Few people don’t relish the idea of rolling out of bed and into their offices still in pajamas. The freedom to work whenever and wherever is unparalleled to most perks offered by big business. But is a dream job like this possible? Feasible?

Several opportunities exist, the first involves seeking out companies that are looking for individuals to work from home. It’s not easy, surely, but there are legitimate ones out there. Job boards or specific company contacts might yield positive results, even if its only one day per week, that’s still a day you don’t have to commute or spend money tapping the vending machines. If it seems discouraging, don’t worry; major companies have entire teams of researchers looking for opportunities like these, and most of them come up with limited findings.

Some of the best opportunities to work from home can come from the companies where you already work. It’s called remote work, and there are a variety of software systems on the market that will allow you to access your personal computing materials from home as though you were sitting in the company’s office. Much of this software is not too expensive, so you can mention price point with employers before they do. Even if you have to make a personal investment in the software, it’s a small sacrifice for what you’ll be saving on gas and miscellaneous expenses.

Advertised work-from-home opportunities are all over the place. If you open your inbox, you’ll no doubt see boastful claims of “$4,000 earnings per week” and other such nonsense. With any of these, if it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is. Realistically, the envelope stuffing, data entry, and other related positions that do legitimately pay only pay about six to eight dollars per hour. They do exist, but cutting through the scams to find them is really the challenge. You may want to check with companies who process large volumes of information or direct mailing businesses that don’t have machines for particular envelope stuffing tasks.

Of course, there’s always the option of starting an at-home business. For many people, this is the e-Bay store they started reselling items in a year ago or the specialty shop they opened for their craft items. If you find something with a market, a few hours a week of dedicated time can catalyze a business. Enough time—and success—and you just might be able to replace your day job with the personal business.

Online outsourcing has become incrediblly popular recently with sites like E-Lance and Guru drawing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues for individuals who have leveraged their work expertise from home. Individuals have gone on to create lasting businesses for themselves after writing a carefully-thought-out profile and providing portfolio samples. The process for most of these sites can be lengthy, especially if you take the tests to validate your skills, but the payoffs can be great. Both of these sites allow free access accounts, which entitle you to a few bids on the vast collection of projects available. If you like the service, you can sign up for more bids and a higher account access. Whether you’re a housewife/husband or a seasoned professional, these sites have opportunities that can produce revenues for you.

Markets cater to advertising, writing, language translation, administrative, multimedia, legal, and engineering professionals, along with anyone who has even a slight bit of experience with these fields. The only downside of these global systems is the likelihood of individuals from other countries placing dramatically lower bids (and winning). Unfortunately, living wages are different the world over, and what you can do for a price in your home office, another team of people in another country can do for much less (and still be making a living wage). Still, higher bidders still win, and it only takes a few long-term relationships to provide a steady income stream.

Fill in the blanks, click three times and you’re hired! That is basically the promise of the automated resume. The claims seek to convince you that text formatting has replaced the professional resume writer. The boasts go something like this:

“Go online and print your resume instantly!”

“Enriched with many unique features.”

“Build a professional resume in minutes.”

“Create a free resume now!”

I would be the first to put such a tool to work. The time I’d save! Instead of interviewing each client for an hour or more to understand their background and accomplishments in order to align them with their aspirations when I write their resumes, I could explore new hobbies and let the Instant Resume do its thing.

Needless to say there is no magic bullet that can write and create a high quality professional resume.

There are countless sites floating around on the Internet that tout an instamatic resume creation with promise of matching the skill of any competent resume writer. Not only is this mildly insulting, but the effects are much less encouraging to a hiring manager who can easily spot a mechanically generated resume over one where the job seeker has taken the time to present what specifically is his or her offering to a company. Worse, this sends the message to a hiring manager that the candidate is lazy—hardly something one wants for a first impression, no?

So, can these work at all? Software can take fields of text and create a predefined formatted document. But write quality prose? Not if you’re relying on it to make the best first impression and demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate on paper. It will limit the number of interviews you receive. And then the real trouble begins.

Perhaps the language of the resume is nothing close to what the candidate uses, maybe the candidate isn’t fully aware of where all the information is within his or her resume, or worse, the resume is missing information due to a glitch in the generation software. All of these problems do happen, and I cannot begin to explain the embarrassment it can create. In some fields, it can be disastrous, especially if there are only a few companies within them and all have some relation to one another. Getting blacklisted is certainly not a comforting idea. So, think carefully first before you decide to use a resume generator. If you can handle the risks, go for it; if not, try your own hand at it, or get some professional assistance. The results of a resume that clearly highlights your accomplishments will go a long way. To persuade—in fact, to communicate effectively at all—you must shape the message to the recipient. Trust your instincts, not grandiose claims.