Anyone work for AQA?

susiedotcom

Hi Drunk Tinkerbell
I too work for AQA. I've been doing it since April and absolutely love it. I have a full-time job and do AQA mainly for a couple of hours before I go to bed. It's not particularly lucrative in the daytime, but if you can work late nights, the questions are flooding in and are often quite easy to answer. On an average Friday night I earn around £20 for just a couple of hours.
I'm fortunate in that I've had very good reviews. Despite that, I'm always on my toes. There are lots of very negative comments about AQA on this forum - mainly from people who've been sacked or not accepted. All I can say is that their standards are high, as are my own. For instance, 'grammar' repeatedly spelt 'grammer' would quite rightly be penalised.:rolleyes:
Very best of luck to you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and make loadsamoney!
Susie

littleange

Well I guess I just wasn't good enough for them.

Kippy

I've just applied wish me luck, with Christmas coming up I will give anything a go. Any extra £££££'s are most welcome at the moment.

Kippy

oh well it was worth a try NOT recruiting in UK at moment will give it another bash in a few weeks, fingers crossed.

susiedotcom

A couple more points:

There are quite a few people who work full-time for AQA. If you ask your SR they may be able to put you in touch with someone who can give you lots of advice. If doing it full-time, you will earn much more if you can work at 'unsociable' hours. As I said before, evenings and weekends are much more lucrative than weekdays. Eg. yesterday afternoon it took me 36 minutes to earn 30p - not a very good hourly rate!

All the experience I've had dealing with the AQA staff (both employed and freelance) has been 100% positive. They are all really committed to the company and its success, and genuinely very appreciative of the work the FRs put in. If you can manage it, get yourself along to one of the socials. The people are lovely, the booze is free, and you'll go home inspired.

Feel free to PM me if you want to know more.

Susie

iwanttoberich

Welcome to AQA, Drunk Tinkerbell. I have been following your posts. Glad you finally got in. I have worked for AQA for about a year now. Like every other job out there, it has its good days and its bad days. I enjoy it most days, especially the really challenging questions - where 30p is not enough for the effort involved. Then there are the really stupid ones that make you laugh and wonder why anyone would pay a whole pound to find out the answer.

At the end of the day, I say thanks for the opportunity because, as hard or strict as they may seem, I have learnt loads of things and it has made my life so much easier financially.

When answering a question, just think if you were the customer, how you would like to be answered. Make it all about customer service, not how much money you can make. I am still yet to make more than £3 per hour, but I don't mind. I make a decent amount already.

littleange

I didn't mean to sound so negative, as that is how it seems to have come across. My manager was lovely and I understand about the quality and the tiny mistakes I made. I was happy in the job and was gutted when I lost it. Just wanted to point out the fact that it is not an easy job to do, the money can be low at times and the job isn't that secure.

I was working part time and was making around £450-£500 a month, so I am sure you could possibly get a lower end full time wage if you can concentrate for long enough

We can't all be perfect all of the time!!

calista

Another AQA researcher here! I've been with them for almost a year now and am very happy with the job.

Of course they have high standards. I would not happily pay a quid for an answer with incorrect grammar or punctuation (and yes, I would notice even the smallest mistake!) because this would make me dubious about the accuracy of the actual information... As another researcher said, you should think about it from the customer's persepective, not your own. It makes me sad when I see responses in the database which are too short, inane, or even incorrect because these are obviously from the people shooting off any answer to get the 30p... and to be honest, I'm glad these people aren't kept on! If AQA's reputation falters because of these answers, the question volume will reduce and the whole team will lose work.

The reviews are a random selection of questions. If you make even a couple of mistakes in these, think about this as a percentage of your total questions - that's a LOT of mistakes!

aligerdie

I joined a few weeks ago, and I'm still getting to grips with it! I love the random questions, its amazing how people think.
Like someone said in an earlier post, the people on there are helpful and do leave comments on hard questions to help others. I was surprised when I saw that, but I suppose it shows you what its all about.
I'm worried about the reviews, so I think its going to take a while to get used to it, however, so far my experience of AQA has been great, and my SR is really nice too.

Anyone want an AQA buddy?!!! Get in touch!! It would be nice to have someone on IM to chat to!

Well done DrunkTinkerbell for getting in, hope you enjoy working for them. xx

Poodlecrazy

I just thought I would add in my experience. I agree with littleange, it really is not to be relied on. I was with them for a while before finally leaving having just got fed up of the whole thing.

I would say that I do think it depends very much on your SR and I don't think I was particularly lucky in this respect. The reviews are (or at least were for me) a bit random and many of the issues were extremely tenuous to say the least. My SR also seemed to like a bit of a grovel to be 'allowed' to continue. I don't mind saying sorry when I'm wrong but I'm not grovelling when frankly the issue is non existent.

For me the constant need to apologise for 'errors' such as a comma instead of a semi colon (debatable in many cases) was just too much and not worth the return. Incidentally the pay rates were generally very poor with the only real money to be made on Friday and Saturday nights.

So I would say; enter with caution, don't expect a constant supply of work to suit your hours and be prepared to grovel!

P
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