The cost of living in modern times is so high that extra income is by all means necessary. Fortunately, several sites and online platforms have arisen which grant people the ability to work for various organizations in different capacities, and as per their availability, opposed to being permanently employed by one organization and in one capacity for a fixed income. This practice is called freelancing.

The Top 5 Freelancing Sites

Formal employment as we know it today is becoming scarce by the day thanks to a rapidly growing global population and with it, the stiff competition for such resources. Freelancing is thus becoming the main income-earning channel for many would-be job-seekers. The discussion that follows aims to identify and explain the top 5 best sites to find online jobs with the aim of aiding potential freelancers to get started in this field.

Toptal

Toptal is a tech start-up company that is based in San Francisco, California area. It basically links engineers, software developers, and web designers among other technical graduates with prospective clients. It is currently available in 35 countries mostly in Europe, North America, Australia, and the Middle East. Prospective freelancers are subjected to very strict screening before being admitted.
Read our review

Freelancer

Freelancer is an online platform which grants prospective workers otherwise known as freelancers the opportunity to register, create a profile, and then bid for work from among the several projects of various categories that are posted there from time to time. It accepts freelancers from around 247 countries and has plenty of work indeed. It is one of the biggest freelancing websites in terms of the number of clients, freelancers, and projects posted.
Read our review

Upwork

Upwork is a freelancing company that was formed as a result of a merger between oDesk and Elance. It enables freelancers to create profiles and then bid for jobs of various categories including but not limited to web development, online writing, design & creativity, customer service, accounting & consultancy, and administrative assistance. Upwork is another huge freelancing website, with more than 4 million clients seeking workers for their projects.
Read our review

Guru

Guru is an online company that is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It brings together freelancers looking for work and millions of clients worldwide. Freelancers are only required to visit the company’s website, create a profile, and select work depending on their areas of interests and technical expertise from such categories as writing & translation, administrative support, sales & marketing, engineering & architecture, and management & finance, to mention but a few. It is one of the oldest freelancing websites out there.
Read our review

PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour was founded in the year 2005 and based in London. Its mission is to aid small technology companies who may not be able to hire full-time workers to secure the services of skilled workforce worldwide. Freelancers, especially those who specialize in Information Technology, are thus granted the opportunity to work for prestigious IT companies worldwide in areas such as web design, web development, web content creation, and web promotion, and in doing so, earn very generous amounts of money.
Read our review

Work on your Own Terms

Freelancing is one of the huge businesses today. It connects millions of clients with millions of freelancers. It provides amazing benefits for both the client and the freelancer. As the client can hire freelancers on demand, or per project basis, freelancers can work from home and in their own time. In addition, freelancers can bid on projects that they like and ignore the ones that they do not. Also, they can bid an amount that they think is suitable for the work being required to be done. Such benefits mean freelancing will continue to grow in the future.

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4 Skills for Effective Leadership in All Situations
By Chris Prato
Untold volumes of information have been written about effective leadership. All business owners know that effective leadership is essential to driving performance, but few understand what this really means. It seems that almost every day, there’s a new, “groundbreaking” approach to leadership described in some pop-business […]

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Six Predictions for Project Portfolio Management in 2016
By Kevin Kern
Each year we review and reflect on some of the industry specific Project Portfolio Management trends of the past year and consider trends for the coming year that might have an impact on the business. Here are our six predictions heading into 2016:
If you’re not […]

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One of the most fascinating aspects of the growth of the internet over the last decade is the opportunities that have come along with this growth. Among the many opportunities that the internet has created is that it has been able to open a door for skilled people. Finding a job has always been a hard task for many, but today, finding employment has been made easier by the internet. Freelancing is the main way in which the internet has been a source of employment for professionals. Among the many freelancing avenues is PeoplePerHour.com.

Introducing PeoplePerHour

PeoplePerHour is a UK based freelancing website. It is a private company that was founded in London in 2005. It was founded by Xenios Thrasyvoulou and Simos Kitiris. Today it has offices in London and New York and has reportedly over 250,000 active users, that consists of both freelancers and clients. PeoplePerHour supports mainly small companies and businesses who do not have the capability or will to hire full-time employees. These businesses therefore seek resources from freelancers online.

How it Works

PeoplePerHour has a system called Hourlies which allows freelancers to give an insight of how much work they can do at a certain price per hour. This system is flexible to allow a freelancer to have the freedom to give the quantity of work they think they are capable of doing at prices set by themselves. Hourlies also helps freelancers establish their reputation with employers and thus increase their chances of being hired for more projects. PeoplePerHour links up freelancers with businesses, and thus it enables freelancers to have remote communication and cooperation with their clients. Proposals are a key ingredient that freelancers need to master to capture the attention of prospective clients.

Who Choose PeoplePerHour

The main advantage of using PeoplePerHour is that as a freelancer you have the ability to access a wide array of projects that require various skills. There are jobs that range from computer programming, editing textbooks, writing website content, writing articles on various topics and so many more other types of skills in demand. Another advantage is that once a freelancer has built a good relationship with their clients, they are able to get more projects and thus be assured of always having some work to do. Establishing a good working relationship with clients is also vital in ensuring security of payment and guaranteed remuneration for work done.

Challenges at PeoplePerHour

One of the biggest challenges of freelancing on PeoplePerHour is the fact that in the bidding process, there are always bidders who are willing to go lower. It is therefore common to be undercut by other freelancers in the bidding process. This scenario is however very common to freelancers who are beginners at the website. As your reputation as a freelancer grows, the challenges become less and the benefits begin to outweigh them. In addition, some clients can also have very high expectations or change the terms of agreement midway through the project. This can prove to be a challenge for freelancers.

Concluding Remarks

Working in an online environment is a challenging endeavor in many ways. To be successful at PeoplePerHour, it is vital to build a good relationship with clients. All-in-all, PeoplePerHour is a great avenue for freelancers seeking to increase their income by selling their skills online. For more tips and the latest news, visit their social pages at Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

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Today, there are a lot more freelancing websites than there were a few years ago. Freelancing is a thriving online business that has been growing ever since the internet started evolving. Having started at a smaller scale during the early years of blogging, freelancing has grown to emerge as a self-sustaining industry in the digital world. In recent years, several big freelancing companies have emerged. Most of these companies are registered businesses in countries where they operate from. One of the long existing freelance companies is Guru.com.

Introducing Guru

Guru is an online freelancing website that was founded back in 1998. It first started out under a different name, initially being called eMoonlighter.com. After making some acquisitions and expansion plans, it has since then grown and expanded into the giant freelancing marketplace that it is today. It is headquartered in Pittsburgh, United States.

How it Works

Guru is a freelancing website where freelancers are paid on hourly rates for their projects. Membership is acquired by signing up on the website. The process is usually an easy one for most people with basic internet skills. The membership is also free at the basic level. The continued use of the website gives the freelancer an opportunity to enhance their portfolio and increase their rank thus enabling them to receive better paying projects as well as have a good reputation with clients. Guru charges a commission of 8.95% for each project that is assigned to a freelancer. The payment is however adjusted to show the amount that the freelancer will earn. The biggest advantage of doing freelance work is the flexibility of the job. Guru was once very famous because of its marketing strategies where it encouraged freelancers to seek opportunities in the website by selling the ‘work from home’ idea. Indeed, this ability to be able to earn an income from the comfort of home is a big advantage of doing freelance work that cannot be overlooked.

Why Choose Guru

Being one of the most established and long existing freelancing websites, Guru has earned a reputation among many freelancers and has grown over the many years because of referrals and word of mouth. The testimonies of freelancers have enabled Guru to continue encouraging more and more freelancers to give it a try and making it their chosen avenue for selling their skills. The trust that its clientele has upon its ability to have a good working environment for both clients and freelancers is enough to encourage any budding freelancer. In addtion, Guru has a Safepay model of payment where freelancers are guaranteed payment for their work done. If a freelancer has been assigned a project, they are able to confidently work on it as this model is a great assurance of their rightfully earned money.

Challenges at Guru

For new freelancers at Guru, finding the right project can be a difficult task. Placing the right bid can also prove to be hard. Many times, beginner freelancers have to spend hours reading through every project before they can find the right one which they can work on. The process of bidding is also a new idea to beginners on the site and understanding how to make a good bid without overbidding or underbidding is a challenge to someone doing it for the first time. Additionally some new freelancers have found the website difficult to navigate. This, coupled with misunderstandings between freelancers and the websites customer care, are some of the challenges that freelancers can usually come across. But all in all, Guru is definitely a remarkable company in the field of freelancing and a good avenue for prospective freelancers to earn a good income. For more reviews and information, visit their Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn pages.

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Critical Attributes of a Good Leader
By Aaron D Smith
Reflection is an important component of effective leadership and efficient management. When was the last time you were able to think back on your own performance as a manager or leader? Sure, you may have your annual performance review when your supervisor explains the highs and lows […]

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Hiring a good software engineer is tough. This article provides some helpful tips on networking, recognizing talent, finding hiring websites, etc to help non-developers hire the best possible software engineers. Before we go further, make sure you take a look at our recent article: The Best 5 Job Websites to Find and Hire Freelancers.

Know what makes a good engineer

Keep in mind that it’s going to next to impossible to properly evaluate engineering talent unless you’re a software engineer yourself. While you should definitely include someone like this from your team in your screening process, there are certain equally critical things you should be looking for in the meantime.

In particular, just as important as technical know-how are problem-solving skills, professionalism, and communication ability. Can your candidate explain complex concepts in terms that are easy to understand? Their communication skills must be good enough that you have a clear grasp of the tradeoffs of various architectural decisions they make, and are fully aware of what they’re working on at any given time.

Use a good talent network

Unless you’re extremely lucky, you’re probably not going to meet the perfect engineer at your local holiday party. They probably don’t live in the same country, let alone city, as you. In order to make sure that you get the best talent available, it’s absolutely vital that you use a trusted company to help you find a engineer. Whatever small cost you’ll have to pay for the match is going to be far lower than the cost of hiring an inferior or imperfect designer. For the best, sleekest option here, we recommend you try Toptal, a solid company that has a rigorous verification process for its engineers and a great white glove service for clients.

It’s all about the talent

Consider two options: a talented software engineer who’s going to work for you for a few months, or a so-so engineer who’s willing to work for two years. Which do you choose? The answer should be obvious: it’s always the right move to prioritize talent over permanence. Most of the best engineers are going to be looking for better and better jobs, and won’t be doing freelance forever.

Your goal should be to snatch them up for a bit of time while you have the chance, rather than rely on inferior engineers who are willing to stay around longer. Here’s a hint: if they’re willing to stay around forever, they probably don’t have a lot of other options, which suggests that they’re probably not so great at what they do. Another benefit of prioritizing talent is that talent attracts talent. The more dynamic, skilled engineers you have working for you, the more likely you’ll be able to convince other talented freelancers to come work for you.

Culture, culture, culture

In any industry, employees consistently rate office culture as one of the most important factors in their decision to remain with – or leave – a company. Even if your freelancers aren’t working for you in person, forging a creative, dynamic culture that fosters ingenuity is key in order to retain quality engineers.

The more upbeat and motivated your office culture is, whether it’s online or in person, the more upbeat and motivated your employees will be, and the more likely you’ll be able to get your most talented engineers to keep working for you rather than move onto more challenging or fun projects. Another benefit of a dynamic office culture is that you’ll encourage creativity: the more your engineers feel that they have room to push their limits, the more likely they’ll be to come up with innovative solutions to design conundrums.

Build a team

There are a lot of aspects to building an effective team. One is that it’s better to have a couple of really good engineers than one amazing engineer and a couple of idiots. While you always want to prioritize talent, you also need to make sure that you have a deep bench. If you only have one super-capable engineer, you won’t be able to trust most of your team and your one hotshot will probably end up finding a better job.

Building a team also requires that you identify which engineers are going to be well matched for particular tasks. Make sure you to retain a balance of different specializations to keep your company as adaptable as possible.

With these helpful tips, be sure to get the talent you need for your team!

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The creation of a knowledge management plan is important to the success of any business. A reliable knowledge base is needed to allow people to learn more about whatever a company has and to get the help they demand. Your KM strategy should be designed to where it will create the best possible knowledge base to help support your customer relationships.

Create Objectives

To start, you have to establish a series of objectives. You have to take a closer look at the targeted end that you want to reach based on what problems need to be fixed and when objectives should be resolved. If used right, you will have an easier time with organizing your knowledge base the right way.

Understand the Processes You Want To Follow

The processes that you can use within your KM program should be checked carefully. A reliable knowledge base can help you understand the most out of your campaign.

• The processes that you will use must entail a series of crucial steps relating to the following:
  Creating new entries
• Classifying data into a series of select segments
• Validating information as it comes in
• Maintaining data
• Measuring and reporting on all documents

When all information is used right, it should be easier for a knowledge management professional to take care of the information the right way as it comes in and continues to work properly.

Think About Growth

The growth within your business can be dramatic if you have a great knowledge management plan going. You need to keep that growth going for as long as possible if your business is to succeed. One way how you can do this is by considering the overall growth you will have within your business based on new projects and how it will change over time.

The growth within your business can be extensive but you must make sure it is checked upon based on the mistakes that might have taken place and any other new changes that you’ve gotten into. Take a look at points like how new changes have come about within your workplace and what can be done to make the workplace more efficient.

Implementation Is Crucial

The process of implementing your knowledge management plan can be vital to its success. You must know how to implement a strong plan based on such points as the content being introduced and how the data is to be organized. You have to use this carefully to give yourself the control you deserve within your campaign. This in turn can help you keep the content that you are working on as easy to figure out and send as possible.

Understand How Data Is Organized

The amount of data that you could be using in your plan can be endless. However, a big part of the customer relationship management process that cannot be afforded to be ignored is the way how the data is to be arranged and used. The data within your system must be organized carefully to where only the right content is used without the information being too complicated or otherwise hard to use.

In particular, think about what you want to have public and what should be kept private. You must also choose different pieces of content that will be accessible at certain points on a website. These include points that may only be accessible to a certain number of people at a given time. You must be careful when using this information so you will have more support for your business while only sharing information based on what you might require to share with others.

Your knowledge management plan will be easy to follow through and use if you have a great idea of what you want to have done. When using the right steps, you will keep your knowledge base running to where it will be easy to utilize while giving people plenty of information as needed.

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Did you know that a survey conducted by Forrester out of almost 10 000 information workers discovered that 94% of them e-mail, but only 25% of them use video conferencing solutions? Or that The United States economy loses $50-$150 billion per year due to failed IT projects? Or maybe that 57% of projects fail due to communication break down? It is pretty clear from these stats that by the end of last year project management hadn’t earned the “digital” prefix its fellow departments like sales, marketing, development etc. have.

However, there are serious indications that 2016 will be the years project management makes the leap other departments already have. Serious technological advancements, covering not only project and portfolio management software solutions, but also cloud storage devices, integrative cross-platform services, and the “bring your own device” to work trend are definitely reassuring that digital project management is the new project management.

Project and Portfolio software solutions

A recent survey from Wrike states that project management software is used by 77% of all interviewed companies, and an enormous 87% of high performing companies (source). Moreover, 66% of organizations use PM software to communicate with their clients. This is a real eye opener to small businesses who still do not rely on software to optimize their projects, especially given the fact that team communication and quality of the final product, and we can definitely expect higher adoption rate in the year to come.

The rise of cloud storage services

This is a trend which has not lived up to expectations in 2015, and mainly because of medium and large companies preferring to keep PM related information on their own company servers, rather than cloud solutions. However, with data security no longer an issue (or at least a smaller one), and price drops in business cloud storage packages we can expect higher adoption from large companies in 2016, allowing access to PM plans and schedules anytime, anywhere.

Bring your own device

2015 was a big year for tablets and mobile phones working in service of project management. We saw an increasing number of employees bringing their own private devices to work, resulting in higher productivity, mainly as a result of a lower learning curve. As integration across devices is no longer an issue having project details on employees’ personal devices will definitely ensure higher employee involvement in projects.

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Think You’re Cut Out for PM in 2016? Take This Quiz!
By Joel Roberts
Are you sure you are ready for the challenges 2016 will bring to project management? PM is not immune to the technological revolution that is shaking other departments for a few decades now. There are definitive changes to follow as 2016 progresses and […]

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