I think it's all about knowing
- Yourself (Personality, Liking and Disliking, Habits etc.)
- Your Abilities (What you can and cannot do, your boundaries) and
- Your Resources (What is available out there to help you reach your goals)
and then maximum utilization of this knowledge that one can live a life up to his potential.
Although a lot of us don't recognize themselves even for first two points but most miss the mark because of the third. I personally know a lot of my colleagues, friends and others who are just not doing enough what they are capable of because of their ignorance (of available resources) firstly and then lack of motivation to properly utilize those even if they know about them.
So today I would be discussing a great career resource which most of us either don't know about or wrongly undermine its potential to earn them a decent living through "work from home" jobs. Most of the IT/Software background people must have heard of freelancing sites like RentACoder (Now called VWorker), ELance etc. sometimes during their careers but they never tried their luck on these because of 'couldn't spare time', 'I can't get work from there' type of excuses without even trying to create a signup and applying for jobs. One such site and latest of its kind which I have personal experience of and found a great career resource is the freelancing site oDesk.
oDesk is different from other freelancing sites from many respects and is a great source of "work from home" jobs and a career resource to earn a decent amount of additional income along with doing your regular day job. Following are some unique features of oDesk that make it very attractive amongst the contractor/employer community on these freelancing sites.
oDesk
oDesk offers Hourly Rate jobs where a contractor is employed on hourly basis by the employer as per mutually agreed hourly rate for the job. Contractor provides hourly rate bid on such jobs and receives all payments as per the agreed hourly rate for total No. of hours worked in a week. These hourly jobs suit both contractor as well as employer because contractor gets his every (worked) hour paid and employer also has to pay only for the time contractor worked for them.
oDesk provides guaranteed payments on these hourly jobs to the contractors such that employer has to pay for the hour contractor has worked for them and so puts a responsibility on the employer to regularly check the contractor work diaries and also their work progress to ensure that the hour worked (and hence the hour paid) is also the hour contributed to their business.
Another advantage (especially for newbies) is that oDesk does not have any kind of membership fees and is totally free for both employers as well as contractors. So contractors can simply create their profile and start applying for their relevant jobs without any worries for monthly/one time membership fees. oDesk deducts 10% from your earnings (as their commission) once you get a job and start getting payments. oDesk also deducts some withdrawal fee when you withdraw your earnings from oDesk which varies for different payment methods. oDesk currently provides PayPal, Payoneer Debit Card, Moneybookers and Direct Wire Transfers as payment methods.
oDesk also does not limit you to have only one or two skill categories in your profile like some other freelancing sites but allows you to have as many as you want which provides a vast range of job options (from different skill categories) where you can apply using your same profile and so increases your chances to get a job.
The Hard Work
It might not be so easy to get your first "work from home" job but it's definitely worth trying. It definitely has a great potential (No doubt about it!) to earn you a decent living using your existing skills and working for international employer companies and so deserves a reasonably good effort to utilize that potential. As newbie my advice to you would be "Never, Never, Never Give Up!" and one day you would definitely get your first job and would start getting more and more work after that. I know most of my colleagues who started even before me but gave up very early but I on the other hand never. So as a result I was able to find some decent amount of work and still continuing. There is also a great resource pool available on oDesk (oDesk Blog, Forums, Help etc.) to help out newbies. So you need to create a decent profile there, brush up your skills and take some relevant tests, learn techniques to write good cover letters etc. You need to work hard and there is no reason you can't succeed while hundreds and thousands of contractors are already getting decent amount of work on oDesk.
A duck looks cool and calm on top of water but underneath there is restless paddling. Life is all about effort but with a cool mind and calm expressions. To live a successful life you have to recognize and live up to your full potentials and should also be aware of all different career resources available out there to utilize your potential in right directions to reach your goals and destinations.
