Workmarket.com

Anybody ever use workmarket for side IT jobs or continuous work and what was your experience like? I was called for a router install for about $90. 90 bucks for an hour of work, why not.

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TechGromit

Can't say that I have, I did use a similar service when I was unemployed, they posted IT side jobs like installing a user printer for X amount of $ or fixing an Ipad. I would get a phone text, but by the time I responded the job was already claimed. Never did get a job thru them, I eventually deleted my account.

I like the idea of earning some side income for professional services, but after reading a few reviews, I'm not a fan. If the company you do side work for decides not to pay you, you have no recourse (other them filing a lawsuit, which isn't cheap) and Workmarket doesn't back up you. Another thing I read is employers wanting to pay insulting rates for serious work, like one guy said they wanted him to analyze some malware for $45. Lots of happy reviewers on Glassdoor, so don't know.

ratbuddy

By the time you prep, travel to the site (time, gas, and vehicle maintenance), do the work, fill out the on-site paperwork, get a remote tech with the contract firm to approve the installation, return home, and submit more paperwork for payment, you're not making $90 an hour.

hurricane1091

I actually had just looked at this last week. Not really any jobs in my area.

blargoe

I don't see this being worth it other than for just gaining more experience. Doesn't seem like the net pay would be worth the hassle.

cowill

I've done over 50+ jobs in a 5 year period on Work Market. Ironically I found out about WM through TE along time ago....Here's my take on it (Forgive me if it seems all over the place):

Depending on your end game, it can be worth it. You have to put a lot of effort into it starting out. You have to do damn near everything i.e. upload your entire profile, pictures, resume, certs etc.....Its just like filling out a job application, execept it's a little more intense. You also may sign up for different job/skill pools to get invited to more work.

If you are serious about making this a full time/part time side hustle, I would even advise that you invest in a background check and drug test....I believe its about 60 dollars for both of them combined. Don't quote me on that, I took mine about 2-3 years ago. A lot of companies will not even consider you for a job if you do not have it.

You really begin to see it pay off when you build your rep and add your different skill sets. You'll get invited to more work as time moves on. You have to start with the low paying jobs to develop that trust. You'll have to start out doing jobs like 65 flat for a virus wipe. After about 5-10 of those, then companies add you to their "prefered" tech pools and will throw the higher priced, bigger jobs at you (i.e. register installs @ 50-75 dollars/hr with 8 minimum, etc). You can also counteroffer the proposed ticket and if a company needs it bad enough, they will pay.

I will also advise on NOT signing up for the site if you have absolutely little to no experience. It's a hustle for the experienced, not really a resume builder imo. There is little training offered out here other than some projects from time to time or pool invites. You will often not get paid if you don't fix anything. Companies WILL give you negative feedback if you don't complete the ticket. My advice is get you a part-time/full-time, make your mistakes there, then come out and do this.

I bet location helps as well. If you live in a less populated area, then you probably won't receive enough work to do this full time. But if you live in places like Minnesota, NY, DC, San Fran...etc, you can find enough work to make some decent change.

There are other sites similar to Work Market out here. I myself use about 3 of them. If you sign up for all of them, you can make a full time living off of this and become your own boss pretty much. They all have advantages over each other in certain aspects. If you are serious, comb through the different sites and do you own research. Figure out if its worth it. I can tell you it has worked for me. I prefer some other sites to WM, but WM works.

Feel free to PM me for more info.

byron66

@cowill I do have a full time IT support job and I would only do WM on a off day or weekend. I live in a less populated area so there's not to many opportunities considering I've been on the site for about a year and maybe have seen about 13 post in my area. First time I ever applied for one was about a week ago and they called back. I haven't really set up my profile all to well either. I was just interested to see if anyone else has worked for them.

cowill

I hear you man. My post wasn't directly in response to you. I just wanted to answer the question in a general sense because there will be other people combing through the board with the same question. I didn't want there to be completely a negative outlook to the site as it tends to get a bad rep. I can say for myself it does work. However, I would not rely on WM alone.

From the sounds of it, if you are in a less populated area, it may not be worth it to put more energy into it if you have a full time. On the flipside, I will say that you may not be getting a lot of tickets sent your way because you arent in enough talent pools/prefered networks and/or your profile is incomplete. If a lot of companies don't know about you, they cant send you work.

Verities

@cowill: Nice write up from someone who has actually used the website. I signed up for workmarket years ago but never utilized it, so I'm glad to see its worked out for you.

Cardboard

I would have not mentioned WM here, as I don't want people in my area discovering it (or some other sites that I use) and competing against me for jobs, but since it is out here, I'll put my two cents in.

I saw someone mention WM here on another topic a while back. At first I thought it was pretty shady, but then I decided "what the hell", as I didn't have much else happening at the time. I'm glad I gave it a chance.

I've been signed up on WM for about 5 months now. I've made a little over 2 grand from them, but they pay on a 1099 basis, so taxes will come out of my refund at tax time. It has been ok for side jobs and getting extra work. Most of the jobs I have done are things that anyone with good experience in desktop support can handle. But I am kind of picky. If they want lots of photos uploaded, or site surveys, more than a 25 mile drive etc, I pass on it. Not worth the hassle. And the mileage estimates are always 10-15 miles less than the real mileage to get to the site.

One time, I got called to a business to replace a hard drive in a desktop PC. But as soon as I turned it on, I knew it wasn't a hard drive issue. No video, and beeping like a memory problem. I had RAM sticks of my own with me, and tried different RAM configurations, nothing fixed it. So it was a motherboard issue. The company sent out a replacement motherboard, I came back the next day, and the new box had 2 server hard drives in it. Third try, third visit to the site in 4 days, they finally sent the right part. I disassembled and rebuilt the PC with the new board, and it started up and ran fine. Fixed, and I made a couple hundred bucks for 3 visits over 4 days. It was ok.

I did a job not long ago that involved adding 2 NetApp disk shelves to an already established NetApp system. That was worth around $250 to me. In my application, I told them I had NetApp experience, which I did.... AFTER the job was done. Previous to that, I had heard of NetApp, and read about it online for 10 minutes. Heh, heh, heh.....

Once, I had to go to a retail store and install a new battery backup unit in their server rack. Part of the contract was that I would remove the old APC unit and take it with me. So I did. I brought it home, removed the old, swelled up batteries, cleaned everything, and sold it on eBay for more than the job itself paid.

I once worked with another person to disassemble the gear out of 8 server racks, as the company was moving to another building. There were a couple APC Back-UPS units being tossed out, they said I could take one if I wanted. I brought it home, called APC, and they sent me a new battery for it under warranty. So I now have a $200 Back-UPS Pro 1500 for the price of FREE!

I have missed some great jobs, though. Sometimes I will check my email, then check it again 3 hours later, and just after my previous check, they posted a job I wanted badly, but someone else got to it before I saw it. Damn.

Having said all this, WM is not a place to go if you are new to IT. They expect that if you accept a job, you know what you are doing. If you have a few years of desktop support experience you should be ok, just read the job details first. Many of them are posted by people who don't really know IT, and you have to interpret what the real problem is.

In my area at least, I could not make a living from WM alone, but it is extra cash, which is always welcome!

Get money, Get paid!

TechGromit

Cardboard wrote: »

I've been signed up on WM for about 5 months now. I've made a little over 2 grand from them, but they pay on a 1099 basis, so taxes will come out of my refund at tax time. It has been ok for side jobs and getting extra work.

Thanks for the review, personally I have zero interest working on PC's, for companies or end consumers. Too much a pain in the ass for too little pay in my opinion. Now if a company wanted me to trouble shoot a network issue, run network cabling and punch down patch panels, upgrade network switches, configure / reconfigure switches, install a server, I would be interested, but I guess you need to build up a reputation with them first. No company is going to let you mess with there backbone infrastructure without being sure you know what you doing and your trustworthy.

Cardboard

TechGromit wrote: »

Thanks for the review, personally I have zero interest working on PC's, weather it be for companies or end consumers. Too much a pain in the ass for too little pay in my opinion. Now if a company wanted me to trouble shoot a network issue, upgrade network switches, configure / reconfigure switches, install a server, I would be interested, but I guess you need to build up a reputation with them first. No company is going to let you mess with there backbone infrastructure without being sure you know what you doing and your trustworthy.

I haven't seen any WM jobs where I'd be doing the actual configs. Closest I have seen to that is installing a new router or switch, which came preconfigured, or the NetApp job I did. In cases like that, I was on the phone with the main IT department, and they told me what numbers to assign to each disk shelf, and which other shelf to daisy chain them into. Then once I did that, they checked it from their end. I was just the hands on site.

NetworkingStudent

I used to do Work Market jobs for experience, but the jobs never paid well. I had to pay for my own gas, plus I was getting paid by job and not by the hour. Also, you're competing against other techs that will take jobs at cheaper rate than you would. For example I remember some jobs going as low as $30.00 - $45.00.

I would be on site fixing computers sometimes for 2-3 hours, because I couldn't take the the equipment offsite.

After you factor in the gas, your time, and the all the paperwork ,it just isn't worth it in my opinion.

cowill

Cardboard wrote: »

I would have not mentioned WM here, as I don't want people in my area discovering it (or some other sites that I use) and competing against me for jobs

I hear you...I was like that when I first started out....but where I live, its not a huge secret anymore....

I found out about WM through Tech Exams....LOL...I guess I'm giving back to the community by sharing my experiences

What I find is that people tend to weed themselves out by not following through with the hustle...i.e. dont up profile pics, dont register for pools, dont have the right skill set, no drug tests...etc.....there is so much work to be done in the beginning that they wind up not completing the set up. Combine that with the fact that most of the high paying stuff is done between 6 am and 5 pm and people have day time 9-5s that they probably will not become comp anyways

The more you build your rep on these sites, the less the competition becomes. You form relationships with the companies/remote techs and sometimes they throw you work off the strength. You can eat just off having a good rapport with people

LOL @ the UPS thing....was that for Panera Bread???? I've had that happen to me a few times.....Another good thing about what we do....We just bump into gear/equipment......One dude I know gave me 1000Ft box of Cat 5 simply because he didnt feel like shipping it back with him.

Cardboard

cowill wrote: »

LOL @ the UPS thing....was that for Panera Bread???? I've had that happen to me a few times.....Another good thing about what we do....We just bump into gear/equipment......One dude I know gave me 1000Ft box of Cat 5 simply because he didnt feel like shipping it back with him.

The battery backup job was at an Abercrombie & Fitch. I had to have the job done by 10 am, the store opening time. So I got there just before 9, called to check in, and stood there for 20 minutes, getting paid, because the early 20's female manager was late. Not my problem.

Once in, I found the new battery backup box, and looked at the old one, an APC Smart-UPS 1500 rack mount unit. It had an APC alarm speaker connected to it. The backup unit had been unplugged, and the router and switch was plugged directly into the racks' power strip. The manager commented on how the old unit had been beeping FOR A YEAR AND A HALF. And no one thought to call anyone about it?

Once I got it home, I had to pull hard to get the battery tray out, all 4 batteries were swelled up pretty good. I washed it all down with baking soda and water and cleaned everything. Those batteries were attached to the tray with double sticky foam tape, which was tough to get at to cut through it, but I eventually got it.