Yes. I admit it. I telecommute.

And after everyone realizes that yes, I have a job, I’m not just staying at home saying I work at home because I’m ashamed to say I don’t have a job, and yes I get paid, and yes, in most cases I make more than you do, they want to know how I found my telecommuting job.

So, here is my telecommuting advice.

Never pay for a job, or for information leading to a job. Many of the places that charge you for information about jobs, or that charge you for jobs are scams. They may simply take your money and run with it, they may take your money and require you to place the same type of ad that you signed up for, and hope that people will fall for it like you did, or they may take your money and promise that they will send you “fresh job leads that are updated daily.” If the company actually does post fresh leads daily, by the time these “fresh leads” are posted, all of the other people that are paying for the leads will be able to see, and apply to these jobs as well. And the more people that apply to that job, the less the chance that you will get hired for that job.

There are so many free resources to help you find a telecommuting position, that I have never found the need to pay for anything. I learned most of what I know about telecommuting through Wahm.com The Online Magazine For Work at Home Moms.

Wahm.com offers a telecommuting forum where you can ask questions about, and research potential companies and job opportunities. They also have a telecommuting/work at home job listing section, and many members post job leads in the telecommuting forum as well.

There are many ways to search for telecommuting positions. Work at home, and work at home jobs are usually not the best search terms to use, because these words usually bring up scams, or business opportunities. Some of the words that are more likely to bring up legitimate results are telecommute, telework, contract position, freelance, virtual, virtual employee, or independent contractor.

It is very important that you research the company that you are applying to before you send them any personal information. I know how scared I was to send off my hire papers, and I knew the company I work with is legit, so I can’t image how scary it must be to mail off your name, phone number, address, and social security number to someone, and then find out that they aren’t a legitimate business. Unfortunately, you will have to mail of this paperwork to most legitimate jobs, so it’s important that you have enough information about them so that you feel comfortable doing so. There will be times when you will be unable to find information about a company, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that the company is bad, but it is a situation where you will have to use your judgement.

If you can’t find information from an outside source, at least get a name, and a phone number for the business, and make sure that the company is using a professional website. Free hosting, and free email addresses with no contact information are definite red flags.

There may also be cases where you apply to a job that you think is legit, and then you find out it isn’t. Take the steps that are needed to protect yourself from fraud (hopefully this will never be a problem for you) and then forgive yourself.

You can look for telecommuting positions on most of the online job sites, such as Monster.comand Careerbuilder.

I personally found my job at craigslist.org in the San Francisco section. That’s the great thing about telecommuting. Your job can be anywhere!

When I look search craigslist, I search all jobs, leave the keyword section blank, and check the telecommute box, that brings up all of the telecommuting jobs for that city.

I do know people who advise entering “telecommuting is ok” in the keyword field, and that is what I did when I ran across an elusive site that allows you to search all of the craigslist cities at once. Unfortunately craigslist frowns on sites like that, so it was removed :-(.

The only thing that I don’t like about craigslist is that you don’t always know what company you are applying for. I’m pretty sure that I got on a couple of junk mail lists while applying to blind ads at craigslist, but they have so much information that I keep using them.

Well, that’s my telecommuting advice for today, if you have any questions feel free to ask!