Remote data entry/admin jobs

ARainyDay

Good morning- I hope the forum is the right place for this question. I am currently on a career break and I am looking for ways to bring in some money while I undertake some training courses that will hopefully help me pivot into a new sector. I am specifically looking for temporary remote online work such as data entry, transcribing, that sort of thing, where you can decide how many hours to work and when. Does anyone have recommendations of reputable websites where I might find this sort of thing? I've looked at a few, but they all seem pretty scammy, so would appreciate advice from anyone who has actually had success finding this sort of work. Thanks in advance!

DullGreyGuy

So you want to be an employee or freelance?

For the former there are long queues of people wanting it, you often have to do at least initial training on their systems in the office and you typically have to work shifts not just as and when you feel like it. 

There are various sites you can pitch for freelance work but rates are often terrible as you are up against people in much cheaper geographies. Things can be better if you have a background in a specialism like Medicine, Law, Sciences etc which are also fields that AI bots are not so good at transcribing/entering automatically. 

Doing transcribing or translation you'd normally invest in foot peddles so you can play, rewind, replay the recording using your feet allowing both your hands to get on with the typing. 

Freelance transcription is normally paid per minute of recording you are having to transcribe depending on the number of speakers and how fast turn around is required. Pay is not based on how many hours it takes you to do it so if your a slow typer or you're having to faff about with a mouse to stop and playback etc your rate of pay can be pitiful. 

TranscribeMe, for example, isn't technically a scam but you do have to do a test, which is live work, that takes 3 hours (assuming you're reasonable). After that it's trying to catch jobs. Most people get paid circa $2/hr if they're at the basic level. Getting enough work can be challenging, BiL tried to do it and the most he earned was $9 in a 10 hour day. They pay per minute of recording, end customer pays $0.79 per minute and it takes you on average 3 times as long to type plus then the proof reading etc so you know your pay will be bad. 

ButterCheese

In my opinion you'd be better off looking for a part-time office job.  You'd be paid better, have annual leave, sick pay etc.  These home-based get-paid-as-you-go type things are the same racket as the envelope stuffing they did 30 years ago.  My mate's mum did it and even though she had 2 family members helping her all evening, it worked out she was getting pennies per hour.  Anything like that you have to work like a nutter to even scrape minimum wage. 

Get part time job, be disciplined at home and use your free time to work on your courses.

Also have you looked at the open university?  A few of my colleagues have managed to do masters degrees whilst working full time in the office