20 Nov 09 5 Places to Look for Freelancing Gigs

Until now, the world economy had been suffering from one of the worst financial crises we ever faced. Companies were getting bankrupt, employees were getting fired, and those who were lucky to survive were facing salary cut. Such was the situation. Nothing looked promising, but there was one thing that was on the rise. It was outsourcing business.

Outsourcing the job to the independent freelancers worldwide was on the rise, and it continues to gain momentum, as companies have seen that they can get good quality work at a fraction of cost that they paid to full-time writers. This was one good thing that came out of the recession. People, despite having all the required skills, were not getting any job, therefore, they turned to freelancing.

If you are late to join and do not know where to start then this article is going to help you start your freelancing career. In this article, I will tell you about places where you can look for freelance gigs.

1. Online freelance exchange: Freelance exchanges (or freelance boards) such as Elance, Guru, oDesk, Lime Exchange, GetAFreelancer, etc., work as intermediaries. It provide platform for buyers to post jobs, and service providers to look for job based on their ability. A freelance exchange is a good place to start with, as the payment is more or less guaranteed on the work secured from these boards, and for that they charge commission.
2. Blog Job Board: Blogs like Problogger has a dedicated section where companies post freelance gigs.
3. Freelance forums: There are many freelance forums where new freelance gigs are posted every day, you should register to one or two of them and start visiting regularly.
4. Craigslist: Use the keyword search tool of craigslist to look for local or global freelance gigs. You will find a lot of work listed here.
5. Twitter: Of course twitter. This micro-blogging platform provides a potent search tool for freelance gigs as well. Like Craigslist, freelance gigs are getting posted on twitter, every hour.

I know many people who have benefited from the place I have talked about above. Just do a preliminary research before committing to anyone of them.

Tags: Blogging, Business Outsourcing, Craigslist, Financial Crises, Fraction, Freelance Gigs, Freelancers, Full Time, Guru, Intermediaries, Keyword Search Tool, Lime, Momentum, Quality Work, Recession, Salary, Service Providers, Time Writers, Twitter, World Economy

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06 Nov 09 American Workplace is Scarier than We Thought

In a national survey conducted by CareerBuilder, it was found that 1 in every 5 US employee (18%) has a scary work place. The sample size of the survey was 4000. 18 percent workers said that the workload they are having is enough to scare them. This data indeed is frightening, and the decision makers need to take this result seriously, and make some key changes in the work distribution, so that they do not end up being exhausted, which will mean lack in productivity.

Other things that scare the US workers are as follow:

9% of the total respondent said that performance reviews fright them.
9% of the total respondent said that tight deadlines fright them.
8% of the total respondent said that long work hours fright them.
7% of the total respondent said that their bosses are the most dreadful thing.
69% of the total respondent said that sitting through the meeting is very scary.

The survey was conducted by Harris Interactive. The sample consisted of 4,285 US full-time workers. All the respondent were at least 8 years old and none of them were self-employed or employed by the government. The survey was conducted online between August 20 and September 9, 2009.

This result essentially shows how corporate worker feels in his job, and how high is their dissatisfaction level. The HR department should take notice of this, and should make amendments before it is too late.

Tags: 8 Years, Amendments, American Workplace, Careerbuilder, Corporate Worker, Decision Makers, Dissatisfaction, Full Time, Harris Interactive, Hr Department, Job, National Survey, Productivity, Respondent, Scary, September 9, Tight Deadlines, Time Workers, Work Distribution, Workload

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23 Oct 09 3 Businesses that Will Never Fail Part – 3

This is the third part of 3 Businesses that Will Never Fail series (Click here and here to read part one and two, respectively). In this part, I will talk about three more service oriented businesses that will never fail, no matter how bad economy becomes.

Become Virtual Assistant

The growing cost of maintaining an army of employees has forced many companies to outsource their works to developing countries. This not only helps companies do away with unnecessary staffs, but it also enables them in getting the work done for less.

With the growing army of freelancer, need for a highly qualified virtual assistant is felt by the companies that previously employed full-time workers to do the same work. A virtual assistant is a person who works on the behalf of the company employing him, and gets work done from freelancers. Essentially, a virtual assistant is also a freelancer, but unlike other freelancer, his job is to get the work done. If you are a good administrator then you can render this service to various clients.

Online trading assistant

When economy fails, people become wary of every activity that costs them money. Sometime they become petrified of the perceived loss, therefore, while going online to trade their goodies, they seek a trading assistant who has good understanding of trading online websites like eBay, or of listing on classified sites like Craigslist. These people are newbies who want to dispose the stuffs they do not need for an appropriate price, and they need trading assistant because they do not have experience of trading on the internet, which they do not have time to learn.

You can start this business, if you have a good trading skill. To be successful as online trading assistant, you need to know the working of various kinds of trading and listing websites, and you should also know to write compelling description of the product. A trading assistant has to handle every aspect of the product sales and for that he gets a commission on the product price.

Blogging

In the financial terms, blogging has a low entry cost, but in terms of skills, the entry cost is not that low. If you are an expert in your field then you can run a blog and then monetize it for profit. A blog will only be successful, if you add value to readers’ life. Readers do not flock around me-too blogs, they only like the blog that has real value. This can be a good source of income, if you are in the know of a subject matter about which people want to know.

Tags: Army, Developing Countries, Ebay, Economy, Freelancer, Freelancers, Full Time, Good Understanding, Goodies, Job, Money, Newbies, Oriented Businesses, Staffs, Stuffs, Time Workers, Virtual Assistant

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20 Nov 09 5 Places to Look for Freelancing Gigs

06 Nov 09 American Workplace is Scarier than We Thought

23 Oct 09 3 Businesses that Will Never Fail Part – 3

Become Virtual Assistant

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