Archive for Jobs
US Job Satisfaction Down
Posted by: | CommentsJob satisfaction is down in the US and probably in most countries, that is if you even have a job!
In any case, it’s a great time to start your own online business!
Getting Remote IT Contracts
Posted by: | CommentsLooks like I’m going to be doing a part-time remote IT support contract for about 6 weeks starting in late september. The main reasons I am able to get this kind of work are:
-This is for a previous client of mine (from which it is often easier to get remote work)
-I asked to work remotely over time
-Job was in another city so I became tired of travelling
-Lack of available talent in area (due to my choice of niche which I talk about in my ebook)
If you would like to know my secrets to making more money as an IT consultant and working remotely check out my e-book on secrets to getting high hourly rates as an IT subcontractor.
The Return to Contracting
Posted by: | CommentsAs you know from this blog I highly encourage you to do contract work instead of being an employee. There are so many benefits including higher pay, more deductions (via your corporation), variety of projects, more freedom and so on. As you can see from the huge number of layoffs during this recession there really is no job security anymore. If your company has work then you will stay employed. I’ve spent the last little while teaching students guitar and practicing my own things while I look for the next contract. There is no stress because I am making some money on the side teaching and I’ve saved money for the inevitable ‘rainy day’ which always comes.
Companies’ attitude towards contracting goes in cycles. Sometimes they want lots of contractors, then they return to wanting employees. Right now with all the layoffs, companies are actually more interested in hiring contractors because they have work but they don’t want to commit to long-term employees at this point.
So get out there and find those contracts!
Use Elance to Work Remotely
Posted by: | CommentsAs someone who has really fallen in love with working remotely it recently dawned on me to start using sites like Elance.com. In the past I didn’t think to use it because my expertise is in large integration projects using webMethods. As I’ve mentioned before I asked one of my out-of-town clients if I could work remotely after travelling for years to their office. These are usually long projects spanning for 6 months to a year or more. With Elance you can bid on much smaller projects which requires more marketing time (finding projects, submitting proposals, reporting, etc) and these allow you to work remotely. They don’t just have programming jobs, there is video/audio creation, copywriting, sales and marketing and many other categories.
Over the years I’ve built lots of websites and I recently realized that I have a lot of skills to offer clients in the Internet space – from setting up websites and blogs, to adding email autoresponders, shopping carts and membership sites. Not only that my ability to communicately clearly with non-techies is also valuable. Whenever I talk to people who need a website they often spend tens of thousands of dollars and the projects go off the rails due to all the custom coding. The sites I create are easy to update for a non-techie saving them money in the future usually spent to update the site. I’ve also figured out ways to get more traffic by adding Google analytics and seeing which sites and keywords bring the most traffic.
I like to use hosted solutions (also called software as a service) because there are no installs and upgrades required. You just pay a monthly fee to get ready-to-go code which has been fully tested. I use email autoresponders, a content management system and shopping cart systems that are all third party. You just have to copy some html code for the sign up forms and you’re good to go. Then you can focus on adding the content and marketing the site.
Getting back to Elance.com I’ve bid on a few website jobs over the last few days. In general the budgets are fairly low (given by the buyer) and the most common problem is a lack of clear requirements – do they need a header logo? Will they enter the content themselves? Do they know how to add content? How many iterations will there be if they want changes?
Some of this scares me but we’ll see how it goes. My feeling is that over time I will find a few high quality clients that will be the majority of my focus. Just like with webMethods the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of the work and revenue comes from 20% of the clients. Here’s my Elance profile.
Achieving Wealth in Uncertain Economic Times
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s an interview with me and Stuart Crawford of IT Matters on being a wealthy IT Professional in these uncertain times, and some specific steps you can take to be successful. Notice I don’t say ’surviving in uncertain times’, but being wealthy. It’s all about attitude baby!
