For many disabled people, meeting the demands of traditional jobs can be close to impossible. Luckily, the internet is opening up all kinds of opportunities for the disabled to work from home. People with disabilities used to have difficulties in finding employment. When they do find companies providing jobs for disabled people, the positions available do not match their work experience, or the job location isn’t accessible.
When searching work from home jobs, you’ll be faced with several terms like “remote,” “flexible,” “telecommute,” “work at home,” etc. that mostly mean the same thing. General requirements for working from the comforts of your home include a fully functional computer, high-speed internet, and excellent written and verbal English communication skills.
Here are some examples of jobs people with disabilities can do:
- Freelancing – The best way to make a living from home, especially for the disabled and people with chronic illnesses. I’m now working full-time as a freelance writer and provide for my entire family without even leaving my home. There aren’t many easy careers for people with disabilities and freelancing is one the few. To become a freelancer, you’ll need to find a marketable skill. You use this skill to create a service that you sell to your clients. For example, if you can write, you can offer a service to write eBooks. Or, if you know how to code, you can develop websites. If you’re good at Photoshop, you can offer graphic design services.
- Writing – You can write as a service for other people, or write to earn passive income for yourself. Either way, writing online is a lucrative business that will never run out of fashion. There are blogs that actually pay you to write articles for them. If you’re skilled at writing and have a way with words, you can write online. Even if you haven’t written any content before, you can start writing for blogs without past experience. It is recommended that you test the waters by writing a couple of articles. You can write and publish a few articles of your own using a platform like Medium. Then ask for feedback from your friends and the community. Then improve your writing.
- Translation – If you can speak or write fluently in another language besides English, there are tons of translation jobs online. But you’ll have an edge over your competition if you have another specialty such as law, medicine, finance, and so on. Transcription jobs are one of the easiest jobs you can do. These jobs involve listening to audio or video content and then converting everything spoken in the audio into text format. This is quite a popular and an in-demand job, especially thanks to the boom in podcasting. Many podcasters hire transcriptionists to convert their podcast episodes into text format so that they can publish them on their blogs. A great strategy you can use to find transcription jobs is to browse a podcasting platform like iTunes or Stitcher and pick a few new podcasts that you like. Then contact its creators and ask if you can provide transcription services to them.
- Virtual Assistant – Virtual assistant jobs are a bit challenging to manage than most other jobs. These jobs usually involve managing the schedules of your employers, answering their emails, and sometimes managing other people who work for your employer. For example, if you get a virtual assistant job for a successful blogger, you will have to manage her blogging schedule, reply to emails, manage the writers who work under her, and more.
- Voice-Over Artist – If you have a great voice and good grasp of English speaking, then this could be a great career path for you. Voice-over artist gigs involve lending your voice for video and audio content. For example, you’ll get hired by podcasters to do ad bites for their advertisers, you’ll get hired by video content creators to create introductions, and there are many other possibilities.
Start Working From Home Today!
The unemployment rate for disabled persons is almost double that of the unemployment rate for those with no disability. Clearly, the government and the business community, in general, have a long way to go in terms of providing more jobs for disabled people. But since we are increasingly becoming connected over the internet, there are more and more opportunities for disabled persons to work from home. Do note that there are plenty of scams online, so be wary about red flags like paying to access a list of jobs, or providing sensitive information before sending a job application.Make sure you fully research any opportunity and if something sounds too good to be true, it always is.