Many workers may not realize just how feasible working from home can be. There are actually many varied career options that could spring from any number of hobbies or skills. Some home-based careers may not even require much, or any, education to get started.
Having a bad experience with one boss can ruin anyone’s entire outlook on their future career. According to a LinkedIn Survey from 2015, 41% of people leave their jobs due to being unsatisfied with leadership. Another 36% of those who leave do so out of dissatisfaction with the culture or environment at their office.
Three-quarters of employees who leave jobs do so for reasons that can be solved by one alternative: working from home. Management improves tenfold when the only employee and the only manager are the same person (unless you argue with yourself often, but that’s a problem for another day). Environment? Culture? What could be better than a work environment that you choose? You could set up your own home office, or perhaps take a day to work from a Starbucks.
Home-based careers that require higher education
Some careers certainly require a higher education, or at least will need the training of higher education to be taken seriously or be effective. Below are listed a few of those options.
Interior Design
Interior design is an excellent career for anyone who has an eye for what makes a house look right. The real requirement of education in this field is the history and appreciation for many eras and cultures of style. An eyesore to one may be beauty to another after all. The nuances of design history will also be huge selling points to some buyers. The class you yawn your way through may give you the information needed to really convince a client you know your stuff. Getting started may require quite a bit of overhead, and lots of time as with many careers. A website is a must, and pictures of your past jobs – even if it is your house or your parents’ house to start– are a huge part of that. If you are not an incredibly competent photographer, you will have to pay for a professional to help you make the best of your design in one shot. From there, marketing and connection steal the show. According to Indeed, the average annual salary of an interior designer would be $57,631. However, placing too much trust in making that as a new designer would be unwise. As with many careers, it takes years to reach that kind of stability.
Medical Transcriptionist
Medical transcriptionist, or healthcare documentation specialists, take the voice recordings of medical professionals and turn them into written documents. This is an industry that will require some extra education usually. Essential skills include understanding of medical terminology, anatomy, physiology, grammar, and word processing softwares. This could be a great career for anyone who has spent a long time in similar medical professions but is ready to get away from the stress of the medical environment itself. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual wage of such a worker was $35,250 in 2017.
Video Production, Web Design, Graphic Design
Video production, web design, and graphic design are all hot newer careers that grow naturally from hobby to profession. These may not necessarily require higher education to find work, but having a background of solid schooling is helpful when seeking out freelance work in this area since that will be most of the work for many such artists. These skills are in high demand as multimedia marketing is essential to the growth of many companies. For most companies, the easiest route to getting such advertising done is to outsource it to capable artists. According to Payscale, an entry-level video producer could make $48,464, a web designer could make $45,886, and a graphic designer could make $42,078 on average.
Home-based careers that require certification
Massage Therapist
Massage therapists have many opportunities to find work outside of typical massage clinics. Many clients appreciate the privacy and convenience of a traveling therapist, and freelance work is not hard to find. Certification is required for this profession to be done legally. According to salary.com, therapists will make an average of $50,119 annually.
Tax Preparation
Tax preparation is an essential profession as every American pays taxes, and relatively few have any clue how to navigate the many documents efficiently. Though the work is effectively seasonal, there is good money to be made for anyone who can crunch numbers and memorize easily what needs to happen. Sometimes, this work is little more than having a checklist and running down item after item, but certification is required. With the pressure of the IRS threatening those who withhold information, being thorough is the real key. Patience and attention to detail will make one successful in this field. According to ziprecruiter, a tax preparer will make $43,763 yearly. For working just a few months, that is not so bad.
Home Inspector
Home inspectors are in high demand when the real estate market is booming. Getting certified for this industry is not overly difficult, and having experience in construction or housing is a huge advantage. To determine issues with a home such as structural problems, wiring issues, and any sort of energy-efficiency struggles a home may have could be the real determining factor in a home’s value. According to jobmonkey, a home inspector could expect to make $50,000 to $64,000 annually.
Home-based careers that require skills or training
Now while having a relevant college degree can never be a bad thing for any career, some careers may only need a bit of solid experience or maybe just some honed natural talent to get started with successfully.
Freelance Writers: Blogging, Copyrwriting, Publishing E-books
Many writers have the opportunity to make money doing freelance work while waiting to become the next Rowling. This article right here was outsourced to a freelance writer, so the opportunities could be out there for you too if you put your nose to the ground. It is also possible to make money from your own blog creation, from publishing e-books through services such as Amazon self-publishing if you are more of a novel writer, or even copywriting if your grammar and attention to detail are impeccable. Of course, higher education helps with all of these careers, but results always speak higher than degrees. Many famous authors have been self-taught after all. According to payscale, bloggers’ salary ranges widely from $23,000 to $81,000, e-book writers’ from $21,000 to $104,000, and copywriters average $49,460 annually.
Debt Collector
Perhaps these are not the most exciting of careers, but being a debt collector or call center representative is a real job opportunity for someone who wants to stay at home. Nobody likes to get that call from a debt collector, but nobody likes to be in debt either. On the other hand, many Americans trying to get help with some tech or hardware issue would much rather speak to someone from their own country than have to deal with understanding a foreign accent. This has been made possible by the homeshore movement that is trying to bring jobs that were previously outsourced to private contractors in the US. According to ziprecruiter, a debt collector could make $25,500 to $62,500, and a call center representative could make $35,406 annually.
There are many other opportunities to work from a home office. Careers can be made out of translating, running an online store of buying and reselling through e-Bay, and the many hobbies and useful skills like sewing, baking and being a personal stylist. Truly, think of the most high-maintenance friend you have, and think if there was something they would pay you to do that you enjoy and are good at. There is a career out there for you in that field, and you can make it possible right now in pajamas. The only thing holding you back is you!