What’s Wrong With This Picture?

This article really doesn’t fit this site, however..I needed to write about it.

I was on E-lance today, to see if there is anything I would like to bid on…if you are a Freelancer you get to bid for a job..I hadn’t been on this site for awhile, they’ll changed a few things, one thing I did notice is you can search for jobs via category or skills..And yes you can only apply for the category that you signed up for..in my case it was marketing.

After searching for a bit, I found a few postings I thought we interesting to me…when you click on the position they give you more details about the work and then you can bid for the jobs.. There are hundreds of jobs there..except one thing that strikes me odd, the poster’s aren’t offering very much money for the work and most of them are short time lines to get the work done..

Ok, in the USA, we don’t want illegals to take our jobs, but who is biding for these jobs? Mostly I would say not illegals but people from other countries. It’s a global marketplace. This is what the Internet has given us, competitors for our products, services and our jobs. We like the idea that we can find cheap labor for work that we aren’t paying much for and yet at the same time..we want people or customers to buy from us. Right?

Here’s some examples, I got from e-lance.

Social Media Marketing Plan
A $5 Million company – Needs help drafting a social media marketing plan they want to leverage social media platforms for lead generation. Guess how much they are paying? $10-$15.00 / hr.

Social Media Planner
We are a boutique size company looking for a social media plan to help us revamp our strategy. Our company web site is Social Media Marketing Pre-launch Package Social Media Marketing Pre-launch Package. Max Budget $800.
* Conduct situation, company, market and competitive analysis
* Identify and research target market
* Identify existing and needed assets
* Define goals and objectives
* Set benchmarks based on defined metrics
* Identify engagement tactics and messaging strategy
* Develop brand alignment
* Identify appropriate channels for social engagement
* Identify roles and responsibilities
* Establish daily and weekly work plans
* Identify productivity, aggregation and measuring tool
* Create systems for communicating, reporting and monitoring progress

Marketing Strategy for Subscription based co.
I need a developed marketing strategy for a subscription based web service. I am seeking an experienced marketing professional who would know how to reach my target customer base. My ultimate goal is 5000 subscriptions, and I would like a clear, executable plan that will get my business there in the shortest possible time frame. His budget $1,000. It would be hard to bid on a job like this because, I don’t know who his industry or company is..

Amazing Freelance Marketing Assistant
I have to state upfront, this job isn’t for everyone. We’re looking for a very unique person to fill this job. We’re looking for someone that would also enjoy contributing ideas and sharing their thoughts, while they do their job. We’re basically looking for a talented, hard working person that would like to become a valuable member of our team. I need a freelance marketing assistance for part-time marketing gig with possibility to extend to full time if satisfied. The role and responsibilities…  $10.00/hr
The role and responsibilities include:
▪ building and planning online marketing strategies
▪ building and managing adwords campaigns
▪ building and Facebook and viral marketing strategies
▪ creating projects marketing plans
▪ executing marketing plans including doing the online marketing for specific products and services.
▪ must be comfortable with banner and campaign graphic creations, newsletter writing etc.
▪ must have amazing sales copy skills to sell a product
▪ must be proficient in English.
▪ knowledge of html (for creating email campaigns)
▪ Being able to analyze, understand and provide strategic reporting from Google Analytics and Google Adwords in order to help understand how campaigns ran, what worked, what did not work and what needs to be optimized.
▪ desirable if you have marketed wine and wine related business

A Reviewer..
I need 200 positive (5 Star) unique reviews for my business on four websites. 200 per website. Each review must have 5 stars and unique text. the text should consist at least 3-10 sentences describing the amazing time you had at the my spa. The same review could go on all four websites. the following websites are. 1) Google.com 2) Yelp.com 3) citysearch.com 4) Spafinder.com Estimated Time: 2 Weeks. $300.00 – Is this even legal?

There were many other kind of bids like writing articles one person wanted 29 articles 500 words done by the 8th of August Pay $4. per article. Some were paying more, but not much more..

I was shocked..I just started to laugh…

These jobs aren’t even offering a living wage.. As it is people have 2 or 3 kinds of work they do and offer to make ends meet. You need to ask yourself as a poster if you would work for these kind of wages. Likely not.

Why would you expect someone else too?

So, why are there so many of these kind of Freelance jobs, because they don’t even pay a living wage..

My point is, yes there are plenty of jobs..or freelance work, they pay shitty, and yet there is a high unemployment. Is it because of the wage disparity or is it that people really feel overwhelmed and don’t know what to do next? OR the posters think that someone will do the work for undercut pay.

What do you think?

Your courteous comments welcomed..