Job Search Guides
Job Search Guides
Many listings are from popular freelance sites. Use our job search guides to learn how each one works and give yourself the best chance at landing the perfect job:oDesk is an online freelance marketplace that connects remote, skilled workers (known as "providers") with employers who are hiring (known as "buyers"). Buyers post projects or jobs that they need to outsource, and providers bid on the jobs, either on an hourly basis or as a fixed-price bid. oDesk is a shortened version of the phrase "no desk", which refers to oDesk's founding principle; to enable individuals to work anywhere or anytime. oDesk's headquarters are in Menlo Park, California. As of early 2009, oDesk reported having 170,000 providers scattered all over the globe. oDesk was chosen by PC Magazine as a finalist for the 2006 Small Business Awards.
You
may be familiar with similar sites like eLance, Guru, and RentACoder
that offer "middle-man" services between freelance professionals and
project managers. oDesk is quickly becoming a preferred site for many
freelancers because it offers:
- Guaranteed payment. Unlike many other sites where payment on projects or hours work is not guaranteed, oDesk guarantees payment on all hourly work that is completed using their free, downloadable sftware, oDesk Team (see more about oDesk Team later on).
- Automatic invoicing and billing for providers and buyers. Unlike some sites where getting paid can be tricky, oDesk keeps the buyer's credit card on file and charges the card when the pay period ends. For fixed price assignments, however, the buyer elects how much to pay (or if to pay at all).
- oDesk doesn't charge a monthly/quarterly/yearly fee to freelance providers. Instead, oDesk gets paid when the provider gets paid; oDesk charges an 11.11% markup on each provider's wages (charged to the buyer). So, for example, if a provider charges $100 for their services, the buyer is charged $111.11.
oDesk allows registered providers to browse, bid, and apply for jobs in Web Development, Software Development, Networking an
Information Systems, Writing and Translation, Administrative Support, Design and Multimedia, Customer Service, Sales and Marketing, and Business Services.
Becoming an oDesk provider is easy and costs nothing. The first step to becoming an oDesk provider is to register for an account and create a provider profile. Let's look at the different sections of the provider profile and get some tips on filling in each section.
Elance :
Elance is an online freelance clearinghouse where remote workers (known as "providers") can connect with employers who are hiring for various projects (known as "buyers"). Elance is one of the oldest sites of this type doing business on the Internet, and has a huge number of project postings active at any one time. As of early August 2009, Elance has over 97,000 registered providers working on their system, and Elance buyers posted over 25,000 jobs from July through August of 2009. Since its inception, Elance providers have earned nearly a quarter of a billion dollars from the comfort of their own home.
Elance
is structured much like similar sites that you may be more familiar
with, such as Guru.com, RentACoder, and (relative newcomer) oDesk.
Elance gets more traffic from both providers and buyers, possibly
because it has built a solid reputation in the freelance arena. Elance
offers freelance service providers:
- Access to clients from around the globe
- A cost-effective mechanism for marketing their services
- An efficient system to accurately bill providers
- Confidence in a payment system that holds payments in an escrow account
Elance allows registered providers to submit proposals for jobs in the following areas: web and programming, design and multimedia, writing and translations, sales and marketing, legal and engineering and manufacturing. Becoming an Elance provider is easy, although to have full access to the Elance system, you will be required to pay a fee. The first step to becoming an Elance provider is registering for an account and selecting your account "type" (paid or unpaid) and creating your provider profile. Let's look at the different steps of becoming an Elance provider in greater details and address each section the
will need to be filled in.
Craigslist which was started as a hobby for San Franciscan Craig Newmark almost two decades ago has become one of the most popular community classified site in the world with over twenty billion page views each month. More than fifty million people in the U.S. alone use Craigslist. Craigslist.org is a gigantic online website of local classified ads. There are Craigslist websites specifically designed for over 550 U.S. cities and metro areas, as well as over 50 countries. Although there are different categories that Craigslist users can post in, the jobs category receives thousands of posts each month from employers who are hiring. Job seekers can find both long term and temporary positions and respond to the employer's ad by sending in their resume or following other instructions in the posting. For job seekers, Craigslist is completely free. Users will find a lot of jobs on Craigslist.org that small, mid-sized and even larger employers don't post anywhere else.
To be the most effective in your job-hunting tasks, you must look at yourself from the perspective of your potential employer. Many employers are simply swamped with applications when they post an ad on Craigslist, so making yourself stand out from among the hundreds of others looking for a job is not as simple as you think. You must put your best efforts into your applications or they may be rejected without you ever having been considered for the job. When applying on Craigslist you will be allowed to upload a cover letter ? which is the perfect opportunity for you to get your foot in the door. While many applicants attach their resume to the response to the potential employer, many employers confess that they rarely look at the resume ? only the cover letter. Here's a sample of an excellent cover letter for the accounting job that we were looking at earlier.
I just saw your posting for an Assistant Accountant on Craigslist Lexington, and I must admit ? I'm salivating. This sounds like the perfect fit for me as I have had six years experience working in the accounting department of a local bank. Let me give you three quick reasons that you should consider me for the position today:
- Strong Work Ethic. Any business is only as strong as its employees. I am an employee who has missed only three days of work over the past decade due to illness. I am dedicated and hard-working; a go-getter who let's nothing stand in my way of getting the job done!
- Skills. I have the skills that you are looking for; not only am I precise with Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable, but I can handle the data entry work and other administrative skills that you mention in your ad.
- Be clear and concise; there's no need to write your entire life's history. The employer has limited time to review the applications he receives. Make yours devoid of all the "blah blah blah" that many other applicants will be throwing out there.Write your cover letter as an email so that the employer does not have to load it as an attachment.Put the title of the job advertisement in the subject of your email. Many employers post multiple jobs at once ? so this helps them to keep track of who applies for what.Be honest and open about your past employment history. Be proud of your accomplishments but don't boast about them.
Anytime
that there is a "good" thing out there ? there will be people who use
it to take advantage of others. The very nature of Craigslist makes it
susceptible to scams (because it's free). Before discussing
Craigslist.org further, it is very important for all job seekers to be
aware of the possibility of fraudulent posts that may be a guise for
something other than a job opportunity. The folks at Craigslist.org put a
lot of effort into fighting scam artists who frequent their site ? but
when you realize the enormity of Craigslist as a whole, then you likely
realize the probability of at least some scams being posted and
remaining posted. Craigslist is quick to remove any post that it feels
might be disingenuous and visitors to the site have the option to flag a
post for removal if they suspect that it is fraudulent. But the smart
job seeker will still use caution when responding to job posts.
- Avoid job offers from someone who lives in another country unless they can legitimize their offering.
- Never pay money to make money. That's the cardinal rule when it comes to looking for work online. If an employer is interested in hiring you, why would you ever have to pay them for the privilege? If you're asked to pay for anything ? from a background check to a drug screen, always be weary of doing so. As a general rule, don't.
- Under no circumstances should you give out your financial information, including your bank account number, social security number, PayPal information, etc., to anyone who is advertising a job (or anything else for that matter).
