Guides

Online Work Scams: 7 Red Flags to Save Time & Money

By Tamara Rice of Odesk.com
Click here for Original Article

We’d all like to believe every opportunity on the Internet is legitimate, but unfortunately that just isn’t true. Independent contractors and freelancers need to be aware and keep themselves smarter than the scammers. If you avoid businesses and individuals with these red flags, you can prevent yourself from falling for a costly and embarrassing online work scam:

Red Flag #1: Needing to buy software or other equipment from the company to get started. If you are being asked to buy anything – like software or special equipment – to get started, get ready to run in the other direction as fast as you can. This includes medical billing software — a very popular online scam. Software needed to work with any given company online should either be provided at no cost to you or easily available at your local computer store (i.e., you aren’t paying a faceless entity for something you may not be able to use or return).

online work scams oneRed Flag #2: ”You too can make money emailing!” This is the online version of envelope stuffing and is a one-way ticket to both boredom and frustration. What you aren’t told upfront is that you are spamming email accounts (probably with the same scam) and that you are only paid if the people you send the email to fall for the scam like you did – even then, it’s just a fraction of what the originating company will earn. This won’t add anything worthwhile to your resume, it won’t be profitable, and it’s a bad idea.

Red Flag #3: Non-answers about the company and what they do. The bottom line is that if you can’t find out details about what the company does, see where they’re located or surf their web site, then you might want to rethink your involvement with them. Ask questions! If you don’t get answers you’re comfortable with, there’s probably something the company is hiding. Some young companies may not have established a website or other online presence yet, in which case you should ask questions about the people you are working for. What is the founder’s experience? Who is funding the company? What market will the company be competing in? Ask questions and trust your instincts to judge when you’re satisfied with the answers. Get the whole story »

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Guides

Who Will Succeed in the Future of Work?

By Ed Gandia from the Odesk Blog

The opportunity for freelancers to make a great living doing what they love has NEVER been better.

I’m not saying it to pump you up. I’m saying this in response to the scarcity, fear-based mentality I’m continually seeing out there. A mindset which can be summarized as follows:

  • The economy sucks
  • Jobs and opportunities are scarce
  • Everyone is scared
  • No one is spending money
  • Therefore, I can’t make a good living doing what I love to do

Hogwash! Here’s the thing, folks. This economy demands a different level of thinking. If you want to survive and thrive now and in the years ahead, you have to change your game. You have to look at your passions, skills, value and markets differently.You have to think long and hard about what makes you different. What kind of value you bring to the table. Who could benefit from your skills, knowledge, talents and experience.

Because if you think of yourself as JUST an artist, graphic designer, writer, photographer, videographer, developer, engineer or virtual assistant who delivers the same time of work to the same target markets… you’re toast. You’ll be playing a game that has no winning end. A game filled with daily struggle, fear and scarcity thinking.

In his wonderful book Career Renegade, Jonathan Fields explains this better than anyone. He writes: “The simple truth is you can turn nearly any passion into a big, fat heap of money. However, it often requires mining aspects of those passions you never knew existed or bringing them to life in markets and ways that defy the mainstream.” Get the whole story »

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News

New oDesk Terminology

To help new visitors better understand what oDesk is all about and clarify important concepts to all oDesk users, we’ve updated a few of our more commonly used words.

What has changed?

Old New
Buyer Employer
Provider Contractor
Candidacies Job Applications
Job Post and Opening Job Posting
Assignment Contract
Affiliate / Provider Company Agency
Affiliate Manager Staffing Manager
Affiliate Contractor Agency Contractor
Stipend Weekly Rate

Why has oDesk made these changes?

Some words we have historically used to describe our service and the various roles on oDesk confuse our newest users. We believe that clarifying these terms will help them to hit the ground running faster and clarify for them what oDesk is really all about.

We conducted extensive testing to determine which terms were the most confusing and what the new terms should be. A huge “Thank You!” to the thousands of community members who responded to our surveys and helped us determine the right terminology.

How does this affect me?

Aside from getting used to the new terms (which we believe to be more intuitive than the old ones) there’s nothing you need to do!

What if I want to share my feedback about the new terms?

We’d be delighted to hear your thoughts. Please share them with us here.

From Odesk Blog

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Guides

Your Buyers Care About SEO — Do You?

Many jobs can affect search-engine optimization, so make sure you’ve got the skills to compete.

SEO Crash Course Over on the oDesk blog, we talked to our SEO point man, Amit Bakshi, about the basics of search engine optimization, letting buyers know how to make sure their sites rank highly in the appropriate searches. One key point: buyers should expect any provider touching their websites to understand SEO. It’s not your most important skill — being, say, a good writer or developer is what pays the bills — but it’s something your buyer may expect you to be conversant with. Some tips:

Marketing Writers: You should know how to optimize content for searches, without writing hard-to-read gibberish that’s cluttered with keywords. When discussing jobs, ask what your buyers’ SEO priorities are. Know the key phrases they’re trying to dominate and work them into headlines or high into your copy. Make sure you ask which pages within the site they want you to link to, and to which terms.

Web Designers: Good, clean design is the best gift you can give to a buyer’s SEO efforts. Make sure you’re up-to-date on optimizing design for search engines. Understand how your creative choices affect SEO — and let your buyer know up front that you’re on the ball.

Linkbuilders: Your job is all about SEO, and you need to let your buyer know you focus on quality. A handful of links to high-quality sites in your buyer’s field are worth more than hundreds of links to worthless shell sites. Google’s algorithm Ph.D.s are not dumb, and neither are you.

A working knowledge of SEO is a vital competitive tool for anyone working with web design or online content. If that’s your business, you should make sure your SEO awareness is up to date. Start with our crash course.

- From the oDesk Newsletter

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Guides

Getting Started in Odesk – Your profile is YOU

Last time, I wrote an article about where to find home based jobs in the Internet (click here to view the article). One of the best places to start things off is via Odesk. I recommend Odesk than other websites like GetAFreelancer or Elance because it has a much friendly user interface, easy to manage profile page where you can show off you portfolio and has a great community where people are willing to help you stand on your own two feet.

Odesk Website snapshot

One of the main reasons Providers (Job Seekers in Odesk) in Odesk can’t land a job or lands a job but takes them months before they get one is because their profile is incomplete or just plain and simple. There is a lot of competition in Odesk especially jobs like Data Entry work, chances to land a job is very slim since the Buyer (Employers in Odesk) will have a hard time noticing your profile and invite you for an interview. I remember browsing for my first job and I was targeting some Data Entry work to get at least something on my work experience and also to land my first feedback, one single Data Entry work can rack up to 300+ Providers bidding for the job! Imagine how hard it is to get noticed by the Buyer.

Providers should always remember that Your Profile is YOU. “First impressions last” as they always say, same with applying for a job. So, what CAN you do to beef up your profile and get someone notice you? Here are just some pointers from my personal experience alone. Get the whole story »

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Guides

Finding Work-at-Home jobs for newbies

LWork at home Dadately, A lot of friends and people ask me what is my job since I’m just here sitting my ass all day long staring at my PC. Even my neighbors are quite curious what the hell I’m doing inside my home, heck I even heard rumors from “istambays” or slackers (just follow this link here from annpeace.wordpress.com for a wonderful explanation of the word istambay) that I was a Hacker. LOL :) If you’re also wondering what my work is, I’m a full time Work at Home guy for more than 2 years now. You can find more info about what I do here or visit my online portfolio.

There are tons of Work at home jobs / Home based work in the internet and there are a lot of Pinoy Home based workers just like me today and we are still growing. Jobs available ranges from Graphic Designing, Web Design and Development, Data Entry work like encoding, Call Center jobs, Programming, Virtual Assistant (Personal Assistant over the web) and a lot more. Some offer full time jobs while some offer Freelance work or Per Project basis. Since most home based workers are from third world countries, people from the US, UK, and some other First World Countries opt to find people like Filipinos and Indians since pay is lower than workers in their country.

After reading this, you might be wondering now where can you find Home based work? Actually, it’s quite simple, there are tons of Online Jobs sites out there that you can register an account so you can find jobs in their directory. The hard part is landing an actual job, since tons of people are actually applying online you will get many competitors there especially if you’re only doing Data Entry related work. I know a lot of people who asked me for help to get themselves started in Work at home jobs but haven’t landed a single job, the best that they can do was to land a interview. There are tons of reason why newbies in Home based work are having trouble landing a job, but one main reason is their profile. Just like Facebook, you want to make the best impression to your potential employer but apparently, people neglect this part and just create some simple profiles in Online Job sites. You can view this video from Odesk so you can have more idea how Work at Home jobs work:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbjkIE_CQI8] Get the whole story »

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