As a stay-at-home mom, you’re certainly no stranger to hard work!
Spending time with your little ones, and watching them grow and develop is so rewarding, but finding work to fit around these commitments can be difficult.
Childcare costs can be astronomical, and you may well not want to leave your kiddos with someone else.
These years are precious, you don’t want to miss a minute of it.
Even when the children reach school age, it’s still tough trying to find work that perfectly works around school hours, and then you’ve got problems during the holidays or if the little ones are sick.
A work-from-home solution
Working from home is an ideal solution.
Work that is flexible, where you can choose your hours and fit your tasks around your kids’ needs.
But what work will you do? Prior to becoming a parent, most moms will have worked outside of the home.
Are the skills you learnt in your previous career transferable to the work-from-home environment?
For many of us, parenthood can initiate a total change of profession, perhaps out of choice, but often out of necessity.
Data entry is an excellent option for stay-at-home moms and could be just what you’re looking for.
The benefits of working in data entry for stay-at-home moms
Flexible hours
While some data entry positions will have set hours, most often, data entry tasks can be completed at times that suit you.
Many companies will hire data entry workers from all over the globe, people in different time zones, and so they won’t care when you get the work done, as long as you meet your deadlines.
So, if you prefer to work during the night while the kids are sleeping, or you grab an hour here and an hour there throughout the day, it doesn’t matter.
You can do what works best for you.
Little to no qualifications required
When you’re a busy mom, you simply want to get to work and make some money.
You don’t have the time to go back to college and retrain.
Luckily, data entry jobs do not usually have any qualification requirements, and if they do, they tend to be fairly minimal, such as requesting that you hold a high school diploma.
Earning a data entry certification is a quick (and affordable) way to make to stand out from the crowd.
Work wherever you choose
Data entry work is also flexible with regard to where you work, with many data entry jobs being remote.
Of course, you’ll need to be able to concentrate, but as long as you are in an environment where you can focus without making mistakes, you can take your work wherever you need to be.
From the baby’s bedroom to the soft play centre. Whatever works for you, you can grab the laptop and get working.
Easy to learn
Data entry is generally pretty easy to pick up. A quick online data entry course will get you up and running in a little over a week.
The tasks tend to be more repetitive than complex, which is great when you’ve got a busy home life to fit your work around.
So it’s unlikely you’ll need a lot of training and there won’t be an extensive onboarding period.
Once you secure a data entry job, you can jump right in and start earning.
Great work-life balance
Data entry positions are usually very flexible and are often available part-time.
When your kids are little, you need to find the balance between earning a living and spending quality time with them, not to mention keeping the house tidy and all those other daily chores!
With data entry work, you are likely to be able to choose the hours you wish to work, taking jobs that fit perfectly into your life without having to commit to full-time hours.
Reduced costs
Working from home as a data entry specialist also helps to keep costs down.
As you’ll be at home with your children, there will be no childcare costs, or after-school clubs to pay for.
You’re cutting out the commute, so you’re not having to pay out for gas or public transport, and you’re at home, so you can eat cheaply from your own kitchen rather than spending on eating out each day.
Plus there’s little temptation to splurge on takeout coffee when you can simply make your own at home.
The challenges of working in data entry for stay-at-home moms
However, while data entry can be a fantastic career for a stay-at-home mom, it is not without its challenges, which you should be aware of before you decide if this is the direction you wish to take.
It’s very competitive
Due to the nature of this work, the ability to work from home, and the lack of qualification requirements, there are a whole lot of people that these jobs appeal to.
There will be many more people competing with you for a data entry job, than if you were looking to work in a local shop, for example.
So you need to put together a strong resume, write the perfect cover letter, and build on your skills.
Spending time learning the most popular data entry software, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Excel, as well as improving your typing speed, will all help your resume stand out from the crowd.
The rates can be low and the work may be short-term
Due to the competition for these positions, and the simple nature of many of the tasks, you need to accept that the rates could be quite low.
If you need a larger income, you may find it harder to find work that pays at a higher rate.
There are better-paid data entry positions out there, but you’ll also find a lot of lower-paid work too.
In addition, a lot of data entry jobs are for a limited time period only.
While you may be lucky and find a permanent position, it’s more common to secure a job for a shorter period of time, then you’ll be finished and looking for the next job.
If you need a reliable long-term income, data entry may not be the best choice.
It can be repetitive and dull
Finally, it takes a certain mindset to excel at data entry.
he tasks can be very repetitive, and while often simple, there’s no room for error, so you need a high level of concentration.
This perfectly suits some people, while others just cannot cope with it. It all depends on your own personality.
Will you find it all too boring and feel as if you’re going insane, or will you thrive on it, enjoying the challenge and paying attention to every detail?
Do you love working alone, or will you miss the chatter of a busy office?
Could data entry be for you?
Data entry is a great career for many reasons, but it doesn’t suit everybody.
Once you’ve weighed up the pros and cons, you can decide if this is a career path that would be a good opportunity for you.
