Work At Home Business Opportunities Weblog
“The times, they are a-changin’” sums up the new reality facing attorneys as well as being the title of Bob Dylan’s third album.
By that I mean having a law degree is no guarantee of “full employment”. In other words, even graduating from a top notch lawshool doesn’t guarantee one will make the immediate transition from “Paper Chase” to corporate counsel!
For example, I met a most remarkable woman who is working as an executive assistant currently but who has a J.D. degree from a well regarded regional law school. I don’t recall at the moment why she did not take her “bar exam” but she is not currently licensed as an attorney. I suppose she’s in good company, Michelle Obama let her law license lapse as well! I doubt my friend ever had one to begin with though!
I suspect there are a growing number of people with active legal licenses or at least superb legal training who are not on a “career track” so to speak by any traditional standard of measurement for any number of reasons. Just recently near me a law firm specializing in land acquisitions for one particular industry evaporate overnight. One month saw them employ 60 staff (mostly attorneys and support staff). The next month had them down to 15!
People like my friend are now looking to find attorney employment in more temporary circumstances. Companies and legal firms routinely outsource legal research to her as well as other tasks they may need completed on a “rush” basis or can’t otherwise give to an existing staff member. When such business is available, she earns quite a good hourly fee without the other worries of operating a legal practice.
I would not be surprised to see more attorneys seeking employment from home – even in some cases – as corporate counsels! The benefits of lower overhead, somewhat more flexible hours, and other perks of self-employment and home employment may make those home based lawyers seem less of an oddity and more the norm.
Thanks to Martindale.com for sponsoring our blog today! They’re worth visiting if you’re seeking attorney employment!
Recently I made a personal transition. For about 11 years I worked with people trying to enter or re-enter the job market. These folks had severe disadvantages: either they were “youth” with no experience, felons with criminal experience or were people who’d worked in one location sometimes as long as 30 years who had sometimes great experience but for jobs that no longer existed. Talk about some tough resumes to write!
What makes it tougher is that in this job environment, people who have jobs to offer are INUNDATED with resumes and your chance of having a resume that catches their eye and gets you the interview could be very small depending on the position that’s open at any given time.
While many job seekers KNOW they need a resume, their idea of what one contains can be more outdated than their job skills! Industry standards for resumes change all the time! What HR people are looking for in resumes can change frequently too… and the use of electronic tools like databases also CHANGE HOW PEOPLE FIND YOU VIA A RESUME (think “keywords”).
Frankly, I burned out helping folks write sharp, precise, “catch your eye” resumes because there is more demand for them than any individual can supply!
If you are unemployed and still looking for a job after submitting a “million resumes” it may be the economy… but it may also be because your resume is substandard. While it might be expensive to hire an expert resume writer, it may be to your advantage to do so. Someone in that profession will normally be willing to give your resume a “free analysis” of sorts and at least tell you what they think is wrong with what you’re doing. It could be an elementary mistake you can fix yourself… like not submitting a 10 page resume in a 2 page resume world!
Or it could be more subtle such as your inability to highlight keywords that tell a potential boss you know what’s going on in their industry and that you’re the right person for the job.
If your resume is killing you, money spent on getting a resume written for you (and most will “throw in” a free cover letter) could be the best thing you could do to increase your chances of getting that job. At least you’ll be eliminating one more strike against you so you can be SURE you’re putting your best foot forward in the job market.
One way to tell is this: after getting your new resume, RESUBMIT IT to all the employers you’d contacted originally. If they’re swamped with a jillion applicants, they won’t remember you ever contacted them most likely. If you start getting more interviews when nothing else changed, you’ll be thankful for your investment.
Remember, NO resume “gets you a job”. Resumes, at best, separate you from the “pack” and get you an interview. Once there – you have to sell yourself in person and get the job! In the end your resume is a tool, you must put it to good use!
Thanks to EmploymentBoost.com for sponsoring our blog today!
I know that may people starting home businesses do so by joining a health related MLM. So they’re always interested in hearing about new products. This one is from a 12 year old company that works in the dietary supplement business.
That causes me to ask… have you heard of Nopalea?
If you’re in Texas, the name, at least rings a bell. “Nopalito” is a form of cactus found in certain Mexican dishes… even breakfast tacos around here. It’s just that till now nobody thought much of their potential for health – and in a form that’s easy for anyone to incorporate into their diet.
Like so many natural substances, the Nopal cactus (Opuntia Ficus Indica) has heretofore unknown healthful qualities we’re just now uncovering. Some people though consider it the perfect anti inflammatory wellness drink. I haven’t tried it myself so I can’t say. It does, however, contain rare and potent antioxidants that are scientifically proven to help the body reduce inflammation.
Interested in learning more? Readers of my blog can try Nopalea for free (only pay $9.95 for shipping) by calling 1-800-203-7063. While Nopalea has sponsored this post I am passing along the “Free Offer” without any other connection to the company. Try it if you want.
Despite the financial crisis of recent years, there are still people seeking to start businesses and those willing to fund them. The Internet is facilitating that in a number of ways as you might imagine.
Some are “crowd funded” in the sense of asking many strangers to chip in amounts of cash to their liking. While that may seem “small potatoes”, it’s worked remarkably well for some ventures. I’ve even been acquainted with a musician using such a service to “crowdfund” $12,000 for a CD recording project.
But there are other types of venture capital firms that use the internet to link to companies seeking funding. BusinessPartners.com is one such venue where investors, start up consultants, and those with growing businesses can potentially meet. As their website notes:
“Business Partners is a global Internet based service that connects Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, Early Stage Companies, and Established Corporations with Angel Investors, Venture Capital Firms, Venture Capital Sources, Investment Funds, Investment Banks, Corporate Investors, Potential Business Partners, Strategic Alliances, Businesses for Sale, Business Consultants, and target data for Mergers and Acquisitions.”
While crowdfunding and peer to peer lending may support smaller operations, larger projects with greater capital requirements and more sophisticated needs will likely term to online communities that serve as a source of “one stop shopping” for issues related to funding a business start up.
Thanks to BusinessPartners.com for sponsoring this blog today.
Wow! I’m part of the crowdfunding revolution! Of course I was one with Kiva (for a limited time you can get a free trial loan here of sorts, but now I helped do that when a friend sent me a link about his kickstarter fundraising campaign! For a while I didn’t think he’ d make it but with 8 hours to go he’s $127 over his amount.
It makes you wonder… could he (or we?) do better?
Did you know that more than one project sought $100,000 in funding but closed the door to new investors when people committed over $700,000? Wow! That’s amazing.
I wonder how many home/small businesses are not using this to their advantage?
If you’d like to know how to get started… check out this great article:
Mashable’s 9 Essential Steps for Kickstarter Campaign anyone hoping to fund a business venture should check out!
I have kept hoping for a long time that we’d be able to scrap the income tax and therefore scrap tax preparation as a home business or small business opportunity. Well, we’ve seen how that’s gone! Duh! It’s such a fine tool of social engineering and manipulation and generating lobbyists contributions… why would they ever get rid of it?
The income tax is more convoluted than ever… tax simplification schemes quickly degenerate back into more rules and possible credits and deductions for those who know about them and qualify.
That’s why tax preparation for the foreseeable future will be a viable business opportunity. I’ve personally known several people who make a living that way. Some made enough to basically only work hard 6 months of the year… but they worked like dogs then of course!
But NOW is the time to think about this option if you’re serious. You can’t become a tax preparer when everybody is worried about taxes. You have to study ahead.
The big “tax prep” franchises even give their little course in the fall. Unfortunately it’s getting harder for INDIVIDUALS to enter the field. There have been so many scoundrels telling people about imaginary tax deductions, it’s increasingly important to consider whether you need to be a Registered Tax Return Preparer to protect YOU as much as protecting your clients. If that’s your course, the time to start working on it is today and not next fall.
It’s important to be trained at a genuine training provider. Check for one that is reputable. You may even want to work with one that bears the logo of an IRS Approved continuing education provider. Here’s what that looks like…
Thanks to Fast Forward Academy for sponsoring this post.
Want to try your hand at writing a new app for the Blackberry 10?
If you can write an app that makes $1000 in the first year on it’s own, RIM will GIVE you up to an extra $9,000! They’re guaranteeing that good apps can be worth up to $10,000 for new developers.
Here are the details…
Apps have to meet certain quality standards and make minimum sales, but it still sounds like a good idea…
If you have content to sell – anything you can share online – you can start selling quickly through Gumroad, even if you don’t live in the US. They make deposits in 190 countries it turns out.
Here’s how Gumroad works…
The feels are higher than a credit card merchant account probably, BUT you don’t have to get those accounts AND you don’t have to master the art of setting up secure download sites, etc.
Personally if I could use PayPal and something like the$7 Offers Script (affiliate link), I would because the money comes in right away… no 30 day wait.
BUT if you’re used to waiting 30 days anyway, this would be no big deal.
If you’re interested, you can check out their video here:
An introduction to Gumroad. from Gumroad on Vimeo.
It’s tax time… here’s some more fodder for the discussion around TAXES! As you check this out, note the compliance costs at the end for businesses receiving 1099k’s!
Brought To By Outright.com
If you’ve been in internet marketing awhile, you know all the experts tell you to have an in house email marketing list. That’s true, but not all email marketing systems are alike. It pays to compare providers and features and for businesses and non-profits, I’d definitely suggest putting iContact in your list of email services to check out.
Though everyone is taking about “social media marketing“, the reality is that NOW is a great time to be doing email marketing in conjunction with Facebook and Twitter. iContact allows you to automatically schedule posts to these platforms as well as email all you customers. Where I currently reside, many businesses have caught on and sign up folks for their email lists by sending at least a $5 coupon by email and promising future coupon. Lot’s of people sign up.
Because inexperienced marketers are thinking Facebook is the place to focus their efforts, they’re failing to be building mailing lists now and focusing all their efforts on Social Media and neglecting email. Hopefully you won’t be one of them. By having a contact “Like” you on Facebook AND receive email, you are doubling your chances of making new sales… it’s just that simple.
Rather than focusing on email marketing software per se, the industry standard and what I suggest is a web based system that allows you to schedule posts aheaad and which doesn’t send out email from your domain. Professional email companies like iContact can assure internet providers that they’re not sending out spam when a few complaints could get you quckly blacklisted as a spammer.
Whatever you do in 2012, don’t let your business fall prey to the vagaries of walk in business… have an email marketing system to create new business on a more predictable and repeat basis using email marketing.
Thanks to icontact for sponsoring this link!
