Hi, I wonder if you can give some advice. I am considering training from home as a Web Designer. I would then like to work from home. However, there is not much demand for web design services in the area that I live in the UK. Is it possible to apply for a work from home Web Design from anywhere in the country, regardless of where you live? Regards
The answer to your question is yes, web designers can work from anywhere. My daughter does some freelance work from California with clients in Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Japan. The question you need to ask is what is the demand for web designers. The answer to that question is very slim. It is a field (like writing) that everyone thinks they can do and there are a lot of poeple in the field. Jobs almost always go to the low bidder, who is trying to develop a portfolio of clips so will do it for next to nothing. My daughter had one client ask her to do the work for free for just getting credit on his site (indie film producer) and is considering it as the work load is very thin these days.
Re: Can you give some advice Hi, Thanks for replying. Can you tell whether it's also possible to train from home as a Computer programmer and then work from home. Would I be able to start applying for jobs working at home without gaining prior experience? Is it possible to apply for a work from home Computer Programmer job from anywhere in the country, regardless of where you live? Regards
I have been a computer programmer for 10 years, and have done mostly Fortune 500 stuff (Microsoft, Boeing, etc). My experience has been that work from home is an extremely tough thing to get UNLESS you are a consultant. But consultants get new clients based on having a good (or better) reputation with past clients (of which you probably have none, right?). The field self destructed in 2001, and is trying to pull itself together, but there are simply more unemployed programmers than jobs. Here in Washington, a lot of the community colleges are closing or greatly consolidating the I.T offerings, since there are so few jobs for new programmers. The bulk of programming is done in an enterprise environment, complete with networks, database servers, web servers, middleware, clients and managers. What a person can learn about the I.T field working alone at home is extermely limited, especially if they are only learning from a book. Others may disagree with me, and that's ok, but as a programmer, programmer supervisor, hiring manager, project manager, database programmer and web developer over the years, I've seen very little of what you are talking about (although during the big boom years, I did work at home for Microsoft for 1.5 years, but I was not a new programmer, and Microsoft ain't what it used to be). One exception is writing vertical applications for niche markets. I know a guy who does nothing but websites for rock bands. He develops the sites and databases, and offers a set of tools the musicians can use to modify the sites themselves. He does ok for himself. I wish you luck. Sean
Sean, Here in NC, the IT job market has been in the dumps for years, yet you can't turn on the radio without hearing ads from four or five different "technical schools" claiming that after their two-week MCSE prep class, you too can be earning $50K, 60K+ per year with no experience. Those are the people who need to be closing up shop - the community college programs offer training at a decent price, if sometimes a bit dated. The training shops sell exam crams at massively inflated prices. But I do agree, jobs for both programmers and other IT folks are scarce these days. --Fortunato
Fortunato, we have the same thing here with the training companies, but it's gotten a little better. The certifications have gotten much harder in the past few years, and the exam cram folks who prey on the Mc-underemployed here have found that the pass rates are much tougher to maintain. They still advertise blatantly false messages, though.
