Landing a telecommute position isn’t easy. Finding them in first place is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then, when you finally do find one that looks promising, it’s filled before you can even click on “apply for this job”.

Why are they so few and far between anyway? Don’t employers realize benefits of allowing their employees to telecommute; less sick time, increased productivity, lower overhead, and so forth?

The truth is that you’d be surprised to know just how many companies do hire telecommuters. Most of them simply don’t want to advertise those openings on Internet.

But it’s not all bad news. There are three very important rules that you should follow when pursuing a telecommute job. If you do, your chances of getting hired will be much greater. If you break them, your chances are about as good as winning lottery.

Rule #1: Don’t apply to positions that you aren’t qualified for.

As owner of 2Work-At-Home.com, I spend a great deal of my time trying to convince employers to post their telecommute job openings on our site. That’s no easy feat either, and I’ll tell you why: Most of them have to be convinced that there are quality applicants visiting our site.

One of most common reasons employers give for not posting their telecommute listings on Internet is that people who are not at all qualified for opening apply for them.

Put yourself in recruiter’s shoes. You need to hire a person that can translate a company’s training manual into German. So, you post your listing for a German Translator and specify that you’re looking for someone who is fluent in English and German.

Your listing goes up and BAM! You’re immediately flooded with responses. As 237 messages are downloading, you marvel at number of people who are fluent in German. As you start opening messages, your excitement turns to annoyance when you see your first three responses:

“I can’t speak German, but I’m a fast learner.”

“Dear Recruiter, A solid background in Widget Sales makes me perfect candidate for your position.”

“Send Info”

Nobody likes to waste their time, and when a recruiter posts a listing and only gets 1 in 100 responses that are worth looking at, it’s counterproductive for them.

I know for a fact that some of our site visitors go through job listings and methodically apply to every listing in database, no matter what position is.

This “throw your resume at every employer and hope one sticks” approach not only makes applicant look desperate, but it gives entire telecommute job-seeking community a bad name. It also brings us to next Rule…..

Rule #2: Follow application instructions.

There are roses speckled with mildew and rust from fog carried on breath of El Nino. Weeds have taken over many patches of dirt, despite fact that I have gone over them with a hula hoe. (For non-gardener, that’s a triangular hoe which saves your back. Supposedly, you scrub away, loosening weeds –and anything else that stands in way—while leaving good soil behind.) The rogue cherry tomato plant however, has taken off … again. Sticky green arms with tiny green/yellow fruit now stretch in all directions. The plant was a gift from some bird who dropped a seed as it flew to a nest in pine tree. I didn’t think a cherry tomato would grow in a patch of adobe clay. My feathered seed sower proved me wrong.

What I must do to get my garden back in shape, to make it world class and ready for competitive eye of my next door neighbor, is exactly what every leader must do: seed, feed, and weed. How I perform seeding, feeding, and weeding depends upon season, unexpected turns of nature, and makeup of my garden. Walk with me through my garden and you’ll see analogies for our work world.

1.Consider “season”. In today’s 24-hour, global economy, it would appear that there is no season, nothing that distinguishes night from day. Grow, grow. Sell, sell. But smart leader watches sky, reads clouds, and can read when there are shifts to indicate a new season. Bring products to market at wrong time or introduce an idea without understanding timing, and “garden” can quickly resemble a piece of scorched earth.

2. Watch for trends. Read magazines like Executive Excellence, Fast Company and American Demographics. Subscribe to TrendLetter. Explore new planned communities and see how people are choosing to live. Study mail order catalogs. In these latter two areas, you’ll find a move toward “Main Street U.S.A.”. Sure, high- speed connections and technology are placed in home, but outside, new designs incorporate walking paths, close-at-hand stores, and alleyways connecting homes. Technology will be used for information, but technology backlash is for creating places of human, real-time interaction. Levenger’s, mail order catalog for unique office and library accessories, features rotary dial phones. The catalog copy reads “You don’t have to program it!”