Working Freelance In this age of job insecurity and a shorter working week for some, lots of people are searching for methods to supplement their earnings by finding a part-time job. Some people are able to go shelf-stacking, delivering newspapers or making hamburgers, but others either have to or would like to work from home. Lots of the traditional 'work from home' jobs like stuffing envelopes or assembling paper flowers were repetitive and poorly paid. The Internet has opened up a whole new world of opportunities to earn from home - quite literally. There are work from home jobs on offer now that never existed before. You can literally be sitting anywhere in the world with an Net connection and work for or employ people who also can be sitting anywhere in the world where there is an Net connection. It is not at all unusual for someone to outsource the design of a website to Asia and the writing of content in English to the UK and then have it assembled and hosted in America for instance. This of course leaves many career opportunities for freelancers, because no one in a project such as the one above would become employed on a permanent basis. The freelancer gets paid on results alone. The work has to be of an agreed quality and supplied within an agreed time frame. Payment is done electronically too. Hundreds of jobs that now involve a computer may be outsourced to freelancers, which means that there are dozens and dozens of professions that could find work on line. Website work is the most common instance given, but there are also writing jobs and design work. A senior accountant living not a mile from me manages the books for a multi-million dollar firm from 5,000 miles away. Invoices are posted into the firm's accounting and job costing software in an office back in the company and he has access to that; papers that he needs to see are scanned and emailed to him and he has a mobile phone and VOIP for protracted conversations. Are you able to write articles? Why not have a go? Newspapers and magazines are always on the look out for well-written material on all sorts of topics including travel. Can you translate? If you know another language reasonably well, perhaps enough to read a newspaper, you could translate. Translators translate back into their mother tongue and in the comfort of your own home, you can have access to dictionaries and encyclopaedias. Employers usually prefer to use freelancers, outsources or sub-contractors}, call them what you will, because employment laws are a big headache in most Western countries. Freelancers can also work more cheaply, if they want to, because there are no extra travel expenses, no requirement for uniforms or costly office clothes and lower overheads in general.
If you want to try freelancing, search for the sort of job you are looking for specifically or if you are willing to try a range of tasks just enter in 'freelance work on the Internet' for a wide range of choice. Owen Jones, the author of this piece writes on quite a number of subjects, but is at present concerned with Professional Translation Services. If you want to know more go to our website at Real Translator Jobs Advice.