Professional Work From Home Jobs

A few years ago, while I was sitting in my office during my work day, I kept wondering why my job couldn’t be a work from home job.

Back then, I knew of a few jobs that had the luxury of being able to work from home including some call centers and tech support jobs. Little did I know that in a few years many jobs would eventually be converted to Work From Home (WFH).

In March, 2020, the world came to a stop and most businesses and government offices closed down due to the pandemic caused by Covid-19 virus.

Between lockdowns and strict health measures, many workers weren’t able to go back to their offices. Employers immediately began to adapt to the new realty and moved most employees to work from home.

As governments started easing restrictions, coffee was once again brewed in a lot of government and corporate offices and empty streets were a thing of the past.

Employees have mixed feelings about going back to the office as working from home provided a certain comfort zone that was going to be missed by many.

Despite being able to work in their pajamas, cooking their lunches and not having to commute to work, some people missed the human interactions and started to feel claustrophobic living and working in the same place 24 hours a day.

Advantages Of Work From Home Jobs:

• Flexibility of location: You’re able to work from anywhere with access to the internet. You no longer have to live in a more expensive location to be near your job. You will also be able to travel freely as long as you are available during work hours if the job requires it.
• Work/Home balance: working from home allows you to spend more time with loved ones and sharing meals with them.
• Cost effective: this goes for both employers and employees. Employers will save on operating expenses such as rent, insurance and utilities. Employees, on the other hand, will save on expenses like gas, car insurance, clothing and meals.
• Long commutes: needless to say on average people drive half an hour to get to work if they are lucky. Many people spend up to 2-3 hours, unpaid, commuting to and from work. That’s extra time they could invest somewhere else or even resting at home to recharge for the next working day.

There are many other advantages like environmental effects, higher productivity, and less stress.

Not all workers were enthusiastic about spending their working and non-working hours in the same place.

Disadvantages Of Work From Home Jobs:

• Supervision: one of the most obvious hurdles with working from home is the difficulty to supervise and manage employees. Jobs that can be evaluated with metrics are easier to deal with, however, evaluation and supervision are more than just metrics.
• Workplace culture: not having a physical workplace makes it harder to build work culture. This can hurt team working and bonding.
• Communication: communication by emails, texts, virtual meetings and phone can be effective until the matter is urgent and you can’t get the other person on the other end of the communication tool you’re using.
• Privacy and security concerns: offices are usually equipped with secured networks and companies’ own systems. Having multiple employers using their home networks, not as secured, can jeopardize the companies’ information systems.

Other inconveniences associated with working from home involve lack of motivation, distractions and cabin fever.

Top 5 Work From Home Jobs

Like millions of people across the globe, I lost my job due to the pandemic. I was lucky enough to be able to collect unemployment while waiting for a miracle to find a job during one of the worst job markets throughout history.

It was bittersweet for me as I was able to take advantage of the time not employed to start transitioning my career to a job that would allow me to work from home to enjoy the benefits.

Below I will discuss the career options I was considering and why I chose what I chose.

1- Online English As a Second Language (ESL) Teacher

The English language is the number one second language in the world. The demand for learning English will almost always exist. You will be able to teach from anywhere with a very flexible schedule that suits you.

• You have the option of teaching English as a second language (ESL) to people relocating to English speaking countries. Or English as a foreign language (EFL) for people in non-English speaking countries.

• All you need is to be fluent in English, get accredited (TEFL) and have access to a computer with an internet connection.You can either work privately and find your own clients or you can work for one of many companies that match you with your students and even provide you with the syllabus.

• You can make anywhere between $10-$40 an hour teaching ESL. You can earn even more if you choose to specialize in a niche like Medical English or Business English.

2- Freelance Writer

An obvious choice is freelance writing. It’s one of the most flexible jobs in which you will own your own time while respecting possible deadlines set by clients.

• If you’re creative and have excellent writing skills, you will be able to earn money writing for different clients.

• Freelance writers usually find their own clients (companies) to write anything from articles, blogs, websites, magazines to marketing content.

• The pay really varies in freelance writing and depends heavily on the quality and experience provided. It can be anywhere between $10-$100 an hour.

3- Virtual Customer Service

Everyone at some point in their life worked in customer service one way or another. It’s one of the easiest and most difficult jobs at the same time.

Many companies are shifting their customer service positions to either a virtual call center or online support where it can be done from home.

• There are many WFH customer service jobs out there from email, chat supports to virtual call centers that can be done from home

• You don’t need a lot of experience or accreditation to land a job which is the easy part. On the other hand, you will need to possess excellent customer service and people’s skills with a lot of patience which is the difficult part.

• The downside of customer service jobs is the lower than average pay (between $10-$20) as well as the high turnover.

4- Web Developer

With the digitizing of business nowadays, every business must have a website and a tech support department to look after their webpage. Demand has been on the rise for web developers in the last 10 years.

• There are different positions for web developers that relate to different aspects of the IT part of the business. You can focus on client side applications (Front-end developer), server side applications (Back-end developer) or both (Full stack developer.

• You will need to learn multiple coding languages such as Java, Python and HTML. A degree in computer science is a good start and continuous learning is required as technology evolves.

• Like most work from home opportunities, you can have your private business and find your own clients. Or you can find a position in an IT department of a company or government.

• Depending which route you take in web developing, you can make anywhere between $20-$40 an hour with employment. Going private will definitely raise your potential earnings.

5- Digital Marketing

Consumers are rapidly shifting to online shopping more so during the pandemic. Businesses took a note of that and are shifting their marketing campaigns to online marketing, more specifically social media marketing.

• Digital marketing is a vast work field on its own. Examples of digital marketing include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing and Pay Per Click Marketing.

• All you need is your creativity, imaginations, computer and internet to be able to familiarize yourself with all the available tools online. There are different courses available that will help you launch your career in digital marketing.

• Similar to web development, you can be an independent digital marketer or employed. All big corporations have already transitioned most of their marketing to digital marketing.

• Salaries for digital marketers range between $20 and $40 per hour.

Conclusion

There are many other opportunities to work from home that have not been mentioned such as virtual bookkeeping, virtual assistance, proofreading, .. etc. The 5 mentioned above are the ones I have considered when I decided to switch careers.

Coming from a business and finance background, I found the most logical choice for me was Digital Marketing. I was able to enroll in a Digital Marketing Master course which takes 3 months to finish including being certified world wide.

Covid-19 might have been a blessing in disguise for us who have always dreamt of working from home. I suggest you choose the career that best suits your abilities and passion. As we all know if you love what you’re doing, you will never work a day in your life.