Employment

Freelance Jobs On Top 10 Websites

July 13, 2016 By Twila VanLeer

Freelance jobs on the top 10 websites online — Freelance jobs posted online are becoming easier to find.

Freelance jobs can solve income problems for many people who work at home. In 2015, some 15.5 million Americans were self-employed, according to Bureau of Labor statistics. By 2020, the number is expected to rise to about 60 million – more than 40 percent of the total workforce.

Freelance Jobs Online

Freelancers are doing their work at home, in coffee shops and co-working spaces everywhere. Many or the best and brightest are leaving traditional jobs to take advantage of the flexibility and autonomy in jobs of their own creation. Whether the objective is just making a side job of a hobby or making freelance the way to a living, there are resources that can be helpful.

Toptal

Toptal is a freelance network of elite software engineers and digital designers from more than a hundred countries around the world. It has a screening process that weeds out everyone except the top 3 percent of talent in a number of categories. If you are selected, you know you are in company with the elite. You are allowed to decide if you want full or part-time work, how many hours and set your own rates. Toptal works with such companies as AirBnB, IDEO and JP Morgan and has a consistent lineup of interesting clients and projects.

Upwork

Upwork, a union of the two leading freelance networks, Elance and lDesk, is now the largest website to find freelancers. It has more than 10 million registered users, four million clients and listings for three million jobs every year. It is a source for writers, architects, legal aides, photographers and others. Users can enroll for short-term or long-term projects, work by the hour or by the project. A chat feature, time-tracker and payment protection are part of the program.

99 Designs

99 Designs has its own twist. The platform is for designers and every job comes in the form of a contest. Instead of browsing through a catalog of portfolios and resumes, clients are asked to crowd source projects, set a budget and give instructions and then let designers submit work based on the project brief. At the end of a week, the client chooses the best design and pays its originator. This is a good site for designers who want to test their talents and shake up their workflow.

PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour offers a source for all skills related to web projects, including software engineers, digital designers, SEO specialists and marketers. A tool called WorkStream simplifies the business side of the work by organizing payment, communications and management all in one place. You can browse jobs, be notified of new openings via your inbox and send up to 15 proposals without charge before you sign up for the premium plan.

LinkedIn Profinder

This freelance source has more than 420 million members in more than 200 countries and is a leading place for learning about job-related information. It recently launched LinkedIn Profinder as a means to help freelance professionals to find jobs. Based on its enormous amount of user data, it is able to connect freelancers with strong leads based on keyword searches and companies followed.

SimplyHired

SimplyHired has the largest variety of freelance jobs of any on this list, with information on jobs ranging from construction to concierge work. It offers help for those seeking extra work and has information on jobs in more than 24 countries, offering opportunities in 12 languages.

Freelance Writing Gigs

Freelance Writing Gigs is a job board that is updated daily with freelance writing and blogging jobs. Topics vary from technical writing to writing about such things as recipes, photography and healthcare. There are great opportunities whether you are looking to supplement your income or make freelancing you full-time work.

If you are among the millions of freelancers looking for new opportunities, check into these sites to see what’s in them for you.

Networking Vital To Job Search

June 24, 2016 By Twila VanLeer

When you are looking for a job, who you know can literally be as important as what you know. Eighty percent of jobs are discovered through networking, making use of people who might offer help in the search. The best jobs, those that last and become a career, come through this route, experts say.

Employee Referrals

Many employers actually encourage current workers to recommend new hires, creating what is known as the “hidden job market.” Employees establish a “circle of influence” that benefits those looking for work.

Acquaintances

The usual network includes family, friends, acquaintances, former co-workers and those who were your supervisors, school contacts, church associates and others in your circle of acquaintance.

Social

You can add to the network by affiliating with professional groups, volunteering in the community, attending job fairs and taking advantage of social networking sites.

If you are on the search, make a list, including contact information, and set a date to begin systematically contacting those on the list. Make notes as you interact with those you contact. Keep the list current.

Informal Interactions

You may find the list expanding just through informal interactions with people in your normal activities. Don’t hesitate to make it known you are looking for a job, without being pushy, of course. Word of mouth tends to expand as people mingle in all kinds of settings.

Employment Programs

State and local employment programs are a good source for information on listings. Local universities and colleges often have helpful resources as well.

More Young Adults Live With Parents

June 11, 2016 By Twila VanLeer

More millennials are choosing to still live with their parents. — More millennials are choosing to continue living with their parents.

For the past century and more, young adults were prone to leave the nest and set up housekeeping for themselves. Now, they are more likely to be residents in the family home, either as singles or with a spouse, according to the Pew Research Center.

Young Adults Waiting To Get Married

The phenomenon, statistically changing the 130-year trend, is as result primarily of young people who delay marriage until into their 30s, the Pew study concluded. In 2014, the percentage of young adults living in their parent’s home was 32.1. It is the largest percentage since 1940, when some 40 percent were living at home.

Young Adults With Less Education

Choosing a spouse or living partner is the most likely condition to prompt living with a parent when the young couple is not prepared financially to be independent. Status of education is also an important factor. Young people with less education may be more likely to remain at home, the study found. The statistical breakdown showed that in 2014, 19 percent of young adults with a bachelor’s degree were living at home; 36 percent of those who had some college but not a degree; and 40 percent of those who had failed to complete high school.

Since 1980, the level of education has been more telling, with college education being a definite benefit in the job market and more of those without a high school diploma dropping into less well-paying jobs.

The trend not to marry as early has had a definite effect, a Gallup Poll shows. In a survey, 60 percent of Millennials said they had never married, compared with 16 percent of Generation Xers and 10 percent of Baby Boomers. The increasing trend for women to succeed in the job market, while more males are floundering is one of the reasons, experts say. The Great Recession had a greater impact for men than for women.

Attitudes also have been in play. Marriage formerly was considered a step to help young couples to reach employment and financial goals. Now, marriage is seen to be the final step to reaching such goals, the researchers report. They delay commitment to marriage until they feel their education and career goals are stable.

The rising costs of education, with a larger percentage of young adults saddled with overwhelming education debt, also enters into the equation. Expectations for “living high” in marriage, which most of their parents did not harbor, have an effect on marriage decisions as well.

Unemployment

Relatively high unemployment rates over the past decade also have been a factor. The number of young men who are unemployed and living at home far outstrips the number who are employed and living independently.

The effect on the parental household of having young adults still in residence is the flip side of the new trends, with some parents delaying retirement and other decisions to accommodate the extra persons they are helping to support.

Living Wage Laws Difficult To Enforce

May 28, 2016 By Twila VanLeer

For the cities that endorse the Living Wage Law, ensuring compliance is difficult.

A number of cities have bowed to pressure from labor advocates and enacted “living wage” laws, some of them phasing in plans that will top out at $15 per hour.

A living wage is the minimum income necessary for a worker to meet their basic needs. It was designed to fight poverty, but the ripple effects that come after cities actually adopt the Living Wage Laws are numerous.

Ensuring that employers actually follow the new guidelines is difficult. State and federal laws don’t require employers to provide data proving that they are in compliance, oversight agencies say. The data is most often contained in payment check stubs, but employers are not required to share the information.

Cities That Use Living Wage Laws

Among cities that have adopted the wage increases are Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico, San Francisco, California, and Washington D.C. The issue is on the agendas of many state legislatures and city governments as the press for better wages heats up.

Complaints

Enforcers generally rely on worker complaints to initiate actions against employers who do not conform, but the employees are reluctant to complain for fear of reprisals, so many instances of non-compliance go unnoticed. Labor groups estimate that a quarter of the country’s workers who fall under the guidelines are not receiving the legislated wages. But if one employee complains, enforcers use it as leverage to investigate pay records for all of the business’ employees on the supposition that the problem affects more than the single complainant.

Recommendations For Enforcement

Haeyoung Yoon of the National Employment Law Project calls the problem “pervasive and rampant” in an Associated Press news article. The project recommends higher fines against non-compliant employers and more stringent enforcement. The costs of enforcement are high, but could be recouped through fines, she said.

Some employers don’t understand the new laws, but others sidestep the provisions by requiring workers to work unpaid or off the clock to make up the difference. Others raise the wage, but cut the benefits.

Law Suits

Hospitality and transportation workers serving in SeaTac, Washington are granted the Living Wage Law. This community however needed courts to enforce compliance and have filed more than a dozen class-action suits this year in behalf of workers. The total amount of contested wages, related benefits and possible penalties could add up to $62.5 million.

The Best Work-At-Home Opportunities

May 20, 2016 By Twila VanLeer

How to find a job that will pad your family’s income while you remain at home? There has never been more opportunity, but also there have never been the number of scams. Used to be the best chances lay with stuffing envelopes, now there are dozens of at-home jobs that are just a mouse click away.

Legitimate Or Scam

How do you sort out the legitimate opportunities from those that will end in disaster? With 4,500 to 5,000 ads for in-home jobs screened weekly, The Rate Race Rebellion, which tracks such things, found that there were 30 scams for every legitimate opportunity.

Competition For Job

Who’s your likely competition for the jobs that are available? Durst, whose company Staffcentric LLC develops home-based and virtual career training programs, identifies them as: Parents with small children, military spouses who face moving every few years, retirees and people with disabilities.

Disadvantages

Work-at-home is not particularly an ideal option for parents with small children who are likely to create diversions during the day. Consider deadline-oriented jobs rather than those that demand schedule-oriented work.

Who It Benefits

Social introverts may do very well with at-home work. They prefer interacting with others at a remove, working through email or on the phone, to being obligated to work with a lot of other people directly.

Personal Characteristics

The characteristics that usually are demonstrated by good at-home employees are self-motivation, discipline, well-developed job skills and independence.

Check Your Credit

If you apply for work at home, a prospective employer may check your credit. Check yourself at myBankrate.

Reduces Overhead

From the employer’s perspective, hiring workers who don’t come regularly into the office has some advantages. It reduces overhead and provides access to talented workers who are not available locally but make great telecommuters.

Opportunities Available

Ten job opportunities that now are available to at-home workers include virtual assistants, medical transcriptionists, translators, web developer/designer, call center representatives, tech support, travel agents, teachers, writer/editors or franchise owners. Look at the possibilities, but check with the oversight agencies to be certain you aren’t involving yourself with a scam.