Project Detail

Description

I am looking for a internet-savvy, part time assistant who can help me out with several tasks. Initial workload is planned for 10h per week, but could increase from that. All tasks deal around admin / marketing / web 2.0 topics and are focused on English _output_. Superb English skills are mandatory, whereas additional German skills are a plus.

PLEASE BID FOR AN INITIAL "TESTDRIVE" of 10 hours to be spread over two weeks. Once there is an agreement, and we both know each other, we would make a new agreement for this ongoing work, including a new negotiation. Bids are made hidden from the public to allow you to go into more detail in your bid.

As you do see below, this is quite an amount of possible tasks - ideally I would expect a person to do all of that, but realistically pick the things you are good in doing and offer a rate for this - I may invite you back for another project bid for either myself or colleagues. I am interested in building up a long term relationship with this.

I prefer bids in the range of $3 to $6 per hour on the English only part and a maximum of $10 for option including German, unless I really have a reason to pay more. Times are flexible and can be agreed upon.

I do those tasks myself at the moment so I do have a good grasp on how long they take me. In order to try giving them away to someone else I will do test drives in our initial phase with certain parts of the work. (I will be able to allow for a more generous test drive if you bid is lower, as you will gain an insight how long it takes you and make an offer after the initial phase.)

If you are not already up to date, you will benefit from this, also if you are non native German speaker, this can be a VA job where you can practice it on.

Ongoing duties may include (in no particular order)

- Work tasks through a dedicated mail account
- work with blog articles (manage tags, submit to relevant sites), so html / blog knowledge would be a plus
- research lists / information
- keep track of dates / bookings
- research contacts and mail them with given texts for interviews and alike
- write descriptions for products
- do summaries for interviews in audio or text
- future could include take audio notes from me and transform them into written text (English-English, after testing only, not necessary part of this bid.)
- there will be no need for phone calls (unless you do have a really perfect English / German without noticeable accent, then this could become a very small part of the job)

What I expect you to know (or at least learn in a very quick time):
- you can have somebody else working in the background as long as I only have to train one person and have a consistent quality output
- you are able to work independently and do not need motivation just to do your job
- you are rather precise and to the point then fluffy and complicated
- you have a desire to learn, are reliable and can communicate
- you are very comfortable with modern internet technology around web 2.0
- you are business oriented
- you can work with tools like a feed reader / social networks / wiki / blog / delicious etc
- you have high speed internet access
- you use Skype / GTalk but communication by mail is my absolute preferred choice
- you can work with Firefox and understand intelligent extensions

In your bid please include your rates for the following possibilities:

a) Can 'only' work in English
b) Have passive German skills, good enough to really understand German texts and get information into English
c) Level high enough, can also do German correspondence and research

I am a native speaker, so please do not try to fool me with translation software.

If this is interesting to you, please bid you hourly rate for options a-c and add for example which tasks you are not willing to do / learn. If your bid sounds anything interesting, I will provide you with examples according to your bid and ask for a short work example but will try to make this a bare minimum so it does not result in effort for you. Also I could include a short example on the interview work I have in mind, including audio examples.

As I expect a higher bid for the German part, I would expect a bit more here to make sure you are indeed capable of understanding German:

Hauptaufgabe wäre es, Informationen von Webseiten zu verstehen, eventuell weitere Recherchen anzustellen und dann die Informationen kurz und knapp auf Englisch zusammenzufassen. Übersetzungstools können eine zusätzliche Hilfe darstellen, aber dieser Job ist mehr für jemanden mit sehr guten Englisch-Kenntnissen geeignet, da die Zielsprache eben E. ist. Die notwendigen Recherchen bewegen sich in einem sehr engen Umfeld (Leute / eine bestimmte Branche) und ist mit Verständnis von web 2.0 abwickelbar, d.h. nix Medizin oder Recht oder so.

Also, if you would like to evolve into doing more German work, this could be part of our agreement as well, but this needs to be reflected in your rate.

If you have a CV or sample work / links, please include them, if applicable I would like to see your writing style on your blog or an existing filled profile on a social network. This information will kept confidential nor will I use any of your writing examples in any way other than for my information.

Bid is to be for an INITIAL "TESTDRIVE" of 10 hours to be spread over two weeks, please note also when you could start. If you are already savvy enough in the required areas, I will accept a higher bid.

If there are any questions, please feel free to post them before you bid.


Additional information submitted:

09/04/2007 at 11:49 EDT:
submission went through without me being able to set closed bid, so please act accordingly, sorry for the problem.

09/05/2007 at 1:13 EDT:
As a newbie with GAF I am fighting the system - the bids are "sealed" and thanks so far for your bids and explanations.

From the feedback I would like to add as it seems not to be made clear enough for me:

a) my requested bid is for a total of 10 hours, to be spread over two weeks as a test drive. This was meant to not force you into doing 10h right away in one week.

If I have the feeling you did bid for 20h, I will get back to you on this, no need for you to do so.

b) please include a price per hour in your bid to help me distinguish, you can include this the bid directly. A placeholder bid of 30 is acceptable of course.

c) I will wait more or less until the end of the project to get back to you if no questions arise but would def. consult with you before picking you when to start this.

thanks very much!