Work from home is becoming more and more the norm as digital infrastructure is getting better and more people are able to access the resources they need. But it can be hard to break into careers working from home if you don’t have a lot of prior experience or are transitioning to working in a new industry.
Of course, not everyone is looking for a career from WFH job opportunities. Plenty of people are looking for an easy way to supplement their existing incomes from home, or to earn a little money while working on a bigger creative project or business endeavor.
Whatever your reasons for wanting to earn a little money from home, these online jobs are all relatively common and generally accept applicants with little or no job experience so you can get started right away.
Online Jobs that Don’t Require Experience
One thing we want to note before we get started is that these jobs are easy to get started with, but they are all also usually lower-paid than similar in-person positions. As you gain more experience and can work with bigger companies and higher-paid clientele it’s possible to earn more money, but you should expect to earn around minimum wage (or less) to start.
That said, some jobs are better paid than others, and it’s worth shopping around to see which kind of job is a good fit for you. Research any companies you are considering working with, and look for reviews of the company and the job to make sure you aren’t getting caught up in an online work scam.
Now, with all that out of the way, here are some of the best online jobs that don’t require previous experience to do.
Micro Jobs
Micro jobs can actually be a lot of things, and some of the tasks that are considered micro-jobs might not actually be completed online. Plenty of them are though, which is why we wanted to include this option here.
Basically, micro jobs are very small tasks that don’t take very long to complete, generally are asking for minimal skill or previous industry knowledge, and don’t lead to long-term employment with a given company or employer.
Fiverr is a good example of a micro jobs website that helps connect freelancers and people looking to make a couple of extra bucks to people willing to pay for small tasks.
The nice thing about these jobs is that they are usually very quick and you get to pick the kinds of tasks that appeal to you, which can help you build skills and develop your resume and also means that you’re less likely to get stuck doing the same thing all day long.
Micro jobs are also one of the easiest sources of extra income you can still fit around your schedule, which makes these kinds of jobs a great option if you’re looking for extra income while still working a regular full or part-time job.
The biggest downside to micro work is that the jobs themselves tend to be fairly low-paid, with individual jobs likely only netting a few dollars from survey taking.
It’s largely up to workers to decide what kind of jobs are worth doing, and enough people are working in micro job environments that it’s unlikely standard pay rates will be increasing any time soon.
Test Scoring
Online test scoring is another opportunity if you’re looking to make some money on the side, especially if you don’t mind that this job can sometimes be very seasonal and you’re likely to be busier at certain times of the year.
Test scoring also tends to be a high-volume job which means that the main qualification a lot of companies are looking for in their test scorers is speed, followed by consistency.
There are two kinds of scorers really, general test scorers who might be looking at a combination of multiple choice and short answer questions, and essay scorers. You’re most likely to get jobs if you’re willing to do both jobs though, so this may not be a good industry if you know that you’re a slow reader.
That’s because the average test scoring job will expect you to be able to read (or skim) an essay and assign a score in a matter of just a few minutes.
While test scoring doesn’t usually require any previous experience, a lot of companies are looking for applicants with at least 2 or 4-year degrees because most of these tests are taken by pre-collegiate students or college-educated students as they progress through different certifications.
Still, test scoring can be one of the better paid online gigs if you have the required education and skills, and it’s easy to come back and do future test scoring year after year, which means that test scoring can easily become a regular part of your annual income.
Online Jurors
Being an online juror might seem like a strange way to make some money, but it’s actually an incredibly important job and more common than you might think.
Lawyers, particularly lawyers with tricky cases to argue, often like to hold a mock trial to see how their arguments are holding up and get some general feedback for what they can expect when they go to a real trial before an official jury.
However, holding a mock trial in a courtroom, or even a court building, with an in-person set of mock jurors, can be incredibly expensive and difficult to schedule, so more and more attorneys are relying on online jurors to get similar experience and practice at a more affordable price.
Online jurors are some of the best paid online workers, you can expect to earn $50+ per mock trial you participate in, however, attorneys do carefully screen their mock jurors, just like they screen real jurors.
That means that you can’t necessarily count on secure income from serving as a mock juror because you will likely be excluded from at least some mock trials for the same reasons that attorney would exclude you from being a real juror for that trial.
Still, even if you’re only getting a couple of mock trial jobs a month, that income can quickly add up.
Data Entry
Data entry is one of the most common online jobs out there, and it usually doesn’t require experience because the process is relatively simple. It’s a bonus if you already have some familiarity with Excel, Google Spreadsheets, and other common data entry software, but it isn’t always a requirement.
Data entry jobs can range from being a short term micro job gig through to being your full time, bills-paying job depending on the employer you’re working with, your skill and speed with data entry, and the volume of work available.
The good news is that you can often get jobs with multiple companies so that you always have some volume of data available even if one or more of your employers are relatively inconsistent sources of work.
The biggest problem with data entry is that it can be time-consuming and tedious, but that’s also rewarded with higher than average pay rates for a low experience online job. Depending on the jobs you get and the company’s you’re working with you can make a meaningful supplement to your regular income all the way through making enough to turn data entry into your full-time job.
However, you should also know that most data entry jobs do require some level of time commitment to help ensure that they are getting information input in a reasonable timeframe. You might be able to choose your own schedule, but you should plan on spending at least 10 hours on data entry per week if you want to do data entry as more than a micro job.
Telemarketing
Lots of companies need people who are willing to place phone calls, and increasingly online chat messages, on behalf of their company. Telemarketing is usually a part of lead generation and is designed to attract new customers either with a promotion or simply by getting the word out that a new business has moved into the area.
Telemarketing jobs are generally beginner-friendly and only require that your home has a good phone line and relatively high-speed internet to get started.
Each company you work with will usually have their own training program, so expect to spend a fair amount of time learning how to do the job for each new contract. Fortunately, the better employers will pay you for this training time.
Telemarketing is another job where you will usually be asked to commit to a certain amount of time per week, and you will likely also be locked into a set schedule to make sure you’re contacting people at appropriate times and times when they are more likely to respond to a telemarketing campaign.
That means that this job is one of the least flexible online jobs that don’t require experience, but it also means that you’re more likely to get paid well for your time. This is a job that can also become your career if you want it to, especially if you’re willing to be detail-oriented and follow exact call procedures or are a good salesperson.
While most telemarketing companies will hire people without previous experience in the industry, you are more likely to get jobs in telemarketing from home if you have previous telemarking or call center customer service experience.
Website Testing
This is another job that can also be found under our micro jobs category since website testing can often be very quick, but longer jobs are also out there and even companies that will pay you to test several websites or apps in a day.
Website testing takes relatively minimal experience and know-how, you’re simply looking to see how a given website or app performs on your device and looking for any obvious glitches and problems while you explore the site.
Sometimes you have some specific goals and testing that you need to accomplish to finish the job, but other times it will be more free-form and self-directed.
Website testing can be both a full-time job and a job that you squish in around other jobs and commitments. Testing can also lead to a larger career once you’ve got some experience because even large well-designed websites need testers, as do programs of all stripes.
This is a good fit for people who don’t mind repetitive tasks and who are self-directed enough to stay on task while they’re working. While it generally starts relatively low-pay in entry-level positions that don’t require experience, pay increases with experience, and as you start working on bigger websites and catching/resolving more problems.
Transcription
Transcription is probably one of the easiest industries to get into, but it’s also one of the jobs on this list that can quickly become a full-time profession if you’re good at it and enjoy what you’re doing.
Transcription jobs usually require that you be a fluent English speaker with good hearing and some patience. All you’re going to be doing is listening to clips of audio and transcribing them. High accuracy is required, and a good baseline understanding of grammar rules will help.
There’s often a lot of ways to construct a sentence though, so you’ll have some freedom in how you transcribe in order to better capture the emotion and context of the content you’re transcribing.
Transcribers can generally pick their own schedules, but many companies will insist that you complete a certain number of audio-hours or words within a given week or month in order to continue working with them.
This is a good side-job for meticulous people, don’t mind rewinding and listening to the same audio several times, and who have good typing skills as well as a strong command of English. Other languages also need transcription too, though it can be harder to find those jobs depending on where you live and what languages are most predominantly spoken in your area.
As you gain more experience with transcribing you can get bigger and more lucrative jobs, which result in better pay per hour of actual work, in addition to better pay per audio-hour of finished work.
Proofreading
Proofreading is another good opportunity that is open to people of all backgrounds as long as you have good language and grammar skills in at least one language. English is a popular language for proofreaders, but every language has publications in need of proofreading.
Depending on your skill set you may be better off with smaller jobs more like micro work, but proofreading (without needing to edit or do anything other than noting and correcting grammar) can also turn into your full-time gig relatively quickly.
Proofreading takes a meticulous eye to detail, and it’s helpful if you’re a relatively fast reader with a lot of attention to detail.
As an industry, you usually need to take some proofreading tests to make sure you’re a good candidate to get into the job, and you might need to get specific certifications to work for certain companies. Fortunately, if you enjoy proofreading, you can usually work with a company that doesn’t require certifications while you also take the certification courses to get higher paid work.
