Know Your Competition ... Free Cyber-Training ... Inked by Inc.!
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- Succeeding in the Demand Economy
- Ready for our Closeup
- What's New?
- Special Offer: Free Cyber Training
- Contractor Spotlight
Have questions? We've got answers. Talk to oDesk staff — LIVE.
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| Contractor Earnings: (last 90 days) | $33,100,333 |
| Job Postings: (currently open) | 20,262 |
| Applicants Per Job: (average) | 13 |
| Days to Hire: (average) | 1.3 |
Succeeding in the Demand Economy
How a remote contractor can stand out against a world of competition.
You probably spend a lot of time thinking about employers: Who's hiring, what are they paying, is there long-term potential? When you're building a career as a contract professional, you also need to think about the people you're competing against, what skills they bring to the table and how you have positioned yourself against them.
Check Out Your Field: Search oDesk for contractors in your line of work, and see how you compare. How are you on price, on experience, on feedback and work history? Which of your skills face the strongest competition — is there a niche or specialty you can claim as your own? Remember that no single item can dictate your success. It’s up to you to determine the balance of price, skill, references and experience that best showcases your merits.
Find Your Selling Point: To compete on more than price, you need to stand out for your quality work. There are a lot of Java programmers. Are you a certified Java programmer? There are tons of freelance writers. Do you have a newspaper/magazine experience, an ad agency background? Hey there, graphic designer, do you have an art degree? Whatever you do, have you won awards for it? "Award Winning" looks really good in front of your job title (make sure you put the details into your portfolio).
Apart from external commendations, your profile is the place to promote your internal values, the things you're best at and passionate about. As a web designer, is it delivering great results at a speedy pace? Marketing writers, is it your ability to turn technobabble and jargon into something a layman can digest? Engineers, is it the way you integrate easily managed off-the-shelf modules? Whatever you bring to the table, promote it.
Sharpen That Point: If you don't have professional certifications, look into earning them. If there are contests to reward quality work in your field, enter them with your best portfolio items. Does your current portfolio reflect your strongest selling feature? If not, add new items or rewrite the description that accompanies each to better showcase your innovative approach, superior skills or teamwork ability. Style your entire profile to fully promote your unique offering.
Go Where You're Most Wanted: Once you know what you're really offering, apply to the jobs that most value those items. You're a programmer with a design background? Seek jobs that call for elegant execution, rather than heavy lifting on back-end functionality. If you're a writer promoting your quick turnaround, flawlessly clean copy or more-than-Googling research skills, seek the jobs that specifically ask for those abilities, and you'll whittle down your competition right from the start.
Check out the oDesk blog for more on self-promotion, tweaking your profile and refining your specialization.
Ready for our Closeup
Inc. Magazine is one of the leading business publications in the United States, and this month the cover features oDesk CEO Gary Swart. The cover story is about the “demand economy,” and it discusses how innovative thinking is necessary in a massively shifting global economy that includes continuing hard times in North America and much of Europe, yet also a growing middle class in much of the rest of the world. oDesk's explosive success is noted, and that is all due to the talented contractors who are making oDesk the global platform for remote work — so, thank you!
You can read about the changing landscape — and the origin of oDesk itself — in the Inc. article.
What's New?
Single-Step Flagging
At oDesk, we strive to keep our site the best place to find quality job opportunities, but sometimes a job post or a contractor profile doesn't meet oDesk standards or gets placed in the wrong category. In an effort to keep these from impacting our larger marketplace, we've streamlined the flagging process into a one-step system. Now, when you spot something that's not quite right, you can let us know with a single click --so that we get notified of inappropriate behavior, and you get back to business quickly. Want to learn more about our single-step flagging system? You'll find the details here.
Special Offer: Free Cyber Training
Do you want to improve your IT and business skills, while earning certifications to make more money? Imagine expanding your interests into new skills areas, achieving certifications to support your core qualifications, or simply embracing your passion to learn and grow.
oDesk has teamed up with the National Education Foundation's Cyberlearning.org to provide a free two-week trial access to its expansive library of remote education materials. With 4,000 courses covering tech skills (such as programming, web design, and specific software tools), business knowledge and interpersonal skills, you can improve your capabilities, know your business better and earn any of the 60 available IT certifications to boost your career.
After the two weeks, you can decide to enroll at a low rate of $30 for six months to continue making use of the NEF’s many resources — but start today with your FREE two-week trial. Go to http://odesk.cyberlearning.org and select your desired education package.
Contractor Spotlight
 | Mary L (associated with TrekVisual Design) PSD XHTML / CSS Expert, web development specialist & perfectionist Total oDesk Hours: 1,494 Overall Feedback: 4.96 (Based on 15 feedbacks) Comments: Mary has been an absolute pleasure to work with. She communicates well, accomplishes tasks quickly, and the quality of her work has been very impressive. |
 | Pavel K Senior Programmer PHP/MySQL, JavaScript, AJAX Total oDesk Hours: 1,448 Overall Feedback: 4.88 (Based on 16 feedbacks) Comments: I have been working with developers offshore for many years and Pavel is the most highly skilled and professional web developer I have ever worked with. |
 | Joao C ASP.net Solution Developer (+10y) | Translator Total oDesk Hours: 1,435 Overall Feedback: 5.00 (Based on 1 feedback) Comments: Joao is outstanding. He is able to easily understand requirements, is technically proficient, and a diligent and hard worker. |
 | Stephanie C Topnotch Freelance Catalog/Website Copywriter & Blogger Total oDesk Hours: 506 Overall Feedback: 4.99 (Based on 45 feedbacks) Comments: As always, Stephanie was a pleasure to work with. She is very thorough, diligent, accurate and communicates well throughout the entire project. |
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