'Net Features : employment

Creative Jobs in Demand on the 'Net

Allison Howen — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 19:30:00 GMT

It’s that time again, online employment platform Elance has released its quarterly Global Online Employment Report, which reveals escalating growth in online work, including an increasing demand for creative talent and traditional jobs.

According to the Q2 results, the number of businesses hiring on Elance increased 35 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, and more than 80,000 of the new jobs posted were in the creative category – which is up 60 percent over a year ago.

In fact, the demand for creative skills such as web design (+574%), voice acting (+295%) and content writing (+256%) were each up extensively compared to the same time last year. The fact that companies are investing in creative talent could show a commitment to growth and indicate a shift in how businesses engage customers.

Although technology remains the top earning category for online jobs, the Q2 report also shows that more professionals with traditional careers are leaving the cubicle for the World Wide Web. For example, manufacturing designers (+241%), architects (+198%) and family attorneys (+179%), all saw triple-digit increases compared to Q2 last year. Additonally, engineering also saw a surge in online hiring, including Chemical Engineering (+182%), Electrical Engineering (+126%) and Civil Engineering (+100%).

“The ease of working online – coupled with the ability to instantly connect with a highly specialized global talent pool – is driving massive adoption of online work,” says Fabio Rosati, CEO of Elance. “For the first time, demand for technical talent is being matched by equally strong demand for creative talent.”

LinkedIn Launches New Search Feature

Linc Wonham — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 07:00:00 GMT

A recently launched service from LinkedIn provides users with a new way to search for companies. Intended to aid job-seekers as well as business-minded social networkers, Company Search not only uses attributes such as location, industry and size, but also how users are connected.

Results are personalized based on factors such as keywords, filters and users’ overall connection strength to the businesses being queried. The words that a company’s employees use to describe themselves on their LinkedIn profiles are also used in searches, as well as those keywords used to describe the company.

Users, specifically those in search of employment, can now refine their searches to a list of target companies, filter to only those companies hiring on LinkedIn, and then quickly view the jobs that each company has posted.

Q3 Online Employment Report from Elance

Pete Prestipino — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 17:30:00 GMT

Online job marketplace Elance relesased its Online Employment Repot for Q3 and reveals some interesting statistics.

I find these Elance reports useful for a variety of reasons but mainly that we can get a good idea of the number of providers in various categories, the top earning countries and the skills currently in highest demand.

The majority of online providers fall into four categories: creative (71,000), marketing (53,000), IT (44,000), and operations (28,000). The top five earning countries on Elance were India, United States, Ukraine, Pakistan and Russia. A look at the total earnings by category reveals that those in the IT category are responsible for 59% of the earnings on Elance with those in the creative category being responsible for 25%, while marketing accounted for just 7%.

The top overall skills in higest demand is where I receive the most value from the report as you can see what those hiring on Elance are interested in. Some of the more interesting insights one can gather from the report include:

- The Top Ten are 1) PHP, 2) Article writing, 3) Graphic Design, 4) HTML, 5) WordPress, 6) Content Writing, 7) MySQL, 8) CSS, 9) Photoshop, and 10) Web Content. I find it particuarly interesting that content development (article writing, content writing and web content) fill three of the top ten positions.

- Big and positive movers on the list were jQuery (moving up 42 slots to the 44th position), Android (moving up 26 slots to the 29th position), and 3d (which moved 20 slots into the 52nd position. These movers were overshadowed by the growth of Google Maps which moved a whopping 185 positions into the 90th position.

- The bigest loser however was Google Website Optimzier, whose deman fell 24 slots into the 76th position. PayPal dropped 10 slots (now #81) and Creative Suite skills fell 11 slots into the 79th position.