Content Monetization Manager (Department: Production)

There are an incredible number of ways to monetize content coming onto the horizon. The days of CPM being the only game in town are over. Affiliate links, daily deals, in-text ads, sponsorships, promoted on-site Twitter feeds and remnant inventory optimization: It’s all coming your way if you make money from content. How to best utilize these monetization strategies for your users, your content, your site design and your bottom line is a tricky thing. The content monetization manager will make use of all of the content monetization tools available, the underlying usage analytics, and the CMS, and will constantly A/B test monetization strategies and page layouts to maximize revenue, while preserving the user experience.

Webmaster 2.0 (Department: Marketing)

Pretty much no one has the title of “Webmaster” any more. But like all things retro, it’s coming back. The new webmaster, much like the content monetization manager, will be responsible for fine-tuning every detail of the corporate website to produce the desired result (sales or leads). Websites are becoming much more dynamic, more content-heavy (including text, images and video), and blurring with corporate blogs. Tools of the webmaster 2.0 include Google Analytics, SEO, Salesforce integration (for closed-loop data), and the CMS. The job will include lots of A/B testing of landing pages, cohort analysis and a healthy dose of keyword and inbound linking SEO.

Amplification Manager (Department: Marketing)

As social media evolves and expands, it also becomes more diluted. Many social media vanguards have now pushed Tweeting and Facebooking down to the internship level (partly because it is so time-consuming). What is emerging is a radical new philosophy of amplification: the ability to use social media, SEO, virality, and sharing as a powerful mechanism for promotion. While most social media managers would sum up the first five years of social media as “engagement,” the next five will be about “amplifying.” Like having sharing buttons in all the right places, cross-posting, SEO, targeted retweets and Klout scores (amplification being a big part of this score). If you’re not amplifying, you’re dying.

Game Mechanics Designer (Department: Engineering/Product Management)

Just like almost every website has a sharing feature, every application in the next few years will have game mechanics. Easy to understand, but harder than you think to design, game mechanics will become a full-fledged job. Just like any application development company worth its salt has a studied and knowledgeable UX person on the team, the game mechanics designer role will become just as important and prevalent.

Employee Mechanics Designer (Department: HR)

The future of the employee experience will be much like Foursquare. You’re in sales and made 50 phone calls in a day? Great, you just got the “Heavy Dialer” badge. You’re in QA? Well how many bugs did you close out today? Check the company QA leaderboard. It’s all coming; Marc Benioff is already talking about integrating these kind of features into Salesforce.com.

Much like the game mechanics designer designs the incentive and engagement structure in your application, the employee mechanics designer will design the internal game that is your business, which will include an ever-evolving set of rules that must be aligned with the current goals of the company.

Metrics Manager (Department: Finance)

The metric manager’s job is to extract data from every nook and cranny of the company. Once the stream of data is flowing, it’s then time to put it in a data warehouse and do interesting things with it. Pretty charts and pictures usually are the most engaging place to start, but departmental dashboards and daily metrics emails will be more useful. Metrics managers will love statistics and Tufte.

Crowd Manager (Department: Crowd and Community – A New Department)

In the next 10 years, every company will leverage the crowd in some shape or form. Whether it’s directly through building applications in Mechanical Turk or sponsoring designs in 99Designs, or indirectly by managing a sub-crowd in a marketplaces like Trada (for advertising) or Napkin Labs (for design). How you interface with the crowd, how you incentivize them (payment, praise, virtual currency, rewards), and, more importantly, how you teach your own company to work with them correctly is key.

In case you don’t want to work for anyone (how very Gen-Y of you) — there are also some amazing self-employment opportunities arising as well:

Crowd Worker (Self-Employed)

Having a boss is so 2010. The next generation of workers will be gainfully self-employed working in the crowd whenever and wherever they want. As crowdsourcing marketplaces (such as Trada’s performance-based advertising marketplace) reach critical mass and generate real dollars for their workers, full-time livings are being made by a few. Soon the few shall be the masses. 2011 will be the year that crowdsourcing as a viable business and a viable job becomes a reality.

Expect the increase in the self-service workforce to drive the need for new regulation (and opportunity) around individual and group-buying healthcare. It would also be a good time to invest in Starbucks, the primary office-space of the crowd-crowd.

Life Coach 2.0 (Self-Employed)

It used to be the good old days where you could just pack your old self in a box, move to another town, and start over. Unfortunately, with everything in the cloud, your former self is destined to keep following you. What you need is some expertise.

The new life coach will be versed in online reputation building and PR. They’ll know about services like About.me before you do. They’ll be monitoring your Klout scores and crowd reputation. Breach some etiquette on Twitter or make some public faux pas – no problem – your life coach can just SEO that away for you in a few weeks.

As the future become about reputation, engagement and online social profile, we’ll all need a little help smoothing out the edges. Life coaches will need to know about building reputation, scoring algorithms, and how to be a better you (at least statistically speaking).

Personal Trainer 2.0 (Self-Employed)

The future of the self is measurement. How many footsteps did I take today (FitBit)? How many calls at work did I make (employee game mechanics)? How did my Klout score go up or down? Am I meeting my workout goals on DailyMile?  The old personal trainer/nutritionist role will morph into a digital age version of itself, focused on measuring first, optimizing second. Skills will include technology (measurement), data management (storage), analysis, and medical and privacy law.

Niel Robertson is a three-time entrepreneur and CEO of Trada Paid Search, a crowdsourced paid search marketplace. You can find Niel on Twitter at @nielr1.

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According to a report from oDesk, employers in December continued a previous trend of looking to hire mobile developers, especially those skilled in developing iOS applications. The “Mobile Apps” category has jumped from 19th place to 10th over the last year. This underscores predictions made in Simon’s recent article for GigaOM Pro, “Top Remote Work Trends to Watch for in 2011″ (sub. req.), and Aliza’s discussion of the ubiquity of mobile platforms.

The three most frequently-posted job categories (unchanged from the previous year) are web programming, web design and blog/article writing. In addition, the SEO, data entry, and graphic design categories continue to be popular.

The report also showed a very large (319 percent) increase in postings for translation jobs, and for those with expertise in such languages as Spanish, German and Korean. Technical skills used in web development, such as PHP, HTML, CSS, WordPress, Photoshop, SEO, MySQL, and JavaScript, hold most of the top ten ranked skills requested. The top ten skills list also includes English and writing.

The “Online Employment Report” also found that job postings for business planning and market strategy professionals more than doubled from 2009, with a 123 percent increase in hiring.

The report shows that the three top countries of origin for contractors employed through oDesk are India, the Philippines and the U.S., followed by other central European and Asian countries, and Canada.

The report concludes that “Online work is creating an economy of opportunity — where work is not linked to location, but to skills, experience and abilities. This shift towards a flexible, on-demand workforce is becoming an established hiring model for companies of all sizes to get more done with less, scale to meet demand, and increase efficiency. For employees and contractors, this allows them to manage their own work-life balance, get paid based on merit, and access an entire world of work opportunities.”

Which of your skills are employers most interested in today?

Disclosure: Automattic, the maker of WordPress.com, is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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Last year, the New York Times published an article (login required) citing research finding that about 80 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions break them by Valentine’s Day. A study from 2007 supports this, saying only twelve percent of people achieve their New Year’s goals.

Perhaps this means that before we list our goals for 2011, we should take a closer look at our own attitudes towards goal-setting. What misconceptions do we have, and what can we do to remedy them?

Myth #1: Tell everyone your goals so that you’re publicly accountable.

In theory, publicizing your goals with friends, or on your blog or Facebook profile, might force you to achieve them, so as not to be seen as someone who’s all talk and no action. But according to a 2009 study by goal-setting researcher Peter Gollwitzer (PDF), this isn’t always true. Most people state their behavioral goals in very general terms (“My goal is to eat healthier”) that gives the premature impression we’ve already done them.

Here’s what works instead: implementation intentions. Gollwitzer defines them (PDF) as a plan spelling out when, where, and how you intend to accomplish a goal. In fact, another study (PDF) shows that implementation intentions work so well that they can help you accomplish your goals despite the presence of distracting thoughts and emotions.

This doesn’t mean it’s easy after you establish a plan. You’ll need to check and update your plan often. It’s also important to start working on your goal as soon as possible. The more time your goal remains inactive after you’ve stated your intentions, the less likely you are to accomplish it.

Myth #2: Reward yourself for your progress.

Some people suggest that to keep yourself focused and motivated in your pursuit of a goal, you need to have rewards for accomplishments. For example, if you successfully stick to your schedule for a week, you’ll give yourself the license to go out with friends during the weekend. While there’s nothing wrong with rewards per se, you need to be careful about how you think of them.

Research shows that for large goals (e.g.. becoming healthier) that have many supporting subgoals (e.g.. sticking to a diet, exercising regularly), whenever you successfully achieve a subgoal, you should reward your personal commitment to the larger goal rather than to  your progress. Rewarding yourself for achieving one subgoal may lead you to ignore the other subgoals, because you’ll view them as substitutes. If you reward your commitment to the larger goal, the subgoals will seem interrelated, and you’ll be more driven to pursue each of them.

Myth #3: Focus on yearly goals.

By definition, New Year’s resolutions are goals that must be achieved within a year. While this tradition can work for some goals, it may not be effective to use such a long time-frame. First, even if we think we know ourselves well, we tend to be poor predictors of what we’ll need or feel in the future. Our perspectives, situations, and desires may differ greatly within a year. Second, most research (PDF) backs up the idea that setting short-term goals is more effective than looking at the big picture. This means that even if you have a list of yearly goals, it’s better to break them down into smaller monthly or weekly subgoals.

Given these goal-setting myths, we should be more attentive to how we set our goals, what works in practice, and what only seems effective in theory. By looking at our goal-setting behavior together with the goals themselves, we’ll be more likely to accomplish more this year.

Do you set goals during the New Year? Which tactics improve your success rate?

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It can be too easy to slip into the daily routine of work and the rest of your life without thinking about what you love to do. The beginning of the year is a great time to reflect on what you really want to be doing.

Here are a few suggestions for finding ways to do what you love, and still pay the bills.

Reflect

Before you do anything else, consider what you are passionate about. Think back over the past few months.

• Which projects were you excited to be working on? These are the projects you wanted to work on late into the night — not because you needed to meet a deadline, but because they were so much fun and interesting that you couldn’t put them down.
• Which projects left you feeling energized and excited?
• What was it about the projects that you loved? Were you excited about the data, the technology, the writing, the analysis or some other aspect?

Once you figure out what you love, the next step is to decide how to do more such projects, and reduce the amount time you spend on work that leaves you exhausted and drained.

Rework the Current Gig

If you already have a great job, but spend too much time on work that isn’t interesting, you can often redefine your job over time to end up with a job that you are passionate about. Volunteer to take on a special project that really interests you, and see if you can make it into a full-time job. I work with someone who loves organizing events. She arranged several events as side projects, and when the team grew, she was able to convince management to make events her full-time job.

You can also look for new opportunities within your company, and change jobs to do something more interesting. If you think there’s a need for a role that doesn’t exist, build a case for it based on real data. Convince management that someone needs to fill this role, and that you are the perfect person to fill it.

Have Side Projects

Side projects can be tricky to balance. On the one hand, they can give you something fun to work on that you can control. But too many of them can leave you drained, and steal your focus from other important work or relationships. For me, the best side projects are ones where I don’t care if I make money. If I need the money, such projects become more like work and less like play.

I tend to launch random, fun websites where I can practice my skills while creating something a few friends will enjoy. Over the holidays, I started working on a vegan cookbook. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I know it’s the right project because I have been working on it constantly over the past few days and looking forward to the work. Eventually, I’ll get to build another website for the book.

Make the Leap

If you’re really unhappy in your current job or freelance situation, take advantage of an economy that is starting to rebound. Now is a good time to:

• Build new skills,
• Start working on different types of projects,
• Look for another job, or
• Make the shift to consulting or freelancing.

Take a fresh look at what you really love to do, and consider all the options.

What projects ignite your passion? Share how you have been able to find work that keeps you excited and energized.

Photo by Flickr user Marcy Kellar used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

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Certainly, some of us make half-hearted attempts to accomplish a few of our life and business goals. But how many people do you know who put everything on the line to pursue their deepest, most life-changing dreams? What are the rest of us doing, and what are we waiting for?

Choices and Challenges

Of course, circumstances get in the way. There are challenges, setbacks and detours. But each of us has a choice. Although it won’t be easy to navigate back to the right path, if we say that we can’t find our way around obstacles, we’re making a choice to leave things as they are.

Last night, I was reading about Roald Dahl, author of such hopeful and imaginative books as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. That might be my absolute favorite story about an underdog who overcomes obstacles while continuing to believe in something, even when all is stacked against him.

It turns out Roald Dahl was a lot like his character Charlie. Dahl’s personal life was filled with hardship and tragedy. In spite of all the challenges he faced, he remained positive and achieved great things. As it says on his website, “The series of misfortunes and tragedies Dahl… suffer[ed did not] made him more bitter. Loss and physical adversity seemed to stimulate his enormous energies to positive action. He fought misfortune as if it was a dragon to be slain.”

Time to Dream Big

I hope that 2011 will be a year of great progress toward achieving our deeply-buried dreams, and a year of doing things that require us to step out of our comfort zones and test our abilities, even if they lead to failure or, even more frightening, success.

I challenge you, as we round out these last few days of 2010: dust off those gutsy dreams and ambitions you’ve kept to yourself until now. Dare to put yourself out there; do something big this coming year. It doesn’t need to look big to anyone else, but you’ll know it is, because it will require you to go out on a limb and do things in an entirely different way.

For 2011, live the way you truly want to live, and achieve what you’ve only ever dreamed you could achieve.

What big, audacious goals do you have for 2011?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Neal

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I keep meeting web workers who, citing personal preference, fatigue, or lack of time, fail to bother with certain new concepts, sites, or services. I’ve met web workers this year who thought Twitter was a waste of time, electronic newsletters were dead and blogging was for teenagers.

There’s probably a little of the nay-sayer in all of us — we all have personal preferences that lead us toward certain aspects of the web. But these choices can limit our ability to participate in the world in which we earn our livings.

I’m a case in point: in my work, I deal with copyright issues every day, and I believe strongly in the concept of copyright. So I’ve never been to a torrent site, and I’ve never downloaded ripped content (besides unwittingly viewing illegally copied images or text on offending websites). I doubt that I really understand the nature or extent of the ripped content that’s available online, or how easily and prolifically it’s shared, replicated and accessed illegally.

That’s not an isolated example. I have a contact in human resources who doesn’t use LinkedIn. I have a friend who works in community-brand building, but hasn’t got a Facebook account. I’ve worked with content producers who don’t know what social bookmarking is.

What Are You Missing?

I’m sure you can think of similarly gob-smacking examples of self-inflicted ignorance. Why do we do it to ourselves? And what’s it doing to us?

The answer to the first question isn’t difficult to find: information overload and time limitations have honed our abilities to swiftly sift and prioritize the information we access, and to focus on that which we believe will help us achieve our goals. In my case, since I’m only looking for access to legal content that doesn’t infringe copyright, I haven’t had a need to access illegal download sites.

While it’s fair to say that if we didn’t prioritize what we see, and focus on what we needed, we’d be doomed to a tedious eternity spent “surfing the ‘net” (remember that?!), the limitations of applying a needs-basis filter to the information and services we investigate are considerable.

By unconsciously relying on our own preferences, morals, or off-the-cuff perceptions to direct the way we interact online, we restrict our knowledge — and our ability to gain more. In the long term, we may also reduce our employment prospects, our ability to work with others, and our potential to move into the fields that interest us.

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Everyone has inevitable gaps in their knowledge, and I’m not advocating swamping ourselves in a tsunami of media consumption.

But what if we slightly altered our philosophy toward the way we filter information — one that was conscious of our personal preferences, and actively worked to assess their helpfulness on a case-by-case basis?

I’m not about to start torrenting Hollywood’s entire 2010 output, and perhaps you’re determined never to join a social networking site, or even the thought of using an RSS feed kicks your nervous twitch into overdrive. Maybe there are some preferences or morals that we’re perfectly happy to describe as our “limits.”

That’s fine — as long as we make that choice consciously. But should we let our unconscious preferences restrict our understanding of what’s happening in our chosen fields? Should they stop us from gaining  experience or building our expertise?

I don’t think so. I have the feeling that the more I look at my areas of specialization, the more places I’ll find that these preferences have curtailed my understandings and perceptions.

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Web workers don’t need to actively seek jobs to find them. These days, the jobs find their way to us. Job ads are part of the information overload that plagues web workers.

Once upon a time, we had to scour newspapers for jobs. Then we began to rely on friends and web working contacts to let us know about cool opportunities. But now even the most steadfast web company employees are being bombarded daily (or weekly, or monthly) with job offers.

It’s not just social media that’s the culprit — although personal recommendations of some job opportunities via social media certainly adds to their appeal. Web workers routinely have job searches set up on job networks; we have LinkedIn profiles and blogs. We’re constantly receiving tweets, emails, IM and calls from companies that are interested in our skills.

If information technology jobs are to the 2010s what factory jobs were to the Industrial Revolution, then web company owners have some serious competition to consider. Web workers can secure work in any industry, with employers of any size.

Sure, your hip little web outfit might have pool tables, a bring-your-pet-to-work day, and a flexible start time, but unless your company can also compete on the basics — pay rates, expectation of working hours, staff development, company culture — it’ll likely lose staff to the ebbs and flows of the job information that’s coming our way every day.

Here are the five benefits the web workers I know want in their next job (and feel they’re not getting now).

Stability

Even here in Australia, where the GFC had mercifully little impact on the local job market, the web workers I know are tired of restructures, layoffs and retrenchments. For those in other countries, the frustration must be considerable.

But stability also implies predictability: Can we expect our projects to run on time? How often are we fighting fires as a result of inadequate processes? How frequently are we called on to work unpaid overtime at the last minute? Perhaps it’s just me, but web companies seem often to have higher expectations of what their staff will do for them — and be able to achieve — at short notice than organizations in other industries.

Career Plans

Pool tables and iPhones do not a career plan make. While perks are cool, many web workers would like to have some idea of where they’re headed, career-wise. If they can’t see a career progression through your organization, they may well begin to listen to the job-seeking hubbub in their social networks, be they online or off.

The swift growth of web companies means that often, human resources essentials like periodic performance reviews, career goal-setting, and so on, can be neglected, leaving web workers with little idea of where they might be headed with their current employer — or whether that employer even cares.

Remuneration

Those job sites have a knack of sending web workers ads for well-paid jobs. If your web business can’t afford to keep up with market rates — or better them — you may well have trouble attracting or retaining good staff.

Contracting, too, is a growing field where web workers can often earn better rates than they would as a permanent staff member — and it delivers that other great benefit: flexibility.

Flexibility

The numbers of people who wish to work remotely, part time, or with more flexible hours is growing; several of my contacts have left employers who wouldn’t compromise on the full-time, on-site work philosophy. And why not? Lifestyle matters, and in a competitive market, employers who don’t offer flexibility lose out.

Trust

Linked to flexibility is trust: many of the constraints that we face in the workplace reveal that our employers simply do not trust us. Blocking access to certain websites, refusing to consider a policy of remote work, unrealistic non-compete clauses in employment contracts: all of these are common in the web work environment, and are clear signs of the kind of mistrust that poisons company culture.

If you’re interested in learning more about the needs of remote workers, and how to build and manage a successful virtual workforce, it’s something we’ll be covering in depth at our Net:Work conference, coming to San Francisco on December 9.

These points sound elementary. So why are so many of them lacking in web jobs? What do you seek when you look for work on the web?

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ambition, n.: an earnest desire for some type of achievement and the willingness to strive for its attainment

Thinking about ambition reminds me of Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford. The words “stay hungry” have followed me ever since reading his address in a magazine soon after it took place.

It also reminds me of my first years in business and of my first venture that was a real success: my web design business, which has since taken a back seat to other ventures, but still has the power to motivate me when I think of it.

In the first full twelve months of starting the business, I had earned what was for me at the time quite a bit of money, but I didn’t really pay attention to that fact in the beginning. I just did the work. Now, though, I can appreciate that accomplishment and how I achieved it by myself, and for me, that’s what ambition is all about.

Take away spouses and parents, mentors, physical possessions. Take away everything, and you’re left with yourself; knowing that, no matter what, you can create something from nothing, and you can survive. Knowing that makes you think anything is possible.

It’s not about being on your own or not having anyone to help you, quite the opposite. The greater that inner source of power, the more you have to offer those around you and the more you appreciate the true strength that can result from coming together around a shared passion.

However, it is important to know that we can build something with our own hands, that we have that ability within us. When challenges find us, and they will, we need to know that we are resourceful and that, as before, we will find a way through them or around them, whichever comes first.

That’s so very powerful, but wanting something and being willing to do whatever it takes to get it are two very different things, and lately, I’m coming to appreciate how you need both the wanting and the willingness in order to achieve.

I’m starting to apply that distinction to my own decision-making when it comes to where I spend my energy. I’m coming to accept that if I don’t want something bad enough, I’m never going to do the work it will take to reach it. My time and energy would be better spent on something I actually want to achieve and for which I’m willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish: those things that make me want to get up early and stay up late, where sleep becomes unnecessary and something I have to force myself to do, because I simply can’t wait to do whatever is next on the list to move the vision forward. It truly is a hunger.

Over the last year, I’ve found it especially difficult to build a team of people who take pride in their work and are ambitious when it comes to their own success or sense of accomplishment. I’m not sure what the ultimate solution to that problem will be, but when I think about adding someone to my team, I know that it’s important for that person to have dreams and goals of his or her own.

I’m OK with the fact that he or she might see my business as a stepping stone, a means to an end, because that means that while that person is with me, he or she will be striving, reaching for something. He or she will be ambitious, and I need, we all need, people like that around us in order to make each of our dreams a reality.

Do you let ambition drive your business and the decisions you make around it?

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Advantages of Corporate Web Working

• Regular paycheck. It is really nice to know exactly how much you are going to make and have it just magically appear without having to send invoices or nag to get it.
• Taxes. These also magically come out of your paycheck with less hassle and no dealing with quarterly payments and more complicated taxes.
• Insurance and retirement. Both of these are considerably easier and often better than what you would have as an independent worker when you look at things like company match in a 401k and the quality of many corporate insurance programs.
• Less paperwork. Unless you happen to be a corporate accountant, corporate web workers can often avoid the piles of paperwork that are associated with running your own business.
• Paid vacation. I like being forced to take a couple of weeks off a year and still get paid for it.

Advantages of Being an Independent Web Worker

• Flexibility. When you are your own boss, you can be as flexible with your time as you want without worrying about your boss thinking you are a slacker.
• Choice of projects. As an independent worker, you can pick and choose the projects that you want to work on (or not), and you can choose to work on something slightly outside of your normal work, either just for fun or to expand your skillset.
• Tax advantages. Depending on how you organize your business and expenses, you can end up paying less in taxes because of all of the things you can write off as part of your business.
• Balance. It can be easier to balance your work with other parts of your life when you have complete control and flexibility over your schedule.

Although I have listed five advantages for corporate web working and only four for independent web working, it’s not a question of numbers. The real question that you need to ask yourself is which of these advantages are most important for you and your current situation. In other words, you need to think about what you want, your expectations and your working style to decide what it right for you at this point in time. Here are a few questions that you might want to ask yourself:

• Do I really want to own my own business? Is the increased flexibility worth all of the extra paperwork, or would I prefer to work in a more traditional corporate job?
• Am I self-motivated and will I push myself hard enough to be successful on my own or do I rely on having a manager provide me with work and feedback?
• Are my skills and talents better suited to freelancing or a corporate environment?
• Can I market my skills to make the change to the corporate world or to become a freelancer?
• How do I want to spend my time?
• What do I enjoy doing and which path would allow me to more fully enjoy my work?
• How well do I handle different types of stress? Keep in mind that financial, personal, project and other stresses may have a greater or lesser impact on you.
• Are you comfortable with uncertainty, particularly financial uncertainty, or do you prefer to have stability?

For me, the decision to become a freelancer was the right one at the time. I had never been a freelancer and wanted the experience of having my own business. After the excitement wore off and the burnout from the long hours started to set in, I decided that going back to the corporate world was the right decision for me at this point in my life. I was lucky enough to maintain some of the flexibility to work from home most days while still having the advantages of a corporate job.

Have you moved from freelance to corporate web work or vice versa? What were the factors that persuaded you to make the move?

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub. req.): Enabling the Web Work Revolution

Cubicle photo by Mark Sebastian used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license, and bird photo by Flickr user Yogendra Yoshi used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Independent professionals (Solvate calls them “Talent”) can register with Solvate and create a profile for the Talent Engine by selecting the specific professional services they have for sale. Talent are required to note which companies and brands they have performed those services for in the past, which makes it possible for businesses to identify the most qualified Talent for their project. Businesses can filter profiles in the Talent Engine according to specific criteria including service, company, brand, industry, specialty and skill.

Before building a profile, all Talent must complete a recruiting and vetting process that includes evaluating a candidate’s public recommendations, samples of work or portfolio and references. This vetting process is designed to ensure that Solvate’s customers receive a professional experience and high quality results.

Small businesses and looking for resources can browse available Talent, and sign up for a Solvate account here. Members get a dedicated Account Manager to help manage their projects.

U.S.-based independent professionals looking to market their skills through Solvate can begin the vetting processes by applying online.

I’m interested to hear from both professionals who have registered with Solvate and businesses that have found professional using the service. Let us know what you think of Solvate in the comments.

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