Whether you are a recent grad or just starting out in college, there is one thing that will determine your success during and after college-your ability to find a job. For many students, this involves finding an entry-level job or internship often for few hours and low pay. Even these jobs, however, are becoming to harder to find during the economic recession. What is an unemployed (or underemployed) student who needs money to do? The easiest answer may to be hop on the trusty laptop.
Many people associate Internet jobs with a high degree of skepticism (as they should). Like other business, the field of Internet jobs has been infiltrated by many crooks seeking to get rich off desperate job seekers. This fact, however, often blinds people to the fact that they are many legitimate opportunities for people to make a decent amount of money online. Particularly for students, who are comfortable studying and communicating online, the Internet can be an excellent source of supplementary income which may come in handy especially for food, school supplies or rent. For most of these jobs, the only requirements are an Internet connection, laptop, and a reasonable amount of skill.
Below is a list of possible Internet jobs for Education, English and Arts majors; however the list can apply to any student who has skill in writing, communicating, and creating professional quality work:
Education Majors
Are you good with helping break down complex subjects into easy to understand? Online tutors are needed in almost every subject to respond to student inquiries, assist with homework assignments. There are even some companies, such as TutorialTub that offer pay for creating tutorials. These opportunities will continue to grow as more and more schools (from Kindergarten to college) transition to providing primary instruction and supplementary aids online.
Requirements: Internet connection, Microsoft Office applications, headset may be required
Pay: Varies, from change per answer to $25/$30 per hour
Tips: Be prepared to take an examination or documentation supporting credentials when applying for these jobs. Some websites that you might consider Tutor.com or Edufire.com, Many, but not all, require a Bachelor’s degree or higher. Math and science (especially) tutors are in great demand.
To find online teaching jobs, you can search through work-at-home job boards or conduct a Google search for virtual schools and look around the “Careers” portion of the site. Teaching majors who obtain their teaching license may be able to find full-time employment as an online teacher with companies like Georgia Virtual School or Connections Academy.
English & Communication Majors
Because of the heavy content needs of the web, freelance writing jobs have exploded almost everywhere providing a great opportunity for those who are good with words an opportunity to earn a decent income. Opportunities exist in companies called content mills that need short specific articles for a specific purpose like Textbroker, Ecopywriters or ContentBLVD as well as bidding sites like Odesk, Elance and Guru where you can bid for larger projects. If you are not opposed to writing academic essays, there are companies are looking for essay writers, such as Academia Research or Proficientwriters.com.
Requirements: Internet connection, Microsoft Office applications (particularly word-processing software)
Pay: Ranges to change for a 300 word article to $15/$20 and upwards per article
Tips: Be prepared to submit a writing sample and/or resume with your work. When first starting out unless you have a specialized writing skill, start off with low paying job to build up your portfolio
Those with marketing experience (especially with Internet marketing or press releases) should definitely have an advantage. Be prepared to write professionally and quickly since most deadlines are rather short. Until you gain experience writing for the Internet, the best sites for freelance writers to get started are content mills. These sites pay writers for writing SEO-friendly articles. While the pay is not usually high at first, writers can increase their pay by consistently providing good content and working for more than one company. English majors who are competent reviewing and analyzing essays can work at home scoring essays for companies like Pearson Education.
Arts Majors
If you have a more creative slant, there are ample opportunities to work on the Internet. The most-sought often creative person is the graphic or logo designer; however other opportunities also exist (Check the Creative Group for more information). The best opportunities for starting graphic designers who need structure can be found on bidding sites like Elance, Odesk, GetAFreelancer, and Guru; Student can also create their own products, from T-shirts on Cafepress, paintings on Artbreak or crafts on Etsy. Photographers can earn money by providing stock photos for iStockPhoto or BigStockPhoto .Photographers can also get cash for photo retouching and work with Photoshop.
Requirements: Digital camera, Photoshop or other photo editing software(optional)
Pay: Ranges to change for a stock photo to $7-20 per photograph
Tips: As always, being prepared with a portfolio of work will make the application a lot easier. There is a lot of competition for the higher-paying jobs, so if you don’t have a well-stocked portfolio, start small and build a clientele before working for higher paying jobs.
Hopefully, the above resource will help jump start your search some extra cash while you are job searching or even provide potential opportunities for a part-time or full-time career. There are plenty of other opportunities that were not covered here, such as coding, medical transcription and more. As the Web becomes more and more a part of our lives, more and more jobs are being handled online. This trend can create opportunities for students and recent graduates to work in ways that have never existed before. Taking advantage of this trend can be one way to build up your financial skills while building your job skills at the same time.
