What is relevant in the field of administration in freelancing now?

Question

Books

Good afternoon!
I ask the community for help in building the necessary knowledge base to start as a freelancer, and more specifically, I want to go to odesk.com, but I still need to learn a lot.
At the moment I work as enikeem, so I want to choose a target niche and become a professional in it. Advise what is currently relevant in the field of administration in freelancing and preferably more literature on the proposed areas.

Answer 1

You probably already know the pros of freelancing, I’ll tell you about the cons:
You are an Enikey worker, which means you are used to working in the “good admin is the one who does not have to work hard” mode. Freelancing is different.
Specifically, odesk is designed for time-based work with time control (with screenshots and an "activity index" of the mouse and keyboard). This is a very stressful type of recruitment. In the office, we constantly make breaks and distractions, and in the time-with-time control, the customer can (and will) cross out such periods from the paid time. That is, in fact, reduce your hourly rate. Well, or you yourself will stop the timer to avoid conflicts.
In reality, this turns into a very long working day at a low rate. And the rate will already be low - Indians and other Bangladeshis are desperately knocking down prices.
And this will continue for quite some time until you earn a lot of paid hours and a good reputation.
In general, this is slave labor, refuse until you break your health.

Answer 2

I would suggest that the author should spend a few years working in a normal IT company with a fairly well-developed infrastructure in order to gain real experience. After that, it will be possible to talk about some kind of free swimming. Working in a corporate environment will also allow you to better understand customers in the future and not feel like a visitor to the zoo, where all animals seem to be familiar, but still outlandish and incomprehensible.

Answer 3

I think this is a very dangerous approach.
You must initially be able to provide services within the framework of your qualifications and the existing niche in the market.
Otherwise, a very solid supply of money is needed, so that there would be something to live on until the clientele accumulates, etc.
The “tell me what is better to study” approach is dangerous.
I judge situations in the field of photography. The topic is far away, but the essence is the same.

Answer 4

Maybe unusual advice, but if you are looking for something to learn, then it is better to learn to program. This can be more or less learned quickly and there are more orders than in administration, where a lot of experience is often required.

Answer 5

I'm working on Lync server projects. There are very few specialists in this area on oDesk. I know all the normal specialists by name))