Morehead, Ky. – Jason Mays was on the hunt for a new job when he first heard about a program near his home in Morehead, Ky., that could help him land a position working from his home office.

It didn’t take long after learning about Teleworks USA that Mays started his new job, though, and it was an experience he was happy to have started. 

“I would most definitely recommend Teleworks to anyone that’s looking for work from home and can do it,” Mays says.

An initiative of the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), Teleworks USA identifies and develops legitimate remote-work job opportunities with multiple national and global companies.

Teleworks USA’s team of expert managers also helps prepare people for the jobs by upskilling them in customer service and technical support workshops, helping them craft strong résumés and hone their interviewing skills, and assisting them in applying for available remote-work positions they can work within their homes or one of the eight Teleworks Hubs in the region.

Mays’ journey began after his wife told him about Teleworks USA and its services. At the time he was unemployed after leaving a position at a group home to care for a family member.

“I had been looking for something for about two years,” he says.

So he eventually got in contact with Teleworks USA Outreach Manager Amy Nunn, who signed him up for a workshop in nearby West Liberty with a handful of other prospective teleworkers.

“That’s how it got started,” Mays says. “Amy was really nice, and wrote down a few things about my history and background, and just worked her magic.”

Mays has plenty of experience in working to help people that would serve him well in a customer service job. He and his wife serve their community as pastors, and in a previous job he worked in human resources in Frankfort with the Administrative Office of the Courts. With that background, he was able to bypass Teleworks USA’s workshops and proceed directly to the job application phase.

Mays says he began contacting an employer about an available position, but wasn’t sure he was going to land a job at first.

“Amy was really a mediator for something that seemed like it wasn’t going to go through,” Mays says. “Amy checked on the job and literally the next day I got the email saying, ‘We want to set up an interview.’”

Mays says the interview went well, and in a few weeks he was hired and ready to begin working for Teleperformance as a customer service representative, working from home and assisting customers with billing issues. His work began with a paid training period, called nesting, in which he became acclimated with the position and took calls to prepare him for the work. And he says he was happy to have been able to undergo that training.

“I appreciate that, because there was a lot of training and it’s totally different when you’re on the phone than in real life,” he says.

Mays has been on the job since early 2019 and it’s going well, and he says while this is his first work-from-home job, he’s gotten used to working from a home office and the benefits that come with having your workspace within your home. But it’s also a job, and it has to be treated like one with that sort of responsibility.

“It does take dedication and commitment to do it from your home,” Mays says. “Even though I’m not working in front of people, you have to have that same mentality.”

To find out more about Teleworks USA and how you can get connected with a legitimate work-from-home job, visit the Teleworks USA website or contact your nearest Teleworks USA Hub today. As an initiative of EKCEP, Teleworks USA’s employment services are completely free of charge.

Since 2015, Teleworks USA Hubs in Hazard, Hyden, Annville, Beattyville, Booneville, Harlan, Louisa, and Pike County have helped bring jobs to more than 2,100 Eastern Kentuckians, and those positions carry an estimated $47 million in economic impact in new annual wages to teleworkers across the Eastern Kentucky Coalfields.

EKCEP, a Grassroots Partner of SOAR, is a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky. They serve the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for jobseekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about their organization by visiting their Facebook or website.