When your goal is a data entry work at home job, this is really not easy. When you look for them, you are more likely to run across scams or business opportunities than real jobs.

Work at home scams pervade the internet. Because typing skills are relatively common, scams involving data entry are quite common.

Let's take a look at some of the things you are likely to see as you search for that legitimate job.

First of all, you are likely to see sites that charge you for a list of companies that hire people to work at home. A few do a very good, worth paying for job of this. Most do not.

You are also likely to see companies that talk about working at home doing data entry, earning big money, even giving screen shots of the money they've earned. Thousands of companies waiting to hire you. These aren't really work at home jobs. They're really describing affiliate marketing, a kind of home business.

No, there aren't thousands of companies waiting to hire you. This is another version of the ad posting scheme. These programs are likely to tell you to post ads about the products on forums, classified ad sites and so forth. They may even recommend pay per click search engines.

While it is true that some people do earn money this way, most won't. Do it wrong and you'll quickly get banned from a lot of sites. And if you take the pay per click option you run the risk of losing more than you earn. Some do very well with pay per click, but many others don't quite master the skills and lose money. But either way it's a home business and not a job. I don't recommend dealing with companies that lie to you about what their opportunity is about. If you can't trust them there, why trust the advice you buy from them?

However, there are real data entry jobs out there. They are scarce, and competition to land them can be fierce. You have to find out when they're hiring and have a resume that gets their attention. You need to have excellent typing skills.

Above all, you need to understand that it can take you months to land one of these jobs. It is not at all uncommon for a work at home job search to be longer than six months. Many of the jobs are simply that hard to land, even once you know they are available.

If you get to the interview, be realistic about the hours you can work. Companies want people who are serious about getting work done. Data entry jobs may or may not want you to set a schedule for yourself. You might have to commit to be available a certain number of hours a week, whether or not there is actual work to be done.

Data entry jobs pay on production. The faster you type, the more you can earn. As you search I suggest you take some time to work on your typing skills. At a minimum, get above 45 wpm and get very comfortable with the number pad on your keyboard. You might find yourself using it a lot.

While they aren't easy to land, the real work at home jobs are out there. Work on your skills and your ability to spot scams as you search for the genuine opportunities available to you.