Taking a Home Based Job Outside of oDesk

Taking a Home Based Job Outside of oDesk

I had several places where I looked for jobs online when I decided to work from home. Elance was one of them but I never had any luck landing a job there. Wikipedia states that “Elance is a global online employment platform. Clients can hire independent freelance professionals and use online collaboration tools to manage remote teams and projects. Independent contractors create online profiles and portfolios, submit proposals for jobs, and collaborate and receive payment through the Elance website.” Elance is a cool place to get jobs and they have similar services with oDesk. There were nibbles on Elance but no one ever took me on for a contract.

I even searched countless online classified ads and applied to those with an email address available. I sent tons of email applications that way and I got lucky with an SEO guru who hired me at an hourly rate of $1.25. He gave me a full plate with 40 hours a week on a fixed schedule and had me working even on the weekends. Payments were via PayPal twice a month which were late twice that first month, he was a very busy man.

The VA (virtual assistant) tasks he commonly had me doing included schedule management via Google Calendar, online research, SEO (search engine optimization) article writing, keyword research using Google’s Keyword Tool, and other stuff. I jumped on the chance of learning from a master even if the pay was far less than what I got while I was working for BPOs (business process outsourcing). It was very challenging and rewarding at the same time but after over a month of hard times for my family, I had to take an opportunity that came up. The VA gig had to come to an abrupt end. The new job paid slightly more at $2 an hour and that made a big difference for my family’s well-being.