Question:

I am looking for part-time contract work that can be done from my home. I live in a rural location, have a degree in Public Relations and have been selling Ad Specialty for the past 10 years. I have seen some ads for companies looking for development of marketing plans and advertising materials. I am qualified to produce successful material along this line. How can I find more suitable job listings? I have yet to determine how to search on corporate web sites for contract work. Are there any other categories of jobs that I should be looking into?

First Answer:

Telecommuting opportunities are on the rise - it saves companies money in the long run. Companies are not responsible for any of your benefits, your office equipment and supplies and it is easier for them to let contractors go rather than firing/laying off an employee. The upside for you is the fact you don't have to relocate, you can work from home, be more productive by avoiding office chit-chat, and have the variety and exposure to different companies. Here are some ideas for finding work in your field:

• Join PR professional organizations. Networking is the key to opening many doors. These organizations need not be local since you will not be on site anyway. Many of these organizations now have job-posting bulletin boards.
• Tap into your existing network. By this I mean contact every person, firm, etc. you dealt with over the past 10 years as well as your alumni association.
• Search the job board sites on the web. Type in contract or consulting or part-time to get the type of work you are seeking.
• Target firms directly. Continue following up on the ads you have seen as well as contacting firms you feel you'd like to work for and are qualified to work for.
• Contact a head-hunting or recruiting firm that specializes in placing PR professionals. Don't limit your search to local agencies since you can work remotely for someone in Asia!

If you are still wondering, work with a professional coach who can guide you through the process easier and faster. I am offering a 20% discount on one month of coaching to anyone who mentions this article.

-- Janine A. Schindler, Professional Coach and owner of the Jas Coaching Company

Second Answer:

I can't tell from from your question whether the ads you've seen are from employers seeking regular employees that you're hoping to approach about performing the work from home. Or are these employers specifically seeking people to do the work from home?

I would suggest being wary of anyone advertising work-at-home jobs. Certainly there are legitimate work-at-home opportunities being advertised, but there are also vast numbers of scams. There are also lots of articles on the Internet on how to identify and avoid scams. One such article just appeared in the newsletter of Net-Temps. It's called The Seven Rules That Weed Out Scams.

You ask where you can find suitable job listings for contract work. Again, be very careful. Guru.com is a good source of legitimate contract work, and you can find more sites listed at http://www.quintcareers.com/consultant_jobs.html. For work-at-home sites, check out http://www.quintcareers.com/telecommute_jobs.html. I would not think corporate career sites would be a particularly good source of contract or work-at-home jobs.

If you are, in fact, thinking of trying to fashion an advertised job into a work-at-home job, the idea might work. You just need to make sure you're prepared for the many considerations of working at home -- pricing and marketing of your services, creating an appropriate workspace, dealing with the isolation, handling child-care issues, determining if you have the right kind of personality to work outside the structure of a traditional workplace, calculating the costs of working at home (equipment, etc.), and so forth. You may want to read this article: Your Home-Based Career: A Key Resource Guide.

-- Katharine Hansen, former speechwriter and college instructor who provides content for the Web site, Quintessential Careers, edits QuintZine, an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and prepares job-search correspondence as chief writer for Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters

Third Answer:

To find contract work in this field, your best shot may be to develop your own web site and learn how to "market" it, that is, construct it correctly, with key words in the right places, so that it pops up on the major search engines near the top of the hundreds of thousands of sites one will be referred to if a company types "marketing services" into a search engine. Of course, a lot of the demand today is for people who can build web sites to market their products or services, so prospective clients may judge your web site as indicative of your work. If this isn't a current field of expertise, hire an expert to develop your web site, and then consider taking some classes in web site development and HTML to add this skill to your portfolio. I know people who have done this successfully to market editorial services, a law practice specializing in employment law, and career counseling services, to name three examples of services marketed this way.

Another suggestion is to register yourself on sites for free agents, such as www.freeagent.com, that act as a clearinghouse for employers and independent contractors.

A third is to register with employment agencies that specialize in contract work for professionals. Look for these by reading the Sunday New York Times want ads (because this work can be done by telecommuting, geography is not an issue; register where the business is, not where you are) and in Kennedy's Pocket Guide to Working With Executive Recruiters.

To determine other kinds of work that are being done via telecommuting, read the business press avidly (everything from Business Week to Fast Company to online publications) to look for companies that encourage telecommuting. Many firms outsource their customer service telephone support to contracted individuals; other organizations, such as the Girl Scouts, have embraced telecommuting as an organizational norm for their national organization.

-- Carol Anderson, Career Development and Placement Office, Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University in New York City

Career Videos