remote jobs – telecommuterguide

You are probably familiar with some of the more common remote jobs, such as online tutoring. However, there are many interesting jobs that most people have never heard of. Some of the most interesting remote jobs include virtual juror, mobile notary, voice over artist, video game tester, and virtual concierge. There are lots of cool remote jobs that involve providing advice & answering questions, doing research, performing investigations, offering support, and serving customers. Of course, there are some totally unexpected but fun remote jobs, including video game tester and voice over artist. Some of these jobs require only a high school diploma. Others require a law degree and courtroom experience. However, you can do any of them from home as a telecommuter! In this article, we'll take a closer look at some of the most interesting remote jobs, including what to expect and what is required. Let's begin. Most Interesting Remote Jobs Some of the most interesting remote jobs fall into these categories: Providing Advice & Answering Questions Legal Support & Research Screening & Research Audit & Investigation Support & Assistance Customer Service Totally Random Let's start off with remote jobs where you provide advice and answer people's questions. Providing Advice & Answering Questions The jobs in this category involve providing expert advice and guidance, or answering people's questions. 1. Virtual Admissions Consultant An admissions consultant helps a student to gain admission to a particular high school, college, or graduate school. An admissions consultant may assist with all aspects of the application process. For instance, he may arrange for a good tutor to work with the student for test preparation. He might also help the student to brainstorm ideas for a good admissions essay. He may also help to proofread and polish the essay. In addition, the consultant can work with the student to prepare a good resume and application. Finally, the consultant may coach the student to prepare for admissions interviews. A consultant may also create a timeline for admissions. This would include when to take tests, write essays, apply to schools, and send responses. He might also help families to think about college financing. This might include applying for scholarships and negotiating financial aid with colleges. Some companies to look at include: Kaplan - they are one of the big companies in the college industry: visit their website Princeton Review - another of the big players in college admissions: visit their website Admissions Consultants - check out their website Small Independent Educational Consultants - there are numerous smaller shops that will hire people with experience in admissions. 2. Virtual Counsel You need to be a lawyer for this job. In addition, you should have experience in a relevant practice area. However, this gives you the opportunity to provide counsel for companies or individuals from home! There are many ways you could serve as an attorney for companies. For instance, you could work as counsel for an insurance company, advising them of the likelihood of winning a case. You could also work on retainer for a company, doing litigation defense. If you are expert in the laws for a certain industry, you could be the in-house counsel on compliance. In addition, you could help to write up valid employment contracts for companies that want to hire. Finally, you could work in the area of patents and trademark. In this role, you would ensure that you company is not violating any laws. You would also make sure that the company is not infringing on existing patents. In addition, you might pursue cases against others who infringe your company's patents or trademarks. Some companies that might hire remote counsel: Counsel On-Call - they consult for attorneys and companies. Check them out here. Specialty Legal Consulting - contact some companies in your industry or specialty to see if they need your services! 3. Human Resources Consultant A human resources consultant provides advice to companies based on employment law or practice. Most consultants will have a specialty. Some specialties include recruiting and hiring, labor relations, compensation and benefits, and training. A small company might not be able to afford a full-time human resources professional. However, a company can use a virtual consultant to answer specific questions that come up. This saves the company money, and gives you the opportunity to work from home! 4. Online Question & Answer Many times, people have a simple one-off question that they want an answer for. Online question and answer websites can provide the expertise they need. Some of these websites bring together experts in many different fields. Others specialize in a specific type of expert, such as doctors, lawyers, engineers, or human resources professionals. Some of these sites will pay you for each question answered. Others will pay you a commission each time someone pays for the answer to a question you wrote. The following are websites where you might find work answering questions: Just Answer - if you want to talk with doctors, lawyers, mechanics, and more, check out their site. Quora - this site has a more general audience, and you can ask or answer questions. Niche Forums - look for websites that answer questions about a niche or specialty you know about. Legal Support & Research These jobs support lawyers and courts. Some of the jobs require you to have some knowledge of law or how lawyers work. Some might require you to have prior research experience. Others require nothing more than being a U.S. citizen who is 18 or older! 5. Settlement Services A settlement company works to close a mortgage. It works with the buyer and seller of a home, along with realtors, attorneys, and banks, as needed. It also helps to transfer the home to the buyer, and cash or other payments to the seller. Finally, a settlement company makes sure that both parties receive the necessary documentation. 6. Virtual Juror A virtual juror sits on a mock jury. First, this jury helps lawyers to develop arguments for their cases. After presenting an argument, lawyers can find out if the case was convincing to jurors. They can also find out what the perceived weaknesses are. In addition, a virtual jury can help lawyers to decide on the value of a case. Finally, a virtual jury can help lawyers to get a sense of public attitudes and sentiment. To serve as a virtual juror, you must be a U.S. citizen, age 18 years or older. You must also be of sound mind and good moral character. Finally, you must not have a felony conviction on your record. Here are some sites to look for opportunities as a virtual juror. Check out eJury. Check out JuryTestNetworks. 7. Public Records Researcher In this job, you might gather public financial information on individuals or companies. You will draw from public records for your information. This could include going to the registry of deeds or county courthouse to conduct research using public records. Many of these records are online, and more are digitized each day. It will help if you have experience collecting tax lien, bankruptcy, and court judgment information. You might also work conducting background research on individuals. This means finding misdemeanor and felony criminal charges, and sometimes civil judgments. A couple of companies that hire public records researchers follow. Visit Information Technologies here. Check out Sunlark Research here. 8. Online Paralegal A paralegal assists an attorney in conducting research, preparing documents, and managing cases. Normally, you need to take courses in law to become a paralegal, although you would not be a J.D. Since much of the work involves reading and editing documents and doing research, you can do this job from anywhere! Check out Moyer Legal Services here. 9. Probate Researcher A legal firm sometimes hires researchers to go to courts and find probate cases. Sometimes, the heirs are unknown. In other cases, there are known heirs, but it is unclear if they are alive, or where they live. A probate researcher would try to dig up information on these heirs and the cases. You might earn a commission in certain cases, based on the amount recovered. Check out Probate.com here. 10. Court Researcher As a court researcher, you would conduct research, either at a courthouse or online. After finding the relevant information on a case, you would type up your findings and send them in. Usually, the research does not require you to have in-depth legal knowledge. Instead, you would record basic document information. 11. Mobile Notary A mobile notary is simply a notary that goes wherever a document needs signing. You can often charge a flat fee, plus a fee per mile driven. In a busy metropolitan area, you may be able to walk from job to job. Of course, you must be a notary public, which means the state appoints you. A notary serves as an impartial witness to document signings. Check out Signing Source here. Screening & Research 12. Screening Services In this job, you would verify education, employment, drug testing, and other information. You could be performing this service to screen volunteers, employees, or tenants. This could mean calling a high school or college to make sure that a person really attended and graduated. It could also mean calling previous employers to verify positions held and dates of employment. Finally, it could involve contacting professional associations to verify that a person is really a certified member. In addition, you would conduct public records research to find judgments or liens. Finally, you would look for a criminal record, or pending cases against the person. Visit Castle Branch here. 13. Research Study Participant In this job, you would participate in a study, where researchers are looking for home-based participants. One possibility is to review documents, videos, or other information and give an opinion via online questionnaires. Check out Research Participants Institute here. Audit & Investigation These jobs involve finding dishonest or illegal activity. If you have a law enforcement background, you might like these! 14. Virtual Financial Auditing A financial auditor looks at a company's financial statements, along with any disclosures. The goal is to uncover any discrepancies, or to find missing or duplicate charges. You might be able to land this job if you have experience in payroll or billing and invoices. 15. Online Bounty Hunter In the digital age, you can still find work as a bounty hunter of sorts. Sometimes, people will move suddenly without informing anyone. They might do this in order to skip out on their debts and obligations, such as child support. Your job is to track these people down. If you succeed, their creditors can pursue what the deadbeat owes them, and courts can enforce judgments. 16. Healthcare Fraud Private Investigator As a fraud investigator, you might work for an insurance company to investigate medical claims. Sometimes, the claims are not legitimate - for example, the claimant is not really hurt or disabled. In other cases, the person is injured, but a doctor will perform unnecessary procedures to rack up insurance reimbursements. A doctor might even bill for procedures that never happened, either by accident or intentionally. You might also work for a government agency. In this capacity, you would search for healthcare fraud in Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs. Again, the fraud could be on the part of the patient, the caregiver, or both! Support & Assistance These jobs involve supporting or assisting others. You might help people to find things, or save them time by performing tasks for them. 17. Virtual Concierge A hotel concierge helps guests at a hotel by making reservations, booking services, offering recommendations, and booking transportation. A virtual concierge helps customers with all sorts of problems. In addition to the services listed above, a virtual concierge may find a luxury vehicle for a client to rent. He might also find the only place in the city to buy a particular food ingredient or handbag. Some virtual concierge companies will hire for in-person work in various geographic regions. Generally, you will need experience as a concierge at a hotel to land this type of job. 18. Copywriting & SEO Expert In this job, you would help websites to create compelling copy for sales pages. You would do this by writing to the website's particular audience. In addition to writing well, you should be familiar with search engine optimization (SEO). This means that you should know how to create content that will rank well with search engines, such as Google. Generally, you will need some experience at both copywriting and SEO to land this kind of job. However, you might find some smaller websites willing to hire you for a trial run. In this case, your rates must be reasonable. You will need to approach the website owner to ask about a job. 19. Task Completion Amazon has a Mechanical Turk website, which is a marketplace for tasks that requires human intelligence. Companies can post tasks, such as filling out surveys or taking tests. Mechanical Turk pays participants to complete these tasks. The pay is not great. However, you can do this during a few minutes of downtime during the day. Check out Amazon Mechanical Turk here. 20. Virtual Assistant A virtual assistant is usually a freelance worker, meaning he works for one or more companies on a contract basis. They handle administrative tasks, such as setting appointments, taking calls, sending emails, and following up with clients. In some cases, an individual consultant or small business owner will hire a virtual assistant. It is possible that some virtual assistants will have some more interesting tasks. For example, your boss might ask for balloons, pizza, and cake at his house tonight. At this point, you are more like a virtual concierge than a virtual assistant. Customer Service In these jobs, you will work closely with customers or clients. You will need excellent communication skills, either written or verbal, in order to land and keep these jobs. 21. Virtual Coach Or Trainer This is a job you can do for another company, or for yourself. The possibilities here are endless. For example, you could have a client take a video of his golf swing. Then, you could watch the video and send back your comments on how to improve. You could also coach someone on a musical instrument or their singing. The best way to do this is in real-time via Skype. You could even coach someone on the outfit they are wearing, or teach them how to apply makeup. All you really need is some expertise and a computer with an internet connection. 22. Comment Moderator A comment moderator does exactly what you think. He reads through the comments on a website, and deletes inappropriate posts. He might also ban certain repeat offenders from the website or its forums. In addition to this "policing" capacity, a comment moderator might also help a website from a business perspective. He can see what website visitors are posting about, and what they are requesting. He can see what they like, and what they don't like. A moderator can take this information and condense it into a report. Then, a website owner can use the insight to improve the content. 23. Travel Consultant This is a job where you can have fun and help people at the same time! If you like to vacation, then you will have detailed knowledge of your favorite destinations. You will also know how to find the best hotels, activities, and prices. You can then provide this information to people who are looking to vacation in the same areas. Totally Random These jobs do not fit neatly into any of the categories above. Thus, they have their own special category here! 24. Voice Over As a voice over artist, you can have all kinds of fun. You might be the voice of a villain in a cartoon show. Or, you could read the script of a commercial, for anything from food to cleaning products to cars. You could even find work reading subtitles in your native language, whether for movies or for YouTube videos. In any case, you need an interesting voice to land this interesting job! 25. Video Game Tester As a video game tester, you will certainly have the chance to play video games for hours on end. A tester will first play through the game, noting what he likes and does not like. He will also make note of how the controls feel. In addition, he might receive a bug bounty for any glitches or flaws he finds in the game. The only downside is that you might have to spend days or weeks playing a game you don't like. However, earning money to play video games you enjoy sounds like a gift from heaven! 26. Translator Or Interpreter A translator or interpreter basically goes between two (or more) different languages. One possible project is translating subtitles for a movie released into multiple countries. Another project is translating material on a website into another language. In this case, a website owner might be expanding his reach by moving into markets in other countries. You may need experience for these types of jobs. You will certainly need to speak fluently in the languages you wish to translate for. 27. Subject Matter Expert A subject matter expert has a vast knowledge in a particular domain. Perhaps he knows more than anyone else about programming in an old, outdated computer language. Perhaps he speaks a dead language, such as Latin. Then again, a subject matter expert could specialize in something as well-known as blockchain, cryptocurrencies (such as Bitcoin), or 3D Printing. In this era of consultants and information on demand, subject matter experts can do very well. A company may not be able to afford hiring a full-time expert. Instead, the company can offer a contract to a subject matter expert. For a generous stipend, the expert will consult and answer any questions for a certain period of time. It could be a day, a week, a month, or longer. Conclusion There are many interesting remote jobs out there, and the list above only scratches the surface. If you want to think more about whether remote work is right for you, check out my article on the pros and cons of telecommuting. If you think telecommuting might work out for you, check out my article on the best tools for remote work. You might also want to check out my article on what internet speed you need to work from home.