of this online. If you are interested in trying out LiveOps start here

Some other Virtual Call Centers you might want to check out are West at Home (to apply), Working Solutions (to apply) and ACD Direct (to apply)

2 – Freelance Article and Ghost Writing Jobs

Online business owners need to drive more customers to their website to ensure a steady stream of potential buyers. Many business owners do this through blogs. Keeping content written for a blog is very time-consuming so many blog owners turn to freelance article or ghost writers.

This is where you come in! You can offer to write articles (from 400-1,000 words depending on the need) for small websites or blog owners. Usually you can get paid $10 to $20 per article, sometimes even more.

If you decide to become a ghost writer you will not get the credit for writing the article. You get paid to write articles for other people and they will put their name on the article.

Here are some categories you could write for:

• Health and Beauty
• Technology and Computers
• Internet and Blogging
• Music and Video
• SAHM (Stay-at-Home Mom) and WAHM (Work-at-Home Mom)
• Business and Financial
• Real Estate
• Health and Wellness
• Women’s and Men’s Issues

Basically, you need to have experience and expertise in your chosen category. But that doesn’t mean you need to be an expert. What are you good at? What hobbies do you have that you could write about? Do you have a good writing style? Are you able to teach someone else what you know?

How do you find places to submit your work or bid on projects? Craigslist is a very popular site to find writing jobs. It is free to post a job and free to find one too. You can search in your local area or nationwide. Here are some other popular sites you may want to check out as well.

• Associated Content
• Helium.com
• Constant Content
• Guru.com
• Journalism Jobs
• Funds For Writers

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3 – Freelance Contract Work

Many people enjoy running their own business from home. I was a computer consultant for years working out of my house. I taught classes at the local college but studied and wrote my lesson plans from home. I was and still do occasional web design work and all of that was done from home. There are a lot of freelance at-home opportunities if you look for them and you don’t want to be limited by the jobs you can do in your local area. The internet provides so many more opportunities.

One website you may want to consider is Guru.com. At Guru.com companies post freelance jobs and as a freelancer you can bid on them. Once you register and fill out your profile, submit a quote and once picked, work on projects. You get paid once the work is done. If you are just starting you may have to bid low to get a project but over time you will be able to raise your prices. As of this writing they had over 5,200 projects to bid on.

Basic membership is free but the asic account cannot upload Package Deals or a Video Profile. Their Services page will give you the breakdown of fees for their paid package deals. Once you login you fill out your profile and can also upload photos, your resume, samples of your work and videos. Guru.com charges all professionals either a 5% (Guru and Guru Vendor accounts) or 10% (Basic member) Project Fee.

Although this could also fit into the Freelance article writing category it encompasses so much more. They have all kinds of freelance talent categories including:

• Website Design / Website Marketing
• Graphic Design / Presentations / Multimedia
• Fashion / Interior / Landscape / Set Design
• Business Consulting
• Photography / Videography
• Admin Support (Legal, Medical, & Accounting)

These are just some of the categories and I encourage you to visit their website and find the category that fits your talent and job skills best.

4. Sell Handmade Crafts Online on Etsy.com

Etsy is an online marketplace similar to eBay but it is strictly for the buying and selling of handmade goods. If you have a talent for making anything from pillows to clothing, jewelry to baked goods, dog collars and everything in between then you can sell them on Etsy.

From their website:

“Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers. Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice: Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade.”

Instead of buying something that is mass produced you can buy something on Etsy that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world. They have over a million visitors looking to buy and they are growing fast and it is free to join. There is a 30¢ fee to list items and a 3.5% fee on sold items.

If you don’t already have one, you should set up a PayPal account because it is easiest way to accept payments on Etsy. It is free to set up a PayPal account. Of course, PayPal takes a very small cut of the money you earn but without a service like PayPal you would have no way of taking online payments so the fee is worth it.

Once your items sell you have to ship them to your customers. If you use the post office you can get free USPS Priority boxes sent to your house. Just sign up online and the postal worker in your area will deliver them in about a week. You can sign up by going to USPS and clicking on Supplies.

When you sell online you should get a separate email address just for selling. It helps you keep your sales emails separate from your personal emails. There are many places to get a free email address.

5. Get Paid to Take Surveys

While this is not really a job or career and you won’t get rich by filling out surveys, it is still an easy way to make some quick cash. Companies will pay you to fill out brief surveys or try their products. Usually you will make between $5 and $10 per survey and will often receive free product samples to test out. The key with paid surveys is to sign up with as many paid survey companies as you can. The more surveys you take the more money you are going to make.

These companies want to find out what you like and don’t like. They use the collective information and statistics from the surveys to help them decide who to market their products or services to. Large companies can spend millions on product research before putting them on the open market. They are willing to pay for your opinions and ideas to help them to figure out how to market their product.

It doesn’t cost anything to sign up to fill out surveys. Make sure you are using reputable companies though. If you are in doubt ask friends who take surveys for referrals or look for messages boards online where people are talking about taking surveys.

You should also set up a separate email account just for taking surveys to help you keep your personal email from getting mixed up with the survey email.

Here are some legitimate survey companies to get your started:

• Greenfield
• Pinecone Research
• Zoom Panel

Of course, I think the best benefit of working at home is sitting at my computer typing away with my fuzzy slippers on while I watch the Ellen Degeneres show. And, yes, I do get up and dance!

Do you have any other suggestions for home-based employment?   How do you make money from home (legal methods only please!!)

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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