Ploymint

If you go into the office five days a week then you know the routine. Wake up early, shower, put on clothes, and make the long commute to work. Ever wish you could just roll out of bed in your PJ’s but still maintain a level of productivity and get paid? If the answer is yes, maybe you should look into working from home.

Of course, it’s not that easy, is it? Many jobs are onsite and require you to go into an office. If we flashback a decade or two, working remotely was mostly for those who had to perform field work. However, millennials are changing the way we do business and telecommuting, or working from home, is now becoming a more standard practice. Companies are realizing the power of allowing their employees to create their own work environment. In fact, some of the largest industries are now basing their jobs remotely. Here are just a few of the most common work-at-home positions:

Customer Service: Many companies are now allowing their customer-service staff to work from home, and it makes sense. There’s a lot of overhead and work when trying to maintain a 24-hour call center. Other than the innumerable business expenses it means that you have people coming in for the graveyard shift. Why not allow people to set their own hours and work remotely? If businesses are wary on productivity, they should read this report done by the Harvard Business Review which found that one company allowed its employees to telecommute saved them $1,900 for each employee and increased productivity by 13.5% overall.

Online Trader: Boiler Room? More like Bedroom. The trading of stocks and bonds has changed significantly over the years and websites like E-Trade have made it easier to make those trades even when you’re off Wall Street. Firms are now looking for traders who work remotely because the requirement to be on the trading floor has all but vanished. These companies are usually looking for someone based on past performance, and are typically willing to pay out a much larger percentage for profitable trades, as well as the normal salary and benefits you’d get from working at a traditional firm.

Data Entry: If you’re bad with people and have no experience with equity trading, data entry is your best bet. There are a lot of jobs out there that still require manual data entry and there is literally no reason one wouldn’t be able to do this from home. Why trudge into the office to boringly input data, when you can do that from the comfort of your own bed?

So where does someone actually find one of these elusive work-from-home jobs? The last time you applied to one in college, a Nigerian billionaire sent you an e-mail and wanted you to wire him some money. While there are scams out there, it’s important that you use the right websites to land that work-from-home job. Here’s a list to make it easier:

Patch.com: This employment site breaks up employment geographically into smaller “patches” so you can localize your search. You can essentially type in “work from home” or “telecommute” in the job search bar in order to bring up the businesses looking for remote workers. By conducting a quick search just in my area, I was able to bring up three work-from-home jobs in sales, customer service, and recruiting. If you are looking for a steadier, full-time job, then this is the place to look.

Upwork.com: Formerly Odesk, Upwork is a global job board that connects you directly to those that you would be working for. The great thing about Upwork is that employers have their own profiles, so before pitching or accepting a job you can take a look at their activity on the site. Upwork works like an online auction, where an employer will put up a job he needs to get done, and potential employees will bid and pitch an amount of money they would be willing to take for completing it.

Freelancer.com: Much like Upwork, Freelancer works the same way. People will put up projects they need completed by a certain date and will take bids from freelancers to complete it. While many of the projects are one-time deals, there are also many companies that are looking to retain a good staff from this website. Additionally, many projects will lead to networking opportunities for the future. The only downside with a totally free job market is that you are competing on a global level with a high level of competition.