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Extra Cash for the Holidays Part 3: Odesk

 

This holiday season many of you may be looking to make a little extra cash from home. So far in our series we have discussed money making apps and money making apps as options to earn some money for the holidays.  One other way you can make some extra money from home without the commitment of a work-at-home job is by using Odesk. For those not familiar with Odesk, it is a website where people can hire freelancers by posting jobs that they need completed. It is easy to get started making money from Odesk and they offer a wide variety of jobs for every kind of expertise. App developers, writers, virtual assistants, customer service, sales, and administrative support are just some of the 100,000+ jobs you can find. The freedom of freelancing means that you get to choose which jobs you take, who you work with, and when you work. The jobs available on Odesk can be temporary, short-term or long-term. This means that if you only want to be available for the next month or so than you can accept assignments that meet those parameters. Follow the steps below to get some freelance assignments and earn some cash in time for the holidays.

  1. Sign up for an account and create a profile. This is like your resume on Odesk so be specific about your experience and expertise.
  2. Pick a title for yourself. Consider what type of position you will be trying to get and title yourself accordingly. This should be two to three words that point out your strengths.
  3. Choose skill tags based on your experience. This is important because employers looking to hire will search using these tags to find those with the expertise they need.
  4. Describe yourself highlighting your talents and strengths
  5. Take a look at the tests available and choose some to take based on what types of jobs you will be applying for. This is a way to demonstrate you really are knowledgeable in these specific fields. Once you take a test you can display your test score on your profile.
  6. Select a category of freelance jobs and begin your job search. Pay attention to the fact that some jobs are paid hourly and some are a fixed rate.
  7. Apply for as many jobs as the site will allow by clicking on “Apply to this job”. Especially if you are looking to get hired and earn money within a certain period of time. You will be asked to interview later and can accept which jobs you are interested in at that point.
  8. Complete your assignment in the time given with high quality work. Once you receive some positive feedback on your profile others will be more likely to hire you and it will be easier to get higher paying assignments.

 

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Daniel

Saturday 5th of September 2015

BEWARE! BEWARE! oDesk is a swamp of fraud.I had no experience with WordPress so thhougt some help would be useful. Posted a job on oDesk for a blog with mapping and calendar plugins. The initial estimate was 40 to 50 hours. This promptly changed when the contract was let to 80 to 90 hours. 90 hours later, no blog. When I complained, three days later a minimal blog was offered that met none of my requirements and had no plugins. As a test the spend one hour one hour creating my own blog with calendar and mapping plugins. The result had about 100 times the functionality of the blog I paid for. The whole thing was a complete fraud.oDesk is a systematic party to this fraud. They have very limited dispute capacities and these are highly biased against customers. For example, on their site it is very easy to give a contractor a bonus but practically impossible to find how to dispute a bill. Negative contractor comments are not posted for at least 14 days, allowing known fraudsters to continue. Then, they can come back under new names. In any case oDesk gets their cut.

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