[oDesk] Do you check the background of your buyer?

I do.

Well for most of my buyers. Yes I try to check them out other than their working feedback from oDesk. Let me tell you a story I experienced few minutes ago. Yes. Just minutes ago.

I applied for a very lucrative job posting. The buyer’s payment method is verified, working feedback is 4.43/5.00 (still passable) and the very nice thing is: I can design! Yep. I’ll be using my graphic skills finally. I want to graduate as an administrative support! heh~

The buyer responded immediately. And told me straight ahead that she can pay me below my rate. Note that its not less than 50% – IT IS A 90% DROP OF MY RATE. Hmmm. I'm quite hesitant but immediately relieved to see that I have less than 50 hrs a week to work. Come to think of it, its still a good deal IF I'm guaranteed to be paid for 50 hrs a WEEK. But it didn't work that way.

We exchanged few messages while I checked this buyers background. I read the feedback of his hired providers. I was not that satisfied with the comments. Something is really lacking, i felt. I researched for her name on Google. At first, there are no relevant searches. Until I have clicked a link with my buyer’s name.

At this moment, I am already negotiating about my rate. The buyer obviously doesn't want to talk about it. I am not liking the mood of our conversations. I don't like the feeling that I am not worth my rate.

THEN THIS *ODESK DEPRESSION SUDDENLY HIT ME.

*a relative psychological emotion of freelancers whenever he/she feels inadequate, unloved, unimportant, PLUTOED. Commonly cause of distress are prick, low IQ and EQ buyers.

So my inner Oprah talked to me. Child, No don't feel depressed. This buyer is not worth your time. You know you’re more than that. But of course the oDesk depression didn't stop that way. It only stopped until I found a great information about my potential buyer. Thanks to Google.

In case you didn't notice: There are words like criminal and termination in that website. I wont provide the site name anymore for privacy sake and I don’t believe in attacking because my buyer didn't directly do anything wrong to me.

In short, the buyer’s family members were involved in a serious case. One involves death. Erm ye morbid. I am not sure of the resolution. I am assuming they have changed their company name cause they still have a common word in both their new and old company names.

In short, I don't want to be associated with a company like that.

In short, it was not my loss if my buyer didn’t hire me.

In short, I was able to relieve my oDesk depression.

In short, I'm back again to scouting other buyers. Potentially GOOD and with clean slate backgrounds.

PS. The buyer didn’t reply after my last question. The candidacy has not yet ended but I am assuming it will be after the buyer has found another provider that will agree with her terms.

PPS: The buyer replied but I didn't bother to answer again.

Lesson learned:

1. Know your worth. Don't go way below your rate.

2. RESEARCH. RESEARCH.

3. Don’t Settle for LESS. (I know it sounds like #1 but I really want to stress this out)

4. Call your inner Oprah once oDesk depression strikes!

xoxo

[Homebased Job] Good Odesk Buyers

Hello I’m back once again blogging about my Odesk experience. Well two days ago, I said, I will apply for my Unionbank EON card and to have my hair rebonded. I didnt pursue any yay. An old buyer contacted me the night after I posted that entry. So I have no choice but to cancel my plans. I know that this Buyer is strict when it comes to deadlines. The deadline was this afternoon, 12pm.

Again, its about editing audio stuffs. Segue: I am really thinking of buying a netbook so that I can do any homebased job anywhere and I can hang out with friends at the same time. I want to use my oDesk savings.---yes I have saved enough. Homebased job rocks!!!

I think I am already an expert when it comes to editing. I can do 600 audio in 14 hours. Woot. in short 43 audio in 1 hour and these are all cutting, adding additional audio’s, making it shorter at the same time. It’s quite a workload and my right hand mostly do the work so after 8 hours, my right thumb is getting numb and shaky. But all for the sake of this buyer, I am going to do my best and follow the deadline.

And it paid off.

Lol its quite cute. I am so happy I received this. Then after a few minutes I have received my payment plus a surprise.

WOOOW. I am really jumpy when I received this and I can’t thank him enough for it. Don't worry, I kept myself calm when I replied back ahahaha. For my one and a half day work, I was paid almost a price of a rebonded hair. LOL I am so happy!

Yeah, he said, he has one more project for me. I really love this buyer of mine (not in a romantic way lol)

I also want to share another loved buyer of mine. Surprisingly, the above buyer and this one has the same name. But different spelling though. Haha I love this one even though he doesnt have projects for me recently. Why? Because he uses smiley in his emails haha.

It really pays when you are honest with your buyer and if you do not just work with them for the sake of money. I have all the opportunity to stay long for an hourly job with this buyer. I can stay in the internet, strolling. Clicking any unnecessary tabs in my keyboard so that it counts as a high green bar in my work diary lol but I didn’t. In the end, we have a good relationship and I didnt abuse his credit card hehe.

oDesk buyer offered me a new project

First of, Hello to you :)

Today, my first oDesk buyer - The one I told you in my previous post that has suspended my assignment and reopened it again and suspended it then reopened it again LOL as redundant as that, well she suddenly emailed me today offering me another oDesk opportunity. I said Im interested. It's a research job and data entry type of job. I am still trying to weigh my options as I dont have good experience with researching especially if its about people's contact info. Sadly, the job that was given is like that. Anyway, we will see but for now lets thank God for another opportunity.

Note to self:
1. I need to update my Isotretinoin experience. I have been updating in the GT forum but I think I need to post more here so that there's a particular reference.

2. Remind me to post more stuffs about homebased job.

3. Remind me to post my latest beauty purchases.

Wow I have so many stuffs to do. But in the end, I dont finish a lot.

:( PS, Cecy is feeling sad today cause she misses one of her friends. :((

♥,
Cecily

Writer NEEDED---CLOSED

I have said in my previous post that I was hired from oDesk without an interview and this buyer of mine is asking me to write something about this specific old time radio. They are clear and they are entertaining. Its like listening to Hairspray or Pleasantville. Okay so I can't fulfill the duties of a writer now as another homebased job suddenly emailed me and I needed to prepare for this cause its going to be a long time job. Im going to teach actually and I needed to make my own lessons. lol. So please if anyone is interested for this job, please contact me asap. You need to be a good english writer please.

I'll give 50% of the earnings or 100% of it if you want and I can talk to my buyer and hire you instead!

Thanks. Need this ASAP!!

email@ cecilysummer (@) gmail.com

UPDATE: As of May 4, I am closing this ad. :)

♥,
Cecily

Look what's inside my mailbox

My mailbox has schizophrenia. Look, you can see some bad news like (Candidacy ended from oDesk and messages from the buyer itself telling me: YOU ARE NOT WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR. Duh nice move to ditch after interviewing me huh?) But here's what to look forward to, another buyer just suddenly hired me without undergoing any interviews. How's that huh? First time to do an hourly basis rate. Hope I can make it thru. Since I am no writer, the task itself is writing. Wow this is a challenge.

Also, see that pickjack message. Yeah pickjack is a paid to post site and yeah its legit but guess how much i earned. It didnt reach a dollar lol. Good news they didnt have any minimum payout but your earnings can decrease if you dont sign in and if you post nonsense questions like what I did. LOL I asked if Lady Gaga is a man hahah. :)) But those pay to post sites and pay to click sites are boring me because I am the type who likes to work in a more office setup way just like oDesk. But its still has a sentimental value to me. After all, my first payment is from a pay to post site which is the now defunk, Destroy Debt. Dont you ever think of signing up to Destroy Debt to earn money. Because it has stopped its revenue sharing since April 10 this year. If you are the type of surfer who loves posting and strolling around the WWW, try this one and you are rest assured you are paid in dollar or cents lol. Be sure you are really online most of the time and you contribute a lot. Sign up here!

Okay last but not the least, the mystery shopper thing at the bottom of my mailbox. See its really nice when people reply to you. It gives you more confidence to work hard.

I still have colds but I want to start with my oDesk assignment now.

Laters.

♥,
Cecily

✎ The oDesk experience

Alright. This is going to be my first post about my journey towards earning money online. :)

Lets start of with oDesk.

I started working at oDesk last April 3, 2009. Yes, that's really recent. It was purely accidental. I actually wanted to apply as an online English teacher with a Japanese owned company but they were not replying with my application so I decided to call them. For some reason, I first wanted to research about the company before following up...and then I stumbled upon oDesk at Google and so the history goes on...

After I signed up, I immediately build my profile. I took two online exams: The oDesk readiness exam and the US English Basic Skills Test. I passed btw lol. And then I applied to 11 job postings. Yes, you've read that right. Eleven. I almost hit the quota of 15 application lol. Luckily for me after a day, I received three interview invitations from them and another two after few days. I was so happy and never imagined that these buyers* will contact me because I am not really confident with my cover letters ;P. What happened to the other applications? They rejected me. :) Saying that they prefer other candidates and others say that I was charging them a high bid. That's ridiculous because as far as I know I only charge $2.00/hour. I guess they only wanted to make excuses.

Anyway, among the five interview invitations, two buyers hired me.

Buyer #1: My task is to research about people with debt. Those who reside in the UK only. I was too excited but I had a hard time with the task. It eats up my time and searching people in debt asking about their contact info is like finding a needle in a haystack. I found some contacts and gave it to my buyer but I wanted to terminate the job. My buyer told me not to cancel it and I did. After few weeks, I didn't follow up about the task. I guess its really not my thing. And today (April 20), I received an email saying that my buyer suspended it. I received no payment, I received no negative feedback. Its okay. I am after the feedback anyway. ✌

Buyer #2: My task is to cut and edit an audio. This is my first ever real task. I gave a good impression with my buyer because I passed his qualifications which is to submit an edited audio before he can finally hire me. It was an easy job but difficult at the same time because of the bulk. I have to finish 400+ audio in two days! But I cant, and I honestly told him that. I didn't really sleep at all just to finish it plus the audio were really random so I had to organize them in some way. After the first task, he asked how much I would like to be paid. I told him I will charge $72 because I had to work for 3 days. He agreed but told me to work faster because there were other providers* who are much faster than me. But since I gained his trust, he gave me more task. I was paid, $40 for my second task.

↑↑↑ My first payment for the things that I did over the internet. lol. Of course it wasn't a get-money-fast idea. I had to work hard for it and use my skills. How will I encash it? I will not. I will make my account fatter before I'll withdraw lol. If I decided to do it, I'll post my experience here. :)

I am still hired by Buyer #2 but for now, he doesn't have a task for me. I worked in a fixed rate as opposed to hourly rate which oDesk encourages. So I am still searching for another job at oDesk.

Right now, I received another invitation for an interview. This time it is going to be different. Its a Virtual Assistant job. I am quite excited about it since I will be paid hourly and the task is not difficult at all. The only uh-oh is that I'm going to work in a different timezone. :( We'll talk about that. The buyer seems to be good in compromising. I hope I'll get in and its going to be a good job. I have pending applications as well so its really advisable to be online most of the time if you really want to get that job!

But my first tip is, do not accept anything for the sake of getting in. Some buyers are like those bad eBay shoppers or hoppers. They give you task and wont pay you the right way. I'll expand this topic nextime.

Oh if you want to check oDesk and want to work there like me, you can check my referral link below. Don't worry, I wont get any profit from you asap because you need to earn $1000 before I can actually benefit from that. lol. Well anyway, the chances are quite vague but I want to try it--Just in case. lol.

♥,
Cecily

*Buyers---oDesk term for employer.
*Providers---oDesk term for you, the one offering the service.
italics---these words are italicized because it will help me make some great tips on how to land a job in oDesk nextime. :)