Work for a Call Center from Your Home Office? You're 'homeshoring.'

Last summer, I had work from home doubts so I went on a few interviews for a "real" job as many of my family members might say. I'm glad I didn't follow through, but I carried one moment from my interview experience back to my home office.

I was babbling along about my telecommuting experience and spinning it into why I was the best potential employee ever, normal interview gibberish, when my interviewee stopped me. A gentleman in his 50s, he nodded his head and tilted back in his seat as if pondering how to stop global warming. "Telecommuting," he said. "I never get used to hearing that word." To him, telecommuting was a fluke, something he thought would die off, but seemed to be gaining steam. "This is one out of touch old dude," I remember thinking to myself.

Tonight I found a story that made me the out of touch old non-dude, at age 26, almost 27, my birthday is Nov. 24. After the jump, I'll share with you the new work at home term I learned, and what you need to know to snag a job.

Home call agents have been in the news lately, Good Morning America highlighted call center positions on a work from home job club segment. And, I came across a Wall Street Journal article about homeshoring rather than offshoring call center jobs. Wait, homeshoring?

I read the article, and immediately thought, great article, and I love being one of the first in my group to use a new term. I knew there was nothing new about home call center agents, but really thought I found something fresh with homeshoring. A quick Google search told me I was wrong. I found articles from 2004 about the concept, which makes me that old person behind on the new web-derived terms.

For those of you who are also "old people" like me, I'll give a quick definition. Homeshoring describes call center agents working from home offices answering customer service questions and tech-support questions. It comes from the term offshoring, or moving call centers to foreign countries to save a lot of money at the expense of customer aggravation. I'm all for learning about new cultures, but not when I'm trying to figure out why my phone bill came to an extra $200 a month.

Apparently, the cost of these overseas call centers is rising, prompting the move back to the U.S. With well over 100,000 people employed as at home call center agents, the job openings and companies hiring are bountiful.

And, customer service positions appear on many recession proof job lists. If the economical forces ruined your hopes of starting an at-home business why not consider working as a call center agent for the stable paycheck while working on making your dream career happen.

Call center job leads:

Alpine Access, According to the WSJ article about homshoring Alpine will add 1,200 new agents in 2009. Hires agents to work on different lines and the worker experience seems to depend on the line you're working.

U-Haul, Offers low-paying ($7 an hour) e-hotline positions to help motorists. Hours are extremely flexible, so might be good as a second job to help in an emergency situation. Type the word "e-hotline" in their job search box to apply.

Teletech, Currently hiring for home CSRs and according to its Web site currently employs 50,000 CSRS worldwide.

And, just to make sure we all stay up to date on work at home lingo, a Bright hub page that includes a glossary of home office tech terms.