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[KaptainKrayola]

Hello my fellow evildoers!

I have a friend who's having some troubles in the current job market.  Lots of work experience behind her but no degree so she's having some issues.  I am wondering if anyone here has any ideas for something she can do from home to bring in some cash.  She's not particularly tech savvy but shes very organized and is good with people.  I have offered to help her with a website and whatever search engine magic I can work but I'm low on suggestions for where to have her start.  I had thought maybe something like Avon or other similar home business gigs like that but not sure about any of those. 

I had also considered something web based like affiliate stuff and SE spamming but I think teaching her all that would be more frustrating than fruitful. 

So any ideas you guys have would be appreciated.

Thanks 

[Phaëton]

Well to start off... maybe you should ignore my advice, because I am
not well......     but if i say that and you do, a paradox is created
and you can park two boats there... Get it, pair of docks?


Sorry.

But seriously... i have been barking up this tree for a while now its not easy.
The college degree thing doesnt even matter.  Ive been lying for years now and
have never been asked for a diploma.

About two years ago i could put an ad on craigslist that said:

"Guy with a van and a strong back $x/hour + gas" and i had more work than
my fake strong back could handle.

Sometime around last summer it just all dried up.

I started getting calls for my php/lamp/fag ad and its been slow and steady.

I you want to be r@ped and mistreated and underpaid.. theres always G&uru[dot]com

(NO LINK JUICE. )

There are data entry jobs on there for pennies but if you join and bid on hundreds it can be done... And big contracts can be found... They expect too much for too little.

RE: The job Market

Mcdonalds and wendys arent even hiring around here... theres a freaking line.  When I was your age you could walk into a wendys and they would throw you a shirt and shackles and chains and youd have to cut your leg off to get out of there unemployed.

Today there are people who were laid off from 'office space' type jobs (they didnt do anything profitable there anyway) Fighting for their life at the wendys register saying 'can i take your order'.

Right now i have three or four freelance contracts and a part time job doing start up for a local business.   Part of my job is hiring and training people ...


Just to give you a barometer of how few jobs there are out there... I put the ad up with a google voice number for employees on CL ..  After four hours i MUST take it down or else I wont be able to even check my inbox without it Scrolling

Positions advertised are from general labor to quickbooks pro.   

After only four hours i have over 400 calls, i pull the ad.   Two days later i have 400
yes... 400 distinct voicemails ... and thats after the ad has been pulled... so in four hours over 400 people wrote down my number or gave it to their friends.

I had a mass interview... over 100 people showed up willing to work.

My suggestion would be to buy / horke quickbooks and learn the shit out of it
because everyone is using it and needs it and its relatively simple.

Another suggestion.... the internet will never be a CDL driver and thats one position im trying to fill and hardly can..  There will always be CDL driver needs..  Another suggestion is to enroll in a medical billing program... (my wife is doing this now) its about a year of online classes but with all the baby boomers approaching the nursing homes.....I dont see her being out of work after completing the class... its like 100$ a month or so...

Another friend of mine trolls estate sales, buys all the old mans LP VINYL records for 40$... sifts through them and sells a few for 100$ a piece, bundles up the rest and sells them all on ebay from his iphone while hes watching his kid.

Hes loaded.


Hope this helps.

[Phaëton]

Another suggestion, have her cold call or dress up and  visit hotels/travel spots and start a PPC campaign have her contact the hotels and ask if they want traffic for a quarter a click....

set up a campaign and pay her by the click.....

[nop_90]

My biggest bitch about america, so hard to setup ur own business, too many BS regulations.
In PH if you have $5, if u hustle you can become a millionaire in 10 years
With the $5 buy 10 different packs of ciggies. Get a wooden box.
Then go sell the ciggies, individually. So a pack of ciggies is like 25 peso, but you sell each ciggie for 2 peso.
After 2 days you can buy ciggies by the cartoon and u make more $$$.
Later you can get into selling stuff like pirated DVD on the street etc.

It depends what her skills are.
Look on alibaba or some site like that. Except for electronics, alibaba is fairly honest.
If you are fashion smart, buy stuff like replica purses etc. Then resell in America.
Basically see what is cheap in china, and what u can have shipped to america to resell.
I do not get into this, because you have to have a fashion sense and know what people want.

My wife was buying beads/pearls by the kilo. Then she would have them made into bracelet and earrings.
Big markup on that shit. So cost of earring is like 10 peso. Then she get someone to sell for 30-40 peso, and she would keep 10 peso, give the other person the difference.

I personally think getting into programming, unless u like doing it is stupid. Also you have to compete against india etc.
The LP example by Phaeton is an excellent example. Obviously you have to be a music lover.

Basically see what you are good at. Then see how u can make $$$ doing it

[perkiset]

Medical transcription. May have to take some classes, but no degree necessary. Huge future, work at (wherever, whenever) and going nothing but up since the 'boomers are all retiring and getting old.

[KaptainKrayola]

Thanks everybody for the suggestions.  I'm going to brainstorm some with her and see what we can come up with.

[nutballs]

wow, really? no one suggested porn?

this place is slipping...

if its a matter of just needing a job and money. call center.
if its about trying to do something from home. transcriptions.

[perkiset]

  we must all REALLY be busy.

Good catch nuts. No biscuits for ANYONE today. 

[isthisthingon]

Lots of work experience behind her

This tells us little.  What has she done?

but no degree

This is basically irrelevant.  In the rare case where someone wants to apply to a larger, heavy background checking firm like Microsoft, they simply state:

BS Candidate in Software Engineering, (from some college they attended and at least earned 1 unit qualifying them to state that they were a "candidate")
MBA in progress (since they're thinking really hard about doing it). 

Otherwise Phaeton is correct.  Regardless it hardly matters in these desperate times.  It's all about what you can do that provides competitive and tangible value now, not what some piece of paper says.  Those days are probably gone forever, unless teaching is your passion or medical or anything else that specifically requires a degree.  To nuts' point, you can lose your ho-in license for not puttin' out, but I'm sure she wouldn't do that

I am wondering if anyone here has any ideas for something she can do from home to bring in some cash.  She's not particularly tech savvy but shes very organized and is good with people.

Best possibility from home these days is selling drugs, unless you already have an extremely marketable skill that you can make known to those with the dollars to buy time from you.  Since she's good with people I'd recommend not staying at home at all.  Of course this is my area, but if she was interested in a little training (free online of course) and then willing to drive to companies that needed the work, I'd strongly recommend learning the basics of Salesforce.com configuration.  In 1-2 years of making decent wages you can begin making seriously good wages, as long as you can handle some repetitive tasks and take requirements from others to turn into implementations.  This is not coding.  It's custom configurations, data imports, and just being the Salesforce consultant (girl is a huge plus) for companies to call on for their config needs.  Most of this work, btw, can be done from home as well.  It's all SaaS.

>Avon   

Well, perks is a die hard fan of Shaklee and says he knows that their vitamins are the only ones that actually work!!!! (runs and ducks...)

[perkiset]

LOL Well, let's see. I think that would be, um, about 30, 32 years ago now that I tried selling that happyhorseshit.

And I've have succeeded, too, if it weren't for those pesky kids...

[Bompa]

Hello my fellow evildoers!

...shes very organized and is good with people....

Thanks 

Then she should be supervising people.

I had to think about this, but...

What if she visited or called every place in her local telephone calling area
asking if they accept volunteer workers.

When she gets a long list of places like hospitals, nursing homes, soup kitchens, etc
she get a site online and gets it ranking, but ONLY in her local area. I think one phone
call could get her site on Google maps; top ranking in the serps.

Then anyone interested in doing volunteer work calls her.  She charges a small
fee to match that person with the right facility.

Nice easy work after the leg work is done.

When her site is up, I will donate a few (thousand) links.

Workable?

Bompa

[perkiset]

 

[Phaëton]

LOL Well, let's see. I think that would be, um, about 30, 32 years ago now that I tried selling that happyhorseshit.

And I've have succeeded, too, if it weren't for those pesky kids...

And here i was convinced you were living the shaklee lifestyle this whole time.

True story, I was working as a mortgage broker taking the BIGGEST 2nd mortgage debt consolidation loan application of my short career... maxed out around 135%ltv .... and when it came to income section of the loan the customer started pitching me to join shaklee cult ... in blatant denial from memory spouting the propoganda, in between her pitch lines, with obvious memorization pauses in the middle..

i would say..

'and how much do you owe on the discover card?'

[nutballs]

@ bomps. thats actually a pretty good idea. quite a bit of up front leg work, but yet, would result in probably a bunch of paying work after.

not bad. And your probably right, google would authority it most likely and with a phonecall to their "philanthropy" dept they might run filler ads in the local area. Though i am guessing they would require you to be a 501c and show them the paper to prove it.

But hell, worth a stab. most could be done by phone.
develop a good form to establish what kind of volunteering someone would want to do.
charge a small enough amount of money to match that the prospect doesnt think much of it.

OOOOOH. DING! thought!

@KK you have SMS experience......

So. set up an SMS catcher. People could send their zipcode to that number. It costs them 99c.
You reply back with a handful of groups/businesses that are interested in short term volunteers. like 1 day, half day stuff. I know a few people who would kill a few hours every once in a while by going to volunteer in random places.

you could do a menu system.
send your zip
get a reply asking how long you want to give. 1h, 4h, 8h, days
you send back that amount.
reply back with categories, soup, med, child
they send back the category.
reply back with phone numbers and names that match.

watchu think?

[Phaëton]

Not sure how you would compete with the volunteers section on craigslist unless you dominated the boards with ads and they watch for that stuff..