If you’re looking for a way to work at home you’ll want to read this interview with Josh Breinlinger, Director of Marketing for oDesk Corporation; all they offer is work at home jobs. If you have trouble finding work where you live, there’s good news-employers often have trouble finding people with technical skills where they are. That’s where oDesk comes in as a matchmaker.
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They’ve created an online marketplace that allows companies to hire, manage and pay remote technical workers no matter where they live. Most of the work they offer is web development and software development, but they also have jobs for writers, graphic designers, and folks with SEO expertise.
1) How long has your job board been active?
Re: oDesk was founded in 2004.
2) How many open positions do you have on average?
Re: We have ~300 new jobs posted every day.
3) How many offer telework?
Re: All of them. There are no postings for local hires, all work is done remotely.
4) How many employers use your service?
Re: We have around 30,000, of which about 8,000 are active each month.
5) Do you do anything to verify the authenticity of a project post?
Re: We validate credit cards of buyers, but more importantly, we guarantee the people doing the work work thru our system that they will get paid.
6) Do you have a feel for the percentage of jobs that are filled on your site?
Re: Varies a lot depending on the category. Most are around 50%.
7) What do your consider your niche to be?
Re: Majority of work is technical, web development and software development, but categories like writing, graphic design, and SEO are expanding rapidly.
8) You seem to specialize in projects vs. jobs, is that correct?
Re: There is a large range. You can see some of the info on jobs at http://www.odesk.com/community/oconomy/jobs_post_statistics. While the majority of individual job postings are for relatively small projects, you’ll also see a good number of jobs for 1/2 year or more.
9) What are the most needed skills?
Re: There is demand for everything, but some of the newer tech skills are in very high demand, eg Ruby, Ajax, etc.
10) How are you different from your competitors / Why should a job candidate use you?
Re: Always free to register and participate in our network, including free skills certifications. And payment for work through our system is guaranteed. We try to take a lot of the hassle out of the process.
11) Are any fees paid by the job candidate?
Re: Nope.
12) Are your jobs scraped or aggregated from other job boards?
Re: No. All jobs posted by oDesk buyers.
13) Are your jobs fed to any other job boards (such as CareerBuilder, HotJobs, or others)?
Re: They are listed on Indeed and SimplyHired.
14) What % of your posts come from recruiters?
Re: As far as I’m aware, very very few. Almost all of the positions are direct relationships with oDesk buyers for remote work.
15) Where do the majority of your posts come from (recruiters, end users, newspapers, etc.)?
Re: End users. Mostly small-medium sized businesses.
More in the “Finding Work At Home” series:
If you’re looking a way to work from home or a telecommuting job, visit oDesk.com and see what they have to offer. What do you have to lose? Unlike many scams out there, it’s entirely free.
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For additional information about oDesk and other freelance job boards, check out our Freelance Job Board pages, and by all means, head over to their Web site and have a look around:
The On Demand Global Workforce - oDesk
For more about finding freelance jobs and running a top notch freelance business, order a copy of
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