When you are getting started on Elance, you might want to take a little less than you might normally, just to get started. But after that, you can boost your rate up, though there are still plenty of buyers posting jobs offering $3 an hour, but wanting $12 – $15 an hour worth of experience and quality!

Here are some recent listings from Elance. These “buyers” (people or companies looking to hire a “provider”–that’s YOU!) have purchased before through Elance and use the Elance escrow program.

I need someone who can help with a few routine day to day tasks that can be handled by email. I am looking initially for 2hours per day, 5 days a week.

I am looking for an internet savvy administrator with research skills. Please specify your hourly rate.

With certain types of businesses, you may be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement or NDA. This is standard, and living up to the NDA means you don’t discuss the private info you see in the course of your work. Respect your employer by following the NDA.

So save yourself some gas and traffic stress; go find YOUR telecommuting niche! Here are a couple of recent Virtual Assistant Jobs on Elance. There is no fee to join Elance; bid on 3 jobs per month for free. Upgrade for more bid opportunities as you wish on a month-by-month basis.

• Since the VA tasks will include significant communication requirements, please bid only if you are a highly fluent native English speaker, available during business hours, with a clear telephone connection (preferably a North American land-line).
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• Magazine Publisher located in California, USA (Pacific Standard Time) needs Transcribing, Internet Research, and General Secretarial Support (calendaring, following up, checking in, etc.). 4 hours weekdays from July 15 to August 14, 2008.
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• [This one has OPEN BIDDING, so you can see what people are saying and bidding. Some will simply say "See PMB" and it goes private.]

  What I need: Someone willing to take on a slow trickle of miscellaneous research and writing projects from me over a long time. Will include some writing, possibly website updating, blog entries, e-mail correspondence, internet research, travel booking and more.
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When I started bidding on Elance transcription jobs, I had about 2 years of experience. It had been awhile since I worked, so I bid in the $25-$30 range. It didn’t take long to get back up to speed, so I raised my price to $40/audio hour. And even that may be a little cheap for the quality and speed I offer. Hey, if you don’t toot your own horn, nobody’s going to do it for you…

So here are some recently listed transcription jobs from established buyers who use escrow. Links are in the first sentence. Happy Freelancing!

• This is a really easy job for someone that knows what their doing. I’m looking for someone to transcribe and losely format (a.k.a. paragraphs) on a four and a half hour seminar I did on how to market yourself as a coach.

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• I will have an ongoing need for transcription of .wav files that will be submitted to provider via e-mail. I will need 24-hour turn around on each file provided. Specific instructions for each document will be provided in the .wav file. Document formats will include Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The proposal needs to indicate the ongoing hourly rate for transcription services as well as estimated turn around. Files will be submitted 2-4 days per week. Provider will need to sign a non-disclosure agreement due to the confidential nature of the information being transcribed.
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• Approximately 32-33 hours of audio needs transcribed. It must be accurate, with proper spelling and punctuation. It should also be broken down into paragraphs that are easy to read and logically make sense. You will need to notate who is speaking with initials at the beginning of each person’s passage.

  What will be provided:
  Approximately 10-15 hours of audio will be provided within 24 hours of project award. 3 hours of the original audio, which I will specifically name, will need to be turned around within 36 hours, so that I can review the quality of your work and make suggestions. For the remainder of the initial audio, you will have a maximum of 5 days to turn around the transcription.

• It’s okay to take low paying jobs if you are starting out. It helps build your skill and practice, and as this occurs, have the confidence to increase your rate.
• Have some samples of work ready to go. If you don’t have any samples, write some up in subject matter you feel comfortable with and enjoy.
• Add a personal touch when placing your bid. Particularly in the writing category, buyers may be want to hear your voice rather than a canned bid that gets copied and pasted with each new project.

Here are some recently listed jobs: each is from a buyer who has paid on projects previously and who uses escrow. No guarantee, but it’s a good start. You can join for free with no membership fees and have 3 bidding opportunities per month.

• Web Copy for a Course on Small Animal Care
  We need 3,000 words of copy for a one-page website selling a home-study course called the Diploma in Small Animal Care. The course will help the student learn about animal care, and maybe lead to a job in a veterinary surgery, kennels, cattery, rescue centre or pet store.

• Ghost Blog Writer

  You are bidding on an initial get-to-know each other and show us what you can do, paid project. We may select more than one writer as a result. This initial project is to telephone interview the subject matter expert and develop some ideas. You are expected to either bring ideas to the expert, or through interviewing, draw them out…We are looking for you to interview and then write 10, 2-8 paragraph blog postings…

• Learn to Sing Articles
  I need someone to write 16 articles on the subject of learning how to sing with a few variations and particular angles to be explained on successful bid. The articles should be between 250 to 500 words and delivered within a week of winning the bid.

I need a good English speaking VA that can book travel, events, restaurants and do any admin tasks that I need with a fast response time…
Specific expertise that I am seeking:
Excellent english speaker, well educated.
Basic Excel, data entry skills, database creating skills, great web research skills and use of search engines.
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I need someone to do ongoing web-based research to help me find an apartment.

The tasks are:

- to check websites of property letting agents for newly available apartments matching my criteria
- create/update a spreadsheet of this information

This will be on an ongoing basis (twice a week).

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I am currently looking for a Virtual Assistant to help me out with some aspects of running my business and work-related life. Initially the duties would be fairly light, but could expand into much more if this little experiment goes well.

I tested out the Elance membership for the past month, and am very happy with the variety of jobs I have received from the extra bidding opportunities. I still have 4 more connects for the next 2 days and I have decided it is definitely worth the $10/month for me to renew. I don’t love the fees charged for each job; I think they are too high for lower-paying jobs, but I accept them as part of the cost of doing business.

I have been looking around the web for other people’s experiences, and have seen that some people get burned by buyers who don’t pay them after they’ve done the work. You can minimize this possibility by doing the following:

• Use Elance escrow, free for buyer and provider and protects both of you. Particularly important when bidding on projects posted by new buyers.
• Once you accept a project, try to secure additional contact information about the buyer, like a phone or e-mail address. You can get the e-mail address from “Accepted Projects” under “My Elance”
• Bid on projects whose buyer is well-established, who has already paid out on other Elance jobs previously.
• You will usually receive an e-mail stating that the buyer has funded the project. If you don’t receive this e-mail, you can request through Elance that it be funded.
• Consider using contracts.

Of course, these steps won’t guarantee you won’t get burned.

Their system of bidding allows job providers to bid on jobs offered by “buyers”. When you join, you can create a provider profile that allows you to showcase your skills. Or if you have references or samples of your work, you can simply post that info each time you bid. I maintain a profile, but I customize each bid that I place with relevant information. If I were hiring someone that I couldn’t meet in person, I would love to know a little more about them than just some boring cut and paste blurb that they created to make themselves sound like they think they should sound. Of course, the level of formality or informality will vary with the type of work you are looking for and the type of person you are. I am somewhat informal and looking for positions working with people who are easy to get along with.

You can view my provider profile for iontreasures at http://iontreasures.elance.com

I need an assistant to help me stay organised. This is likely to be a long term project to be reviewed monthly. For the purposes of this quote, assume it lasts for 2 months. Please quote on the specifications below on a monthly basis. Please also identify if an initial set up charge is applicable.
Electronic Filing
You will receive from me approximately 15 pdf files per week (between 15 and 25 pages). The files will be a mix of invoices, receipts, household filing (eg school notices, medical) and business related documents…

I am looking to hire a personal assistant, to handle some of my emails and do some email marketing for me. I also need a list of RSS feeds compiled. Once you have compiled the feeds, they need to be sorted through and condensed. They need to be filtered first by keyword and then filtered by reading and only selecting relevant content. There are probably about 500 to 2000 posts a day.
Requirements :
I would like to work with a single individual. I don’t have a problem working with a company as long as I can deal solely with one person.
Skills needed:
-Good English (comprehension and writing)
-RSS reader knowledge (how to use one, and how to create folders by keyword, and I need the .opml file exported)