Funny Requirements at Craigslist

For five years I have been conscientiously following job ads posted at Craigslist. In fact I can say I got most of my projects from Craigslist, and also all of my scam experiences are from Craigslist ads too.

From the way I see it, there were more good companies posting before compared to the present. The present crowd posting at Craigslist are kind of blurry in their requirements for online workers. Here’s a couple of funny and outrageous requirements:

Article Writer needed:

Must have error-free english ( this is an outrageous requirement. I’d like to see a non-English native speaker coming up with error free English. I mean even Shakespeare was found to have grammatical error, so what makes the modern thinkers think that they can find a writer with error-free english in a country that is a non-native English speaking one, and one who comes cheap as well??  )

The Ability to write 5-10 articles a day ( I’d like to find if Shakespeare or the other great writers were able to do this during their prime  )

Web Design Talent Needed Immediately – Requirements:

Website research

Keyword Research

User Login Sign ups for Multiple Social Networks

Daily Article Submission using Software

Social Bookmarking Website Pages

Run Report From Analytics, adwords etc.

Blogging

Yahoo answers

Craigslist Posting

( wheww! Actually the job position should be separted, the Website developer could be the one to do the analytics and adwords and page linking. A web assistant would be the one to the other task. You cannot ask your web developer to do Craigslist posting!….Web developers usually ask for a higher pay rate than regular online staff because theirs is a different set of skills. Research and the other tasks are of a different skills also. )

Full time position for a Customer Service Adminstrator / Webmaster. ( This one beats them all, in chinese there is a term – being a manager at the same time being the janitor.  I don’t know if the Company here is looking for a webmaster or web mistress, accountant, virtual assistant or website content writer. )

Daily job tasks will involve the following:
- Improving, Updating and Running several websites.
- Handling the accounting and inventory management and customer service aspects the websites e-com portions.
- Handling basic office accounting and basic office administration.
- When not working on website related activity, assist the business leader with other important business needs and projects.

Job Requirements:
1 Professional and responsible. 3 or more years employment desired. 4 year college degree preferred.
2 Experience with basic business processes such as purchasing, invoicing, basic accounting
3 Experienced in overall website management. Familiar with basic html, php, mysql, etc. Strong understanding of costs of outsourcing programing, hosting, etc.
4 Experience with whitehat SEO techniques, ability to create and develop new topic rich content for the website.
5 Strong written English required. Good spoken English a strong plus.
6 Working knowledge of Perl would be desirable.

There’s more from where it came from. Check your Craigslist ads to day.

Scared of Data Entry Scams?

I have noticed that the most read about post in my blog is the one “Beware of Data Entry Scams”. This indicates that there are a lot of people looking to work online plus a lot of people looking to do data entry. Just on the side note, a lot of people I know have been asking me if I can share some of the data entry projects that I do cause they want to do that kind of work, and I tell them straight out that “you and a million others are looking to do data entry work”. You should read my post about the different types of data entry work because it can be more complicated than you think.

Anyway, I think that it is good that people now has the knowledge  about scams, because when I started my virtual career, I didn’t know about this as work scams were something new and I got scammed several times.

There is however one question I have been asked repeatedly and that is if I think the website is a scam.

Here is my answer, Never, Never work or apply for work with a company or website that ask you to pay. I don’t know about others, but based on my experience, the best companies I work for and work with didn’t ask me for payments.

Just as the same, for virtual clients, never engage the services of people or companies that ask you to pay first before showing you some work, unless the companies are the big legitimate companies. I have clients complained to me that they paid somebody in advance but didn’t get any work done.

So I hope everyone is clear on this. Take care and best of luck!