Becoming a virtual assistant is one type of work at home job that is available today. There are standards for how people are chosen for these positions.

In order to acquire work as a virtual assistant you need to plan your strategy very thoughtfully. For instance, you should do the following:

• Highlight your best skills. This would show that you have a specialty, and would be much better than over-selling yourself as a person who can do anything.
• You should only sign up with one account to access job boards. Doing any differently could ban you from a site thus ban you from further opportunities.
• Be careful when using various job boards to get a virtual assistant job. If they say not to add your contact information then you should not do so. This is another way that people often get removed from job boards.
• As you post a job seeking profile make sure you check it over very carefully. Your spelling and grammar on your resume should be impeccable. You should also be very organized and be creative yet professional when describing your skills and qualifications.
• Always follow the instructions for using whichever job board you belong to. This will help you get the most out of the job seeking experience. It will save you from being removed.
• Although there are some legitimate bidding sites where you can find virtual assistant work at home jobs be careful. You should be very leery of purchasing too many online subscriptions but rather try to find the jobs for free.

Some of these seemingly insignificant work-at-home statistics can be very interesting. Viewing these helps you to learn more about who is doing what in the entrepreneur world.

With that in mind view these interesting facts:

• According to Money Magazine, about 20% work at home businesses bring in a revenue of between 100k and 500k per year (1996 survey).
• A new home business is started every 11 seconds. That’s amazing! There is no way to feel left out knowing this.
• Approximately 34 to 36 million home offices are set up in residences all across America. (However, according to the U.S. Census and a Pittsburgh Business Times magazine this number fluctuates from 18 to 38 million.) This is according to stats printed in a 2001 news article.
• In 2008, 9/10 of people who worked for an employer telecommute at home. This is 87% of employees, according to WorldatWork Telework Trendlines 2009.
• In 2009, it was reported that 24% of people who work for an employer do 80% of this work at home.
• According to a 2007 report from a variety of agencies, about 50% of all business are run from the home. This is a total of 16 million of all the businesses run.
• More and more employers are offering telecommute as a viable option. About 29% of employers are starting to allow their employees to work at home.

Simple Socioeconomic Facts

As of 2009 it is reported that 61% of home workers are men while 39% of them are female. A total of 42% of these are in the 18 to 34 age bracket, and 48% of these are in the 35 to 54 age bracket. Only 8% of people who are age 55 and over work at home, and the mean age is 40.3 while the median age is 38.

The highest number of people who work at home (50%) are college graduates. The second highest are those who have completed vocational schooling (28%) while the third highest are those who have had only a high school degree (or less).

The fourth highest would be people who have completed a post graduate degree (15%). These facts were provided by the WorkatWork Telework Trendlines. This is 2009 data.

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As you can see if you desire to work at home you are not the odd one out. Many people are doing it and are doing it successfully. Therefore, don’t let anyone scare you out of doing so.

Telework.gov is a system by which you can find government work at home jobs. This is a website called which I am assuming is an official government website.

This Telework site is listed on Opm.gov, which also is an informational website, which appears to be government-related. (I am saying that I don’t know for sure only because these sites I have just heard of recently. It does appear to be legitimate though, because it is connected also to USAJobs.gov.)

How does this Site Help?

It gives both employees as well as managers tools to use for connecting. This helps match the right positions that are open with the right people. The focus is mainly on finding legitimate work at home government jobs.

One way you can find Telework (a.k.a. work at home jobs) where you might represent the federal government is through USAJobs.gov. You might also use similar federal services to find these jobs, including the Telework.gov website.

What positions are available?

As a person who works at home, you might fulfill a variety of duties. For instance, you might assist with office duties and prepare reports. Maybe you would become a virtual customer assistant and take calls.

Of course, you should note that not all Telework positions are home-based. However, many of them are. You might be hired for a variety of reasons, such as to assist an office worker who may be temporarily disabled.

You might work for medical offices, or in a park setting. In other cases, you might be assigned to guard duty tasks. However, of course you also have the option of working at home as already mentioned.

About the Nature of Telework…

Being employed in this capacity where you may (or may not) work at home is different than work extension. Many people take their office work home with them to do on a computer. However, they are not originally hired in this capacity.

Telework is also a little bit different than mobile work, but is very similar. The focus Telework jobs may be more on site based rather than home bases or somewhere off-site as in the case of mobile workers. However, as mentioned already sometimes the Telework positions also are off site.

How to Apply

First, you should go to a legitimate job site such as USAjobs.gov. Here you can find federal government positions listed in various categories. There is no guarantee there will always be openings, but if you want to seek ‘Telework” this is one good place to start.