Telecommuting
A Matter of Trust
Part III

There are no "master lists" of telecommuting jobs.
Despite what you've read at the sites advertising such, no one corners the market on telecommuting jobs. They are far too elusive for that. In fact, it's rare to find legitimate telecommuting jobs advertised. While it's true that you may be able to find a few jobs by searching on the keyword telecommuting, most reputable job sites do not claim to list such. Reputable employers simply don't advertise enough telecommuting jobs to warrant such a claim.

If you think about it, it makes sense. Since telecommuting is such a desirable way to work, do employers really need to advertise for telecommuters? While some may be open-minded about telecommuting, be assured that reputable employers are not so desperate for telecommuters that they must advertise for them. Nevertheless, a few so-called "telecommuting job sites" attempt to lure us in with master lists of telecommuting jobs, for a fee, of course.

• One such site simply compiled a list of 700+ companies that it says are "reported to have expressed an interest" in hiring telecommuters. Exactly whom has reported this to whom? Not too wishy-washy, is it?
• Another recycles ads from elsewhere, many of which are for questionable telecommuting opportunities and the typical, work-at-home scams. Even if some are legit, by the time you read about these highly-desirable, recycled opportunities in this site's "master-list" newsletter, they'll likely be long gone. So will your money.

There are more rip-off sites like these, but I'm sure you get the picture by now. There's no magic in these methods and they're certainly not worth a fee. You can easily scan companies and job ads across the globe without paying for it, by searching job newsgroups, company research resources, online newspapers and job sites. That's what real job sites are for and why the Internet is called the Information Super Highway. But, we tend to think that if we pay for something it has value, and the predators who run these sites know it. The naive, the wishful, and the desperate are their prey.

Up Next > Before you buy, ask yourself these questions
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