Hi Dawn and All,

I'm new to this board and have been researching the telecommuting
concept as a strategy of being gainfully employed for both myself and
my husband.

There are many directions I can go with this post but will try to
keep it as brief and focused as possible.

I too am happy to hear there may be legislation to promote what I
think should be a recognizable and legitimate asset to both employer
and employee. To say nothing of being an incentive for employers who
need to watch their bottom lines, offering the opportunity to
telecommute to employees just makes sense. Obviously, the loss
of "income" to a commuting employee who is paying for eg. $ 100.00 a
week in gas to get to a job ( 25.00 miles away) that can be done in
their own professionals space at home raises the question of, well,
WHY?

In this diverse & technological age I am perplexed by the lack of
credible voices (in political circles) given the environmental
benefits message as to why telecommuting wouldn't be a win-win
situation for all concerned. Who is benefiting from NOT promoting the
remote workforce...? Those who would lose profits from less cars on
the road, I'm sure.

On a personal note, my husband and I are both currently unemployed.
And as the months of being out of the workforce build... so does the
professional and financial insecurity build.

He is an IT professional as well as a day trader. The
online "recruitment" process has been gruelling. If you have not been
through this process consider yourself fortunate and only the tiniest
bit informed. He regularly scans the 100's of listings on all the
major job finder sites, sends his resume and then spends hours going
through pages of the recruitment and application process for
individual job listings.

Sometimes the recruiters initiate an auto response with a follow up
email. Sometimes they call. Or not. In either case a response back to
the recruiter usually yields zero follow up on the recruiters' part.
Hence, you soon discover you are one small blade of grass in a sea of
green.

Except for a 3 month position with an IT company he has been out of
work for 20 months (sans unemployment benefits) following a downturn
with a company he had worked at for 12 years. He decided to go out on
his own but beating the bushes through Google Ad words and social and
tele-networking...it has largely been frustrating and fruitless. The
Day trading has also taken a back seat for obvious reasons so
presently he is trying to beef up his competancy quotient as
employers expect a vast and broad range of experience.

I myself, have been a homemaker and caregiver. And a burnt out one at
that but my kids are gone and parents have passed away and after
taking a nice break I'm now trying to parlay that history into some
sort of business opportunity. Though sorely lacking in confidence
levels necessary to self-promote, we're in such a desperate situation
I have little choice.

So far, service ads in the local paper, online and having a nice
website pointing to my Caregiving business has not brought me the
business I'm looking for. I wonder...is it because this kind of
business is at its' saturation level in my community? I'm thinking
this is at least a partial explanation. I am not an established
agency - one who for eg. works with other health establishments but I
do intend to try to break through to those markets by directly
contacting them.

While the aforementioned ad in the newspaper was to let my community
know of my affordable services, it has generated one thing; 4 calls
from caregivers looking for work. I've prescreened them and taken
their info in the hopes that if and when I've established some
clients, I can call them back for an interview.

But this strongly points to what I suspect and that is that perhaps
they were unable to find work as caregivers at the more established
agencies because of the economic squeeze felt by those who in fact
may need help for their parents or loved ones but can't afford the
fees many of these agencies charge. I was hoping to provide this
market the solution to their problem!

Bringing this back to its' original thought - I am seriously growing
worried that my lack of experience and skills in the traditional
sense is stacked against me and the system of posting jobs with
recruiters along with a saturated networked market is stacked against
my husband - thus we are hoping somewhere somehow we can both find
work within the telecommuting industry. Again, though I have a very
professional presence on the phone, since I have limited work
experience, I am concerned about being hired even for a call center
position. Also, I've noticed many of these that are listed often
exclude the state I'm from. California.

Any advice or feedback you can give me - I'm one big EAR.

Thank you,

Gia