Finding employment, contract work, employees or contractors
on the Internet
Finding Work and Finding Skilled People on the Internet
The right hand menu guides you through this cluster
From very few to a multitude - recent months have seen an
explosion of Web sites that offer to find work for job-hunters, to match
specialist skills to contract work opportunities, to find good candidates for
employers looking for recruits. Is there any value in such schemes? How do they
work? Can anyone join? Are they limited to the USA or North America or can
people in Europe, Asia and other regions get value from such programmes? What
are the risks?
The main successes can be expected to be in conventional
employment - where the employer and the recruit are near enough geographically
to make this possible. However, some employers - and some companies looking to
contract out work - are now prepared to (and in some cases keen to) hire on a
teleworking or telecommuting basis. Some are prepared to hire across country
boundaries.
Below are the links and commentaries on all the programmes we
have looked at to date.
Work, employment and telecommuting sites
6FigureJobs
Job search website for professionals. Individuals can post resumes (CVs) and
search for free. Employers pay a fee to post vacancies charged for searching the
CVs. The database allows for countries other than USA but the overwhelming
majority of vacancies appear to be US-based. There may be telework jobs in there
but no way to tell. It would be useful for the site to give some kind of
indications of the numbers of vacancies by category, so as to avoid making
searches which yield no vancancies.
ants.com
ants.com calls itself "Your freelance marketplace". The site displays listings
of contract projects submitted by employers, to which contractors can respond.
Responses are also displayed online so the introduction becomes a kind of
cost/quality auction. Number of offers currently small
Association pour la Promotion
des Nouvelles Technologies Administratives
The site offers a "free subscription" but this only applies to being on the
mailing list for a newsletter. They ask for 100 French Francs per annum for a CV
listing on their website; 500 Francs to be informed of invitations to tender; or
1000 Francs to add a link to your website. When checked in June 2000 there
appeared to be no "offers of employment" and very few CVs, also no information
about the number of visitors to the site. There are many places on the web where
you can place a CV free of charge and also get links to your site free of
charge. The "article of the month" in January 2000 was a report of an event held
in June 1966 - we understand that it was published at APNTA site without the
permission of the author. One further article has been added since (as at June
2000)Comments welcome please from anyone who knows more about this site -
particularly anyone who has paid to subscribe to any of the chargeable services?
BizzAdvice
Advice service for small firms and start-ups. You can register to give advice or
to get advice. There is a charging system. When visited on 14 June 2000 the
example "public questions" had no content and in the areas viewed no advisers
had as yet handled any questions. There are also some forums, but these include
a fair proportion of advertising stuff.
careers.wsj.com
Backed by the Wall Street Journal, a site for "executive, managerial and
professional jobs". Locations are USA (each state) plus a sing "International"
category. There are linked "global partners" in UK, Germany, Poland,
Netherlands, Sweden. There is no reference to teleworking/telecommuting.
ClickWork (Netherlands)
Job search and recruitment service in the Netherlands (in Dutch).
DN.Jobb - jobsearch in Sweden
Job search and recruitments site in Sweden (in Swedish).
eFreelancers
Newly launched, the site announces "going live on 3 April". UK based and
straplined as "UK freelance professionals". Companies are expected to pay a
"tender fee" of £49.95 (about ¥ or $ 80) to post their projects. Users can also
browse the directory of freelancers and can email them directly.
elance
Site for matching "buyers and sellers of services", or freelance contracting
work. Buyers post RFPs (Request for Project), Sellers can respond to these or
post "Fixed Price Services". The bids appear to be on public view, leading to
potential price warring. Oddly, the site is still in "beta" mode seven months
after the "public launch of full version" (August 1999).
Employment911
Employment finding and recruitment site - USA only (registration requires USA
State). Provides job search across multiple job sites. No mention of teleworking,
telecommuting and a recent search found no jobs with the key words telework,
telecommute, telecommuting. With these "multi-search" types of sites it can be
very difficult to tell which of the jobs are still actively open. This one says
"Search 3 million jobs"!
Eoffice
USA-based service that handles contractual, invoicing, collection and tax
reporting for freelance contractors. Now linked with FreeAgent.com to provide a
linked contract work search facility.
eportfolio
A facility for independent (freelance) workers to present a detailed "portfolio"
via the "FreeAgent" website.
fish4jobs uk
Job search and recruitment service for UK. Specify location by region or by
county (or "any"), search on job title or "category" (meaning sector). No
mention of telework/telecommuting. A user has pointed out that one can use 'Work
from Home' as a search term, but this actually yields any job that has the term
"home" in its description.
FreeAgent.com
Online service for "freelancers, consultants and independent contractors". No
charge to individuals. Includes profile online, project search. When searched
(January 2000), "executive and strategy" yielded zero, "technology" yielded 3290
projects, Internet/new media yielded 25. USA focus, but some projects stated
"anywhere" as the location.
Freelancers.net
UK based site at which freelancers (self employed specialists) can create a
profile of their skills, plus a portfolio showing work completed, and can
specifiy what types of contracts they are looking for (eg telecommute).
Companies looking for a contractor can post information about projects and can
search for contractors. The search is skills based and the skills are mainly ICT
product skills with a strong emphasis on web-related work. There doesn't appear
to be a search facility but the jobs can be listed by category. No evidence of
the success rate.
FreetimeJobs.com
The idea at this site is that you have "a few hours to spare" and would like to
earn extra money. You have to register to view the jobs database, then you bid
for jobs selected from a single long list. Jobs are displayed ten at a time, in
no apparent order (perhaps order of submission?). The registration lists most
countries. A fair proportion of the jobs listed are really "business
opportunities". There appears to be no follow through to find out what happened
once an advertiser and a freetimer get together? We'd like to hear from anyone
who has had paid work (as opposed to business opportunities) through this
service please!
gazeta -
jobsearch poland
Job search and recruitment service. In Polish. Comments sought please from
Polish speakers!
HEA Home Jobs Database
A job finding service for home based employment. Claims that "About 8 out of
every 10 people that join HEA find home employment". Entry cost to jobs database
is $10. There are other services and a $30 "3-service deal" - job placement
service, resume forwarding service and access to job database for a year. Focus
is USA.
Herbalife International
A multi-level marketing organisation (like Amway), that signs up freelance
distributors to sell its range of dietary and health food products.
Home Employment Agency
UK based. Aims to "bring together" employers and home based workers. Employers
and potential employees can complete online forms at no charge. Number of posts
listed at 30 March 2000 was small. A message said the site is temporarily
inactive, but new job continue to be posted. The owners tell us a new site will
be opened in May 2000.
Home-Business-Centre
New UK site (Summer 2000) with some views and suggestions about home-based
working plus a jobs page that didn't (as at 6 June 2000) have any actual job
advertisements. Indeed there are several sections of the site that as yet are
fairly content-free.
Home2Work.com
USA-based site where job-hunters and employers can post advertisements. One
attractive feature is that the types of "classified ads" are clearly categorised
and the numbers of ads in each category is shown. However this may need
re-thinking if the volume of postings becomes large. There are categories for
"Job Listings - Telecommute Full Time/Contract Nationwide" (for USA) but not one
for global telecommuters. At 16 June 2000 thess sections listed 36 postings, but
some of the "jobs" were actually requests from job seekers.
Homeworking.com
A free resource to help people wanting to work at home and/or obtain jobs of any
kind. Includes classified advertisements with a small number of "Jobs offered".
There was a Job Search facility but this now seems to have been replaced by
links to other services.
InnoVisions Canada Jobs Bank
Linked to a Telework consultancy that hosts the Canadian Telework Association,
this site provides "job search", resume (CV) facilities and a recruitment
facility. Although this is so closely linked with telework activists, the first
option in the jobs search is "Location", and all the jobs we searched had a
particular "location" tag. Employers are urged to include the term "telework" in
job descriptions, but a search produced no jobs with that as a keyword.
Internet Home
Employment
This site presents a long and busy home page, with links to a job search sie (jobvertise.com)
and links to many collections of job advertisements - all the ones we checked
were USA-oriented. However the main offer at the site itself is to buy an
"electronic book" called "Legitimate Home Employment" at $19.99. A second offer
is to submit your resume (CV) to "over 500 job banks and recruiters", again at
$19.99. The site's opening line says "This is not a scam or get rich quick
programme", but the "free download" sample links yields a "Not Found". We'd like
to hear from anyone who has bought the book or the resume service - please use
the "add your comments" link.
Job Cafe
A site offering to match people to job opportunities. Linked with the StepStone
group. There is an open jobs database that can be searched. Many of the jobs
appear to have been on the database for a long time, so there may not be a purge
process? There is a facility to list only "recently posted" jobs. No mention of
teleworking? All in Italian. Comments welcome from users please.
Job Options (also known as
deja.com Career Center)
Users can search for job advertisements, search for an employer, post a resume
(CV). Also "career tools" that are strongly USA-centric. Jobs mainly USA - there
was an "international" section but with (apparently) few jobs when we looked in
February 2000. In March this section seemed to have disappeared.
Jobpilot (UK)
A standard site that lists and searches job advertisements and enables job
seekers to upload CVs. Jobs are classified as "permanent", "entry position" or
"freelance contract", locations as "UK", "Euope" or "Worldwide". Ads can be
posted and searched in different languages, which is an unusual and attractive
approach to internationalisation. No mention of teleworking or off site working.
JobServe (UK)
A site focused on "IT vacancies in the UK", but with 10% of its vacancies
outside UK. Job seekers can search for contract work or "permanent" employment
and can specify the recency of postings, for example "within 5 working days".
The search terms "home", "telework", "off site" may produce teleworkable jobs,
but with no specific provision for teleworking. You may also provide a CV
(resume) that will be circulated to recruitment agencies. There is also a
directory of recruitment agencies. Employers are asked to "call the sales team".
Jobvertise
This system provides a resource through which any website owner can add a "jobs
page" to their website, as well as providing a fairly typical job search
facility direct to users. Four of the first five "jobs" found when browsing the
"most recent 100" were actually commission based or run-your-own-business types
of jobs.
karriere direckt
A job search and recruitment site in Germany (in German). At March 2000 it
reported 1702 employment offers and 958 job seekers - an unusual postive ratio
of jobs to seekers. Comments from users sought please!
Kasamba!
A question-answering service. Visitors post a question, "experts" answer the
question and may offer their services for a fee, which they determine. Anyone
may register as an "expert". The idea is that clients will search for the expert
they need and start a dialogue leading to chargeable work. Lost of experts have
signed up, there appears to be no way to know how many clients have appeared.
KeyChange
Outsourcing Register (Australia)
A facility in which contractors can enter a personal profile that can be
searched by prospective clients. The search is based on keywords entered into
fields, would be greatly improved by adding some self-declarative information
about the database contents, eg how many people there are in some obvious
categories. Keyword search is not an effective way to search for
skills/experience.
NuAspect.Com
A facility for contracting out elements of software development to programmers
through NuAspect as an intermediary. There is a membership fee (company or
programmer $20, consultant $200 - the consultant acts as a project manager
should the customer need this). At March 2000 the introductory free offer was
still open. There were 207 programmers registered for work.
OfficeTech
A web based "virtual staffing" service offering to match employers with
teleworkers on a contract or employee recruitment basis. Teleworkers can
register without paying any fees or subscriptions, employers are charged a
finders fee for successful introductions. Teleworkers "world wide" are invited
to register. When matched to an opportunity the teleworker has to negotiate
terms with the employing company direct. OfficeTech charges the employer an
introduction fee. The specialisation listed for teleworkers are a mix of
office/clerical tasks and some rather generalised professional tasks such as
"Information Technology" and "Web design and development".
OutSource2000
The main offer here is a Home Workers Forum, entry cost $29 for six months.
Members can search jobs databases, get assistance with creating resumes (CVs).
Instead of the subscription you can buy $50 of their software. Much of the
software is of the kind widely promoted through "Get rich" schemes. In the
sample jobs shown at the site many are really home based businesses not
employment or contract work.
PanEris
The blurb here says "PanEris is home to a collective of web developers working
together as a virtual corporation." Though its not overtly clear there appears
to be an invitation to join. The site seems to be a working demonstration of the
team's capabilities. Recently (February 2000 moved to a new domain, many of the
"old site" pages hadn't changed since 1998 when last visited in January 2000.
There is a collection of "message boards" at the site, but difficult to
understand the connection between the message boards and the stated purpose of
the site as a whole. The private discussions of the team appear entangled with
public discussions, and it appears that anyone can join. Interesting . . . . for
example, there is an apparently open discussion of "Sales Leads", including
potential customers' phone numbers. Comments from someone connected to the
Paneris "community" would be welcome please!
Regulus Consulting
A USA-based company providing a range of outsourcing services on a teleworking
and non-telework basis, plus consulting and services for companies adopting
telework methods. There is a "Careers" section that describes the range of types
of work available through Regulus and example profiles of current opportunities.
Projects may include "full-time telework, on-site work or travel".
Smart Eric .com
A UK based website for self-employed professionals and freelances, mainly
working from home. Freelancers can add their details to a CVs database, which
prospective customerc can search. We found site response rather slow, but this
may have been a transient routeing problem. There are pages with advice for
self-employed start ups and marketing, plus a discussion forum (see separate
entry).
smarterwork.com
A UK-based commercial "finding work" site that is focused on contract work and
where the mechanism actively favours a teleworking approach. The site maintains
a register of "experts" able to work in particular types of projects, and
enables "clients" to post project details against which experts can bid. A list
of current projects with current lowest bid appears on the public site,
registered experts get more detail. Project approval, payments and resolution of
disagreement are handled by the service. Uniquely, so far as we have observed,
the "experts" are screened through an online testing mechanism before being
allowed to bid for projects. Of two tests taken our tester failed one but passed
the other (you do get another chance and passed at second try!). There are
currently (March 2000) five categories of projects - Net Research, Document
Production, Web Build Support, Graphic Design, Writing & Editing.
StepStone
This review based on StepStone's UK service. Services appear to vary between
countries, see for example Jobs Cafe in Italy, which has a very different
interface and apparently a different approach. Other countries appear to run the
same model as in the UK. Job seekers can register free of charge. The search
includes local country and other European posts. Search response appears to be
slow? Employers pay to advertise posts, and can include links to their own
sites. Many advertisers are recruitment agencies. The charging rates are not
disclosed at the site? No mention of telework or temporary/contract posts, this
is an online facility for conventional recruitment. At March 2000 the UK site
reported 15000 UK vacancies and 77000 "in Europe", across a wide range of
sectors, with 60,000 job seekers' profiles.
Telecommute
Magazine
Once you get past the big graphic that is the home page, and worked out that you
click on the image to get into the site, there are lots of features, including a
forum and a links page, plus a facility for loading your profile and a job
search facility, which links to HeadHunter.net, JobBank USA and
Workaholics4Hire.com.
Telecommuting Jobs
Job seekers can search a database of jobs. The job description is written
directly by the job advertiser, enabling direct contract. Most of the "jobs" we
examined appear to be freelance contracts rather than employment, and usually at
fairly low (or undisclosed) pay rates. The job lists generally show only a one
or two word title so you have to look at many to see whether they are suitable
for you. Employers almost all USA based. At 13 March 2000 there was a confusing
advertisement on the home pagefrom IHA (The Independent Homeworkers Alliance) -
it looks like the site's search facility!
TeleMart
Website of a European project about matching employers to teleworkers.
Confidence is not helped by the fact that (a) the "News" page at January 2000
promised that Telemart "will be opening for business in November 1998." and (b)
key links such as the "Teleworkers Forum" don't work. This was still the case in
March 2000. If you cannot move from the home page. look for the button to the
bottom right of the page (hidden in a narrow window).
TeleTask
(Australia) Skills Register
A skills register in which teleworkers and other freelancers can enter a
profile, which can then be searched for by prospective employers or clients. The
client search facility is entirely keyword based and would be much improved by
the addition of some database summary information and an alternative,
categorised search option.
Telework Unlimited
Telework Unlimited provides a free of charge service in which teleworkers can
post their offers of skills and employers can post offers of work. The offers of
work are relatively few in number but some appear to be both genuine and
current. Most offers are in German. The site owners also undertake telework
related projects. Alhough most menu items are in both English and German, most
of the detailed content is in German only.
The Real Deal on
Telecommuting
The site promotes a "How to" guide to getting work as a teleworker, priced at
$7.00 by email, $9.00 hard copy.
TWS - Teleworkers
Web Site (UK)
A directory of UK teleworkers. Individuals can add their profile, which is then
listed by area (UK county) and by category of their specialism. The site was
updated at the end of 1999, removing existing entries and requiring teleworkers
to resubmit.
Work-At-Home-Dot.Com
A no-charge site with many links to information and services related to
opportunities for home based businesses. USA focused. Many of the links are to
"get paid to surf" or "make money working at home" types of "opportunities".
Workaholics4hire.com
A jobs database. USA oriented. In order to search you are required to complete a
profile and subscribe to an email newsletter. There are some added value
services for employers, and a discussion forum.
Zeus: Teleworking in Greece
In addition to a links page and some explanations of teleworking, the site
invites visitors to "join the Greek Teleworking Network", which appears to be
part of the Telemart programme, but the Telemart programme itself appears to be
defunct. Further comments welcome please?
(from www.eto.org.uk) | 
