Source: Elance

It should be noted that because this study is the result of an online survey conducted on the Elance site itself, there will likely be considerable selection bias distorting the results towards freelancing, so it would be wise to take these  findings with a pinch of salt. I doubt that a more wide-ranging survey of recent college graduates, for example, would show such an overwhelming number of respondents in favor of freelancing over traditional employment.

While some people may argue that freelancing has only become more popular as jobs have become harder to come by following the economic downturn, the Elance study shows that many millennials actually choose freelancing over traditional employment. Only 27 percent indicated they would prefer to work as an employee, while 42 percent stated they prefer the freelance lifestyle. Web working is popular, too, with 54 percent saying they plan to telecommute at least some of the time — a lifestyle choice probably made easier by freelancing. It seems freelancing is making these millennials happier: 53 percent say they are happier when freelancing than when working as an employee. Encouragingly, despite a somewhat weak jobs market, particularly for younger people with less experience, 78 percent of respondents said they were either “Optimistic” or “Very optimistic” about their chosen career path.

Source: Elance

The study also looked at millennials’ job search habits. Unsurprisingly, many respondents reported they use online methods to find work. Online job ads (Monster.com and Craigslist, for example) were popular with 94 percent of respondents, but social media (Facebook, LinkedIn) was also used by 40 percent. The study also shows that 56 percent of respondents think that a digital resume (a LinkedIn profile, for instance) is the most effective tool for landing a job, compared to 44 percent who prefer a more traditional resume.

Despite the selection bias that’s probably skewing these results, it’s interesting to see such a positive attitude towards freelancing in younger people. Attitudes toward freelancing have shifted over the past few years, with many more people now prepared to consider it as a long-term career choice. It’s a shift that has certainly been helped by online freelance marketplaces such as Elance and Odesk, which have made it much easier for freelancers to find work worldwide. While some people may have initially tried freelancing out of necessity due to the economic downturn, many people now choose to freelance because it gives them the flexibility to pursue their lifestyle of choice. If more younger people really are actively looking to freelance rather than take up traditional employment now, it could point to an even bigger shift toward freelancing in the years to come.

Photo courtesy Flickr user {Guerrilla Futures | Jason Tester}, charts courtesy Elance.

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But the skills and characteristics that a hiring manager is looking for on a telecommuter’s resume aren’t always the same as when you’re looking for other jobs. Among other things, employers are looking for the following:

1. Prior experience. While it’s not always possible for an employer to find an applicant that has already telecommuted, having prior experience can move your resume to the top of the stack. There’s a learning curve that goes along with becoming a telecommuter, and every employer would prefer to hire someone who’s already figured out the nuts and bolts of telecommuting.
2. Self-direction. Telling a hiring manager that you’re able to work at your own direction is useful, but if you can show that you’ve taken on projects at your own direction and worked without guidance through your resume, you’ll catch a reader’s attention. When describing previous responsibilities, mention the guidance (or lack of guidance) you’ve worked with.
3. Great communication. Working offsite requires an employee with above-average communication skills. Make every aspect of your resume as clear as possible to demonstrate that you have great communication skills.
4. Technical skills. The specific skills that each telecommuting position requires vary but most employers will want telecommuting workers who are technically-savvy. Even if you aren’t already familiar with the software and tools a company uses to work with telecommuters, knowing a variety of other tools can mean that you can pick up new skills quickly.
5. Professional objectives. If you include an objective — and not every resume needs to — it has to be professional. There’s a certain type of prospective telecommuter whose objective is just to “work at home and do X,” where X does not convince an employer that the applicant is professional. Make sure your objectives don’t play into any telecommuting stereotypes.
6. Access to hardware. Some employers will provide equipment and software to their telecommuting employees, but many hope that you have a computer and an active Internet connection in place. Mentioning that you do, in the context of past positions, or other parts of your resume package, can speed up the application process.
7. Your reasons for telecommuting. Employers probably won’t outright ask if you’re telecommuting because of family, health concerns or other reasons, but they’ll make assumptions. It’s probably best to be clear about your reasons for wanting to telecommute from the outset.

Share your resume tips in the comments.

Photo by Flickr user Fabio Bruna, licensed under CC 2.0

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One of those better options is Twitter. Twitter has the advantage of being a great way to open a direct line of communication between yourself and a potential employer before you even forward your work history or even any professional information at all. It’s almost the virtual equivalent of landing a job based on a conversation with a seatmate on an airplane.

JobDeck aims to make the process of looking for work on Twitter even easier. It provides a refined search that allows you to drill down and find job offers and information about prospective employers and employees, and it does it all in the familiar environment of TweetDeck, so as long as you’ve used the popular Adobe AIR-based Twitter client in the past, you won’t have to go learning a new interface all over again.

In fact, JobDeck really isn’t much more than a standard install of TweetDeck with some colorful rebadging and a couple of very special unique columns that will help you in your job search efforts. All the regular features are there, too, so you have access to your main timeline and all the time-wasting fun that could potentially go along with that. My advice? Create a new Twitter account devoted solely to job hunting in order to keep your focus and avoid distraction.

As mentioned, there are two new columns introduced in JobDeck, which is powered by TwitJobSearch, a site that provides search results from Twitter pre-filtered and tailored to job hunters. The first is a “Job Search Experts” user list. It’s a good way to pick up tips and find interesting articles about the job market and career development in general, and it has the benefit of allowing you to keep these people out of your main Twitter feed, where they might not be as appreciated or could get lost.

The other column is a dedicated column that returns results from the TwitJobSearch main feed, which searches the web, returns relevant job search results and organizes them into a single stream. As of right now, a lot of the traffic is related to the JobDeck app itself, but scrolling through the feed reveals that it does do a decent job of collecting career hunting info. Unfortunately, it’s also hit or miss, including info for jobs ranging from KFC front-line employees to iPhone app developers.

It’s nice, but it isn’t yet impressive enough to merit its own dedicated client in my opinion. It reminds me more of the Blink-182 branded TweetDeck release than a new and unique tool. The TwitJobSearch site itself is a much more useful tool, with customizable advanced search options and an experimental job map feature. Not to mention that the interface is quite attractive and highly usable, and there’s a browse function that lets you see job tweets by category in case you aren’t yet sure what exactly it is you’re looking for.

If you’re already using TweetDeck and you’re looking for work, using the JobDeck special edition isn’t going to cost you anything, and might provide you with a few useful links and/or tips. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for something that will dramatically change they way you look for work, skip this release and just use the web-based or iPhone version  of TwitJobSearch, especially if you’re not a fan of the TweetDeck interface.

Landed a job through Twitter? Tell us about how you did it!

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Flowz, the developer behind Raveal, has since introduced a variety of new features to try to up the game of the fledgling web site. Some of these are little more than aesthetic upgrades, but some are substantial improvements that really change the way the site works at its core.

Themes

Raveal now places a strong emphasis on what they call “Your Personal Brand.” It’s a concept not unfamiliar to us here at WebWorkerDaily. Part of that approach, as far as Raveal is concerned, involves letting you show off your skills, work history, and traits using a personalized theme.

Raveal themes work and look a lot like blog themes, for the most part, but some boast impressive features, like Flash integration, that really make them stand out. You can use the default set, create your own using a pre-made layout and some custom CSS, or choose from one of the available community themes (which is a little light on content right now). If you know a little about how CSS works, but aren’t comfortable building your own site from scratch, it’s a good set of tools to have.

I was a little miffed to find that there was no way to preview my profile unless I made it publicly available, which isn’t something I wanted to do before ensuring that my chosen theme would look good with my content. Even just a live preview of the theme in question with generic content would’ve been sufficient.

People Showcase

Want to get noticed? Flowz wants that for you, too. That’s why it introduced the “People Showcase,” a section which shows off the best and brightest of those found in there network. According to Flowz, being highlighted on the Showcase nets you an additional 400 views per month, a number the company says will grow as Raveal gains popularity.

There’s no word on how exactly people are chosen to appear in the Showcase, but in a blog post detailing the new feature, Flowz staff indicates that all you need do to be considered is make your profile publicly viewable. Presumably, staff members comb the public directory for talented individuals with complete, up-to-date profiles.

I like the presentation of the People Showcase, and the idea behind it, but only time will tell how the actual effect it will have on individual member’s career aspirations.

Company Profiles and Job Postings

Probably the biggest new feature is not on the employee side at all, but on the employer’s. Companies looking for prospects can now create a profile complete with a blog feed and job listings.

There’s even a back-end workflow that HR staff can use to manage applicants, allowing them to score potential employees as “Undecided,” “Thumbs Up,” or “Thumbs Down.” They can also keep notes on every application, the content of which can be shared with other staff who are assigned user privileges. Even if you want to share with someone who isn’t a Raveal user, you can do so using a Guest Pass.

Unfortunately, companies can only list one job posting at a time unless they pay for a Pro account, which ultimately hurts job searchers most of all. Hopefully the back-end workflow features prove worthwhile enough that companies end up going the pay route.

New Pro Features

A couple new features were obviously designed to make Raveal Pro accounts more appealing, as they’re only accessible once you switch to a paid account. The first is Voice, which allows you to pull content and comments from your blog, Twitter feed, Facebook, etc. to show off on your Raveal profile in addition to your standard Resumé and Portfolio information.

It’s definitely a bold step, and one that acknowledges that for many professionals working online today, their social media presence is as much a part of their career goals as is their work history. But it’s also risky, since we all know the dangers associated with allowing potential employers access to things like Facebook, which might not always paint you in the best possible light.

You can also now include an audio introduction if you have a Pro account. It’s interesting, but ultimately kind of gimmicky, in my opinion. Though I absolutely hate the sound of my recorded voice, so I might be biased.

One thing’s clear: Raveal is doing its best to stand out from the crowd and bring something truly new to the often arduous task of finding work online. Whether or not the specific things it’s trying are of value to you is another thing entirely. It’s definitely worth a look though, especially if you’re a content producer who isn’t getting anywhere with the established career finding resources online.

Have your tried the new features in Raveal?  Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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OK, that’s a huge understatement. I dislike having to sign up for different services to access the details of the jobs they’re offering. I loathe having to wade through the reams of alerts I receive from each one. And I can’t be bothered trying to remember which ones require me to buy a subscription in order to pitch for jobs, and which ones don’t, as well as all the other little nuances of each service.

I can safely say that so far, my job search subscriptions have not paid off. For me, the tedium and frustration of tracking all these individual subscriptions has far, far outweighed any value I’ve obtained from them. Last week I wound up just trying to search direct through Google in a desperate attempt to find the kind of project I wanted at a decent rate. Yes, I was that fed up. So when I heard about DoNanza, a service that’s touted as “redefining the search for online projects,” I hoped it might actually live up to its own PR.

What’s the big deal about DoNanza? It’s a job search engine that pulls results from freelance and remote working job sites across the web. No longer do we mere mortals have to visit multiple sites to search their listings. DoNanza appears to be a one-stop shop for job search.

So far, so good. I took it for a spin and found that an immediate benefit of the service was that it introduced me to freelance sites I’d never heard of, let alone visited — many of them in countries other than my own. So automatically it puts you in touch with a much wider pool of projects and employers.

Then I noticed a very cool filter pane on the left of the search results page. This pane uses sliders to allow you to filter the search results by price, project type, time left and date posted. You can also use it to include or exclude results from specific sites. I find this particularly nice because it lets me refine my search right on the results page — I don’t need to make extra clicks to access the “refine search” options. Hooray! Of course, DoNanza also offers all the usual features you’d expect: related search prompts, RSS and Twitter tracking, the ability to email results to friends, and so on. And — wait for it — you don’t need a(nother) subscription!

Keep in mind that DoNanza is not a job board. It doesn’t offer its own jobs (yet — will this change in time?); it acts purely as a search engine for other job sites. So when you click on a result, you go direct to the site on which it’s listed. As such, the service is very highly focused. It does one thing — offer web-wide job search — and I think it does it well.

It’s interesting, not to mention timely, that DoNanza has launched now, when many of us are feeling the pinch of financial uncertainty and looking for projects. It makes very short work of the search process itself, and takes the immense hassle out of finding freelance job sites that have the kinds of projects you want at the right rate. As I used the site, I began to wonder why no one had launched an equivalent service already — and those kinds of thoughts are usually a sign that a new idea is going to be a big success.

Do you use online job sites to secure freelance work? If so, what are some of the good ones you’ve come across? Do you think DoNanza might help your current job search process?

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