Opinion Sur Joven

Alex was 21 and needed to fund his university education. He wanted to raise a million dollars, although a much lower budget would have been enough. He hadn’t made a business plan or a market research; he only had an idea that, at first, seemed quite illusory: designing a site with a grid of 1,000 x 1,000 pixels [1] and filling it with ads sold at one dollar per pixel. The first ads were bought by his own friends and in four months Alex was almost a millionaire, because he had only a few spaces left for sale.

We can’t help dreaming of these perfect stories of common people who become millionaires overnight. This type of life project seems more reachable to us through the Internet. But, without denying the possibility to become rich some day, we should also consider other work opportunities that are closer to us and more realistic in the short run.

Scam

If the Internet has more than 100 million users, we can statistically assure that, among all those people, some of them will try to swindle us.

The simplest scams come from distant lands and arrive by email. An unknown uncle could appear offering us a large inheritance, as long as we make “a small transfer” to his bank account. Or someone who’s impressed by our résumé –which we never sent- and promises us a spectacular job in New York.

Other more sophisticated cases are related to the sale of certain products. Cheerful salesmen will try to tempt us into their business, assuring us unbelievable economic success and inviting us to their website, where we’ll find pictures of smiling families surrounded by fancy cars and several stories of families who finally made it thanks to this “great business”. Strangely, though, we’ll never be able to see the company’s name or what the business is about before filling a form with our contact information. Here’s an example.

Another method, though it’s not a scam, consists in a sort of virtual alienation proposing us to consume publicity in exchange for money. There are thousands of these companies, and more and more appear everyday. They basically work with a system of members, and these members are paid not only for their "work", but also for attracting new users and the income they generate; it’s similar to Multi-level Marketing. Generally, they pay a few cents for each click we make on an ad. These companies are very successful among young people, who become associates and use what they earn to buy things online, for instance.

What about real jobs?

After dealing with extreme cases, you’re surely wondering if there’s a way of working seriously on the Internet. Every activity that’s able to be performed or transmitted digitally is a potential opportunity to generate income and ideal to use the Internet as our strategic ally in business success.

Like in any other company, we must be clear about “what we have to offer”. A good starts consists in thinking which of our professional skills can be digitalized and offered through the Net. A few years ago, no one could have imagined a psychological treatment could be carried out through email or even by chat; likewise, there are many other fields where technology is creating new paths.

Freelance work sites

Websites offering freelance or part-time jobs from home are a good start. They represent a meeting point between professionals and customers. Any person can sign up and publish a project, and then the different users willing to do the work can send their proposals along with a budget. The project owner will examine all the received proposals and choose one.

What’s the earning of the site offering this service? It charges a fee to the professional carrying out the project. This financing model is useful to publish searches at no cost for the owner of the project, except for the sum he or she initially wanted to invest in the project.

One of the most important aspects of these sites is that they result from a community model: professionals and project owners rate each other when the work is done and, in this way, each of them gradually creates an activity history associated to their accounts. For example, a company that needs to hire a service can get to know whether a professional has rendered their services appropriately, and the professional can get to know whether the company has paid as agreed.

Their roles can be exchanged at any moment. This possibility is very important when we have too much work to do and we don’t want to lose new opportunities: we can work with other professionals and thus satisfy our customers.

Many times we can be disappointed at some job opportunities offered for ridiculous fees. Since there is no regulation at all on the published prices, they will generally justify their actions using excuse that these freelance work sites are ruled by demand and supply. The truth is that many foreign companies know the Latin American exchange rate for dollars and euros, and many times they use this economic factor to obtain services at much lower prices than they would at their home countries. Knowing these types of abusive offers exist is very important, and we must simply look for more convenient opportunities.

Here are some of the most popular sites:

• Trabajofreelance.com.ar It’s an Argentine website where a great deal of job offers is published every day. It includes a rating system and the possibility to send information by fax to verify our identity. Some of the main fields are: graphics design, writing, multimedia, construction and home, software and technology, management and finance, and law. The site does not intervene in the payment method between the parties. It charges a 7% commission on the value of the project.

• Getafreelancer.com It’s a Swedish site in English with all sorts of offers in fields such as technology, writing, translation, web development and web design. The customer can pay for the service through the same site and then the professional can obtain the money in several ways. The site charges a 10% commission on the value of the project.

• Elance.com After registering, we must pass an online test to begin offering our services to different requests. Standard users can offer their services in one category only, but they have the possibility to access other types of memberships by paying a sum.

My first freelance job

Many project owners hire users with at least one positive rating from previous jobs. In this way, getting our first project is very important. How can we do it without our first rating? We could develop short and accurate proposals, pointing out only what’s necessary and attach a sample of previous jobs. Depending on the type of task, most projects receive many offers; therefore we should assume nobody will read a three-page proposal.

Although freelance work gives us schedule flexibility, we must respect the deadlines agreed with the customer and carefully evaluate our possibilities before making an offer for the project.

The keys

Reasonable offers. We can’t expect to make a fortune with a sole project. We must offer reasonable sums and bear in mind the rest of the offers for that project.

Deadlines. Respecting deadlines is one of the most important requirements to obtain good ratings from our customers. If we can finish our work before the agreed deadline, even better.

English. Even if working in projects mainly dealt with in Spanish, we will need to use sources in English very often, such as when working in writing, for instance. If we use freelance work websites from other countries, generally we’ll have to communicate with the other party in English.

Google. We will always have to deal with things we don’t know, so Google will become our best tool. Making advanced searches is important to filter results and find accurate information.

How to charge

In Trabajofreelance.com, we can arrange the method of payment with our customer by choosing any conventional method such as, for instance, a bank transfer. When we work through foreign freelance work sites, our customers transfer the money to our user account, for which at some point they had to deposit money into their account with a credit card, for example.

Seeing the money we’ve earned so far is one thing, but having it on our hands is another. Not so long ago, bringing the money to Argentina was quite difficult. Bringing a small sum through bank transfer wasn’t even worth it because transfer commissions were too high.

PayPal is a website that processes payments all over the world through the Internet. It still isn’t the most comfortable or the fastest method, but it can be useful. Waiting for the check takes patience.

Luckily, some freelance work websites have simplified the payment system by associating to Payoneer.com, a site that offers an international prepaid MasterCard card. So the system is very simple: we transfer our money (through a couple clicks) to our Payoneer.com account and in two working days we can withdraw the money from any ATM in the world.

A long way to go

According to Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, the Internet isn’t just a technology, but it’s a medium that has changed and is changing our societies, introducing new ways of producing and relating. [2] In this context, freelance work trough the Internet is an innovative method of production, and as such, it is constantly redefined. Perhaps it’s a new work alternative for university students who, due to their schedule availability, many times can’t have full-time jobs. It could also be useful for professionals who aim at offering their services all over the world.