BUSINESS

In-demand admin skills for freelancers in 2024, according to Upwork


Freelance marketplace Upwork has long been documenting the most popular skills and specialties on its website. Among those that made the list this year are data analytics, social media marketing and accounting, according to its Most In-Demand Work Skills in 2024 report.

These are the tasks, or groups of tasks, that were “more in demand year over year versus less in demand and what was up and coming,” says Margaret Lilani, vice president of talent delivery at the company.

Upwork groups its popular skills according to field, such as coding and sales. This year, it also included a list of its most in-demand customer service and admin support tasks, some of which don’t necessarily require much experience.

Here are its top five in the category.

General virtual assistant

“Imagine how much better the life of everyone you know would be if they had a virtual assistant to do their calendar, to help out with email, to spruce up some presentations,” says Lilani. That’s the sort of admin work general virtual assistants pick up and why they’re so in demand.

“And they can do it for multiple clients,” says Vicki Salemi, career expert at Monster.  

Their work can truly vary and some can specialize in tools like Microsoft Copilot or tasks like social media. “But the generalist nature also allows them to be nimble,” if that’s the route you’re interested in, says Lilani.

You do not necessarily need a bachelor’s degree to become a virtual assistant, but it doesn’t hurt to have one.

General virtual assistants charge as much as $65 per hour on Upwork.

Data entry

Digital project management

General research services

Dropshipping and order processing

Dropshipping is an online retail process in which the seller of the items does not store the items themself but instead outsources the storage and shipping to another supplier. The seller’s responsible for maintaining their store, marketing it, etc.

Dropshipping experts help sellers with various components of running their online store such as their website design, the SEO writing that ensures it gets noticed, the accounting and their product descriptions. Since the pandemic, e-commerce is an “area that continues to grow,” says Salemi.

Dropshippers on Upwork charge as much as $250 per hour.

Even as you get hired for these or other tasks, “one of the most important things is to consistently take an internal audit of your own skills,” says Salemi, “and think about where am I with my current skills? How can I hone what I currently have? And what do I need to upskill in?”

Want to land your dream job? Take CNBC’s new online course How to Ace Your Job Interview to learn what hiring managers really look for, body language techniques, what to say and not to say, and the best way to talk about pay. Use discount code NEWGRAD to get 50% off from 5/1/24 to 6/30/24. 

Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It’s newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life.

I dropped out of college to grow my side hustle — now it brings in $327,000



Source link

MarylandDigitalNews.com