To Elance or Not.

ok, your unemployed and need an income but a new job takes time. What do you do? well take a look at what skills do you have? cooking, typing, email, surfing the internet... 

We all have skills of some sort... so sit down take inventory, then decide which ones you consider yourself an expert at. after that decide which ones you like to do.  Good, now that you have that decided got to places like elance.com 

 Now Open an account, don't worry its free.  once you have dont this post your information and skills that you have include amount of experience, and be sure to state what country and languages you are experienced in. once you done this, you can now start looking for jobs to bid on. you get some many bids a month use them wisely if you  decide to use the free package. I usually bid on the ones that were close to the end of bidding like less than 24 hrs, some will tell you the lowest bid so far. be competive but remember dont bid on something that takes a lot of time for $2 an hour...its just a bad idea. 

another idea is post an ad on classified ads sites such as craigslist or myfreeswapper advertising you skills and rates. an example would be house cleaning or web design. don't foget to tell your friends and family that your are preforming these services they may not need them but may know some one who does and the best type of advertising is word of mouth. 

and last but not least order some professional business cards (250 are $5 at vista print.com). once you get your cards take them to business where people who would use your service would frequent. a good example is carpet cleaners, painters, handy men, house cleaners, and clean out people leave cards at real estate offices all the time and get a good bit of service... be sure to develop a good relationship with those realtors, maybe bring a box of donuts once a month to the office to remind them how apperciative you are for there referral. 

be creative think out side of the box.