Works For Me Wednesday: Elance

I recently shared with you about I got a work from home job through Elance. I've received lots of emails and inquiries from people asking me questions about this so I thought I would address it in this week's Works-For-Me Wednesday. For more WFMW tips & tricks, head on over to Rocks In My Dryer.

When we bought our new house last week my husband and I knew before we moved in that I was going to have to pick up a part-time job or increase my work from home income quickly to help out with our bills. I'd been praying about this and what direction the Lord would have me go in since I still homeschool our 12-yr old as well and didn't want to be away from him during the day. Last month I applied at several retail stores which are open 24 hrs a day 7 days/week and put on my applications that I could work nights and weekends. Not really what I wanted to do, but for the time being I was willing to do it to build up our savings/Emergency Fund.

When I heard about Elance two weeks before we bought our house I decided...what the heck? I have nothing to lose, I will try it. I signed up under the $9.95/month paid membership - knowing I could cancel at the end of the month if I didn't have a job so I wouldn't be losing anymore than $9.95.

Profile

The hardest thing was setting up my profile. I spent hours one day looking at other people's profiles (in the area I chose to work) and I picked out about 5 profiles that had skills/qualifications that matched mine and I used those profiles to help me build mine. I didn't copy theirs...but theirs just helped me to word mine more professionally and to know what to say.

Get Certified!

After I set up my profile, I took some certification tests. You can take two for free with your monthly fee. Anymore after that will cost you $4.00. Once again, I perused the profiles to see what kinds of skills the top paid people were certified in and I noticed a couple of skills that nobody seemed to be certified in so I took the tests in those areas and I scored in the top 1% and top 10% in those two areas. I paid to take another test - but I didn't do so well on that one - no problem though because the "bad" grade doesn't show up on your profile! LOL

Let the search begin.....

Once I had all of that in place, I started looking through the jobs. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of jobs available. New ones are posted every single day. The bidding process is a little tricky to understand at first. I got declined on my first few bids because I bid too high...and I thought I was underbidding! Now, I SPELL EVERYTHING OUT in my bid proposal! I write it all out...how long I am available to work, how much I am willing to be paid, how my skills/abilities will enable me to get the job completed, how I'll get the job done, etc.

I got hired!!

Within one week, I got a job. I am a virtual assistant to a man in another state. He sends me tasks to do via email and we talk through Skype once a week to check in. We communicate via email on a daily basis. I am scheduled to work for him through March 2009!

Best thing about this is I am working from home on my own time!! This is WHAT WORKS FOR ME!

All I can tell you about Elance is if you think it's worth the $9.95/mo to give it a try then try it. If you don't have that money right now, there is a free program you can sign up for too. I just don't know the particulars on that to be able to tell you about it.

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