You’ve long dreamt of working from home. That hour-long commute to work each day is tough. And it’s hard to get much work done from the office when you’re constantly being called into meetings. But how can you convince your employee to allow you to work from home?

As with most things in the work world, getting that work-at-home position requires a bit of old-fashioned networking.

The first step is to identify the person who has the power to make the decision to let you work from home. Once you find out who that person is, schedule a meeting. You can then spell out to that person the many reasons why you’re the ideal candidate to work from home.

Make sure you list exactly how letting you work from home will benefit not only the company but your immediate bosses. The possibilities here are many: You can stress the fact that you’ll be more productive without wasting so much time stuck in traffic on the way to and from the office.

You can also point to all the technology, everything from e-mail and Intranets to high-tech cell phones and online meeting software, that makes working from home easier than ever.

You might have a job that requires mostly phone work and computer work. If that’s the case, there’s little reason for you to be in the office every day. Make sure to remind your bosses of this.

This meeting is also the right time to bring up your past experience at the company. If you have a long history of meeting goals and turning in high-quality work, your employers will be more willing to take the risk of allowing you to work from home. Unfortunately, if you’re relatively new to your company, or if your work record has been less than stellar, you probably have little chance of gaining that work-from-home job.

This meeting is a good time, too, to lay down some possible ground rules for working from home. These would include how many hours you’re expected to log when working from home, what specific hours you’ll be on duty and what steps you’ll take to communicate effectively with your co-workers and supervisors.

You should also let your employers know that you will be available to come into the office for important meetings or functions. In fact, it’s often good to plan to come into the office on a regular basis. This reminds your bosses that you’re still doing important work for them.

It’s not always easy to convince skeptical companies that you will be able to work from home successfully. But with just a bit of planning, you can significantly increase your odds of landing that coveted work-from-home position.

We’ve all seen those cardboard signs on the roadside: They promise that you can make $5,000, $7,000, $10,000 or more working from home. Unfortunately, these are usually scams of some sort, jobs that would require you to work 24 hours a day to make $2,000 or less a month.

But how can you separate the scams from the legitimate work from home jobs? Sometimes it’s not easy. But there are usually tell-tale signs that can clue you in as to whether an offer represents a legitimate work from home job or a scam.

First, don’t believe any work from home offer that promises outrageous income levels. Think about it: If you really could make that much money working such a job, why would someone freely give away the information on how to land it? It doesn’t make sense, right?

Secondly, never trust a job offer that requires you to pay a fee to receive start-up kits or information packets. Either these kits and packets will never come or, if they do arrive in your mailbox, they’ll contain information that is either useless or readily available for free elsewhere.

A good rule of thumb to remember is this: Never pay any money to anyone promising you a work-from-home job. Anyone who requires you to send in money to qualify for a work-at-home job is a definite scam artist.

Look for contact information on a work-from-home ad, too. If all that’s included is an 800-number that connects you to a recorded message, something might be wrong. If the ad’s only contact information is an e-mail address, you might consider passing it by, too.

Legitimate employers make it easy for job seekers to contact them for information. Scammers try to make this difficult.

Finally, if a job offer is low on specifics, be wary. For instance, an ad promising that you can make $5,000 a month working from home three days a week is already suspicious. However, if that ad says nothing about what work you’ll have to do to earn that money, it’s doubly suspicious.

The unfortunate truth is that the majority of work-from-home jobs you’ll see advertised on sites such as craigslist or on roadside telephone poles are either scams or so unappealing that you won’t wan to work them. It’s difficult to find real, legitimate jobs that you can work from home.

The best way to find these jobs is to use your common sense. If an offer sounds too good to be true, you can bet that it is. If you can’t find any information about the work you’ll be doing, or if you have to send in a check to find out this information, steer clear, too.