A three-part video that tackles the current employment scene in the Philippines and presents an alternative for Filipino job seekers to cope up with unemployment and underemployment.

I use Filipino language to effectively express my thoughts regarding the subject matter. Feel free to translate and/or use this material to benefit others that could not understand FIlipino. Enjoy!

–PS the video is a bit slow paced as this is my first attempt to produce videos online. Please bear with me and I will try my best to improve the quality for my next vids.

What I am referring to is your PC (or your laptop for that matter). We need to perform every task at hand with utmost efficiency and superb precision and we must utilize our machine as an immediate extension of our limbs.


If you are planning to seriously indulge to work from home, you have to make sure that every aspect are met.

Let’s take it from a gamer’s point of view. First, choose which role you would like to play. Are you a fresh starter with virtually zero experience? Alternatively, you already have experience but you want to explore more? It’s a matter of goal setting, your game plan. As you gain experience, you started to level yourself up the ladder and more doors unlocked.

I mentioned goal setting. Identifying your goals gives you motivation to succeed, the drive to do great things, discipline to make everything in place and the energy to keep you going.

There are two types of goals, the long-term and the short-term. You need to have a realistic short-term and a long-term goal and it works both ways. We’ll treat short-term goal as quest or mission while long term goal as a level that we accumulate from fulfilling a set of quests/missions. Short-term goal alone limits you to explore and narrows your perspective. It eventually bores you from what you always do. On the other hand, long-term goal will make you frustrated if you can’t reach your target. You have to combine the two.

So you’re a newbie, a noob in this field. Be proud that they branded you as a “noob” because you have plenty of rooms for improvement. Contrary to noob is “l33t” (coined for being an elite/veteran/more experienced gamer). L33t’s are those who reached their peak and the only direction that they are heading is “going down”. It’s better to be a noob, accept the humility and one day we’ll be able to PWN those l33ts!

Let us choose a virtual world. I chose a game called “oDesk“. Good thing about this game is that it’s free and you don’t have to download a large game client; you only have to download measly 2mb software named “odesk team” which will aid in logging in your time when performing a task for a client (more of this later). Go to odesk website. Now we’ll create an account. Here are the steps in creating a contractor account:

Now that you have your account, we’ll then create a character, your odesk profile. In other games, you are allowed to create more than one character but in odesk, you only have one so you’d better make the best out of this character.

Make sure that you fill up your Public Profile especially the “Objective” section. This is where your sales pitch goes, why clients pick you from the ocean of applicants, what you have to offer.

Fill up all necessary information about your CV (educational background, employment history, skills and certifications), what you’re good at, your strengths and weaknesses, your previous experiences. Include all certificates that you have, get one if you don’t have any.

Portfolio. Create sample work for your target career. Update your portfolio every time you finish a task so new clients will know how can you accomplish your tasks.

In addition, the most important part is taking tests. Before starting your Odesk career, you have to pass their required test, the Odesk readiness test. You can’t apply for a job or you cannot be hired unless you pass this test so you’d better prepare for this.

There are the links within each questionnaires that you need to read and study for you to excel in this test. There are instances that you can’t find the answers just by reading. You’d better ask for help from fellow Odesk contractors, the best way to look for them is the Odesk forum. Feel free to ask about your concerns. You’re a noob, remember? Don’t assume that you know it all and it’s free to ask. Just be considerate if your questions are not answered right away, they might be busy with their projects but eventually someone will take notice of your questions.

HINT: post your questions in the Comments section of this page.

Choosing your career. There are tests that will determine your career path. The easiest path for noobs is the data-entry professional. You need to pass the English test, basic computer and MS office tests (excel, word, PowerPoint) to be able to “sell” yourself to clients)

When applying for a job, create a compelling application letter that will stand out from the other applicants. Make it personal and appealing and DON’T COPY/PASTE A GENERIC APPLICATION LETTER. Study your client’s needs and write something about how you can efficiently accomplish the task. Attach a sample work if possible, spent some minutes to create a sample task related to the task.

Take note of your batting average, the percentage of interviews from the application that you submitted. If you submitted 10 applications and you still don’t have interviews, it’s time to check your profile, and the style of writing your application letters. Innovate.

Determine your hourly rate. Don’t go overboard on don’t even provide your service free. High rate for a noob is most likely to be rejected especially when you don’t have any feedbacks yet. While bidding for a dollar per hour or less is SLAVERY. You don’t want either, don’t you? Bidding for $3 per hour is acceptable and as you perform more projects, gradually increase your rates.

As you receive more projects, take time to study each project the client asked you to do. Learn. This will help you upgrade your career. This is where we level up.

Allocate time to study new crafts and eventually you will be receiving tasks from these fields. Never stop learning.

When you’re freelancing business in Odesk grows, don’t forget to treat me for a meal!

To sum-up, here are the action steps that you might perform when starting your Odesk career — this would be your short-term goal from your general strategy of “getting hired in Odesk”:

So, do you have the guts to play this game?

If you haven’t known yet, I am Rex Villaflor from the Philippines. I’ve been in so many places in this lovely country and if you want me to tour you around —

I can’t. I’m busy.

It all started with my ADDICTION a few years back. Yes, I was an addict that’s why I am writing here. How come you’re interested in reading a profile of an addict? Feel free to leave. Now.

…

…

So you’re still here. Congratulations! I guess my life is interesting anyway. As you read along…

I am not into drugs or what not. PC gaming is what I was addicted into. I spent several hours in front of the computer just to play my favorite game. Who could resist when your monitor says that you accomplished a level and you can venture onto the next? Even Tetris and Mario Bros. did that trick!

And so LAN games came. I then shifted my attention to interacting with my fellow “addicts” when we played Command and Conquer and Starcraft wherein we have to build, manage and defend our base at the same time reducing enemy’s into ashes. Really fun and enjoyable when you see your friends devastated! No?

I got bored. I then explored to a wider community of gamers and eventually ended up playing MMORPG’s. “WTH is that?!”, you might say.  It means “Massively Multi…” pshhh… just GOOGLE it! And because internet doesn’t sleep, I have to cope up with the pace so that my “character” won’t get left behind. I failed, I still need to take a nap to regain my energy to play again.

I was wondering how other players achieved their levels when in fact we both started our characters at almost the same time. I have adjusted my body clock to take 5 hours of rest to achieve the goals the game has set and still couldn’t beat the other players. I just realized that I was competing with two or more geeks that are using the same character in a game. I felt cheated and I actually took this as a challenge. “Hah! Call your minions and I will take you all down!”.

This notion kept me playing full time. I lost my social life and I didn’t even realize that I have housemates to consider. I wake up, eat breakfast, play, lunch, play, dinner, play, sleep. The cycle goes on for a couple of years. It’s a total waste.

One night, around 2am, when everybody was out of town for a vacation (I was so busy playing, of course, I didn’t join), reality-check triggered. I realized that I am not getting any younger and I’m supposed to have a real job. I was 25, then.

“Okay, fine, i’ll look for a job…” and where’s the best place to look for a job..?

I know the realities of working for a company in our country. Low wage, unfair labor practice, job security, to name a few. For god’s sakes I am not born to be a slave! Instead of bureaucratic hiring, I can’t stand to accomplish all their requirements. You have to finish a college degree and all you’ve got is a lowly day job that eats up all the respect you have for your self (just ranting here!). No wonder our great doctors, engineers, professionals prefer to leave the country.

In short, I crossed out physical job hunting right away. Period.

I have to think out of the box. Its not the job that I need to look for but OPPORTUNITY. I have a computer, with a decent internet connection and an urge to succeed. So I grab my ol’friend Google and asked him if he have any idea about “work from home“. It recommended me this and that; I checked every site that it flashed on my screen.

The one that stuck was a blog from a fellow Filipino that provided information on options for home-based internet jobs. But I am concerned because she was posting craiglist offers for typing jobs, surveys, click-ads-to-get-paid schemes. Some were asking to pay them before I can look at their database of typing/survey opportunities. I have to give it a NO because I DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY to pay them (luckily I realized that all of those are rip-offs).

After 3 days of lurking, she posted a screenshot of a supposed-to-be-scam that is offered in a freelancing site. I got curious, I guess she forgot to edit the screenshot as I saw the URL. It says http://www.odesk…. so I ventured to the site and read every bit of information about Odesk, I even read their policies and terms pages (who would read this kind of page??) and what captured my attention was that I CAN JOIN FOR FREE!

So that was it, I said to my self that I will focus building up my career with oDesk. But first things first… how would I get my first project?

So I pimp my profile, get some tests, and looked for job openings. The responses that I get were “Feedback score too low” (of course I didn’t have any feedbacks, I just started applying!), Rate/Bid too high (ooopss, sorry, I didn’t know…), Experience/Industry not relevant (I once included “Mechanical Engineer” in my profile, lame.)

Wow! After 5 days, I got my first interview invitation! That was the very first job interview of my entire life. And you know what, I screwed up. I asked him how would I address him, he said it’s alright if I call him by first name. He asked me how he might address me, I said “Sorry, sir, my microphone is broken so I cannot speak with you”, and he said “alright, call me when you have your mic fixed, bye”. It’s just that I don’t have the confidence to speak the English language, up to now. But I can communicate through chatting, at least I can convey English thoughts through writing.

Next interview, I made it a point that I will communicate with the client via text, we used skype’s chat service. All went well so far and he hired me for the job! I did web research and filling up the spreadsheet with data that he required. After the end of the week, an invoice was ready from my first job. I still didn’t buy the idea that I can make money out of this, the amount was still pending anyways.

The time the invoice reflected to my account, I am totally frantic! Many firsts were happening to me, and this time, my very first paycheck. And so I worked hard to accomplish the task, and at the same time applied for more job openings. Odesk became my bread and butter.

But my curiosity never stopped there. Every time I looked for jobs in Odesk or get accepted for a job, I always asked my self “why does this client want me to do these things?”. I only accept data entry jobs, then. I am very thankful with the projects that I received from Odesk because it helped me learn more.

There came a pattern of the jobs that I receive. Some asked me to collect contact information of various sites and blogs, some asked me to submit information to different web directories and article sites, etc., that led me to study SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. And so I grabbed all available information about SEO and how to make a website visible to the top pages of a search result, whether it’s google, yahoo or MSN.

And so I started my SEO career. I took the odesk tests for SEO and the first time I took the test, I failed. My game plan was to review the questionnaire and look for answers. And then I learned about keyword research, on-page and off-page SEO and how will it help in reaching the top results in searches. I LOOKED FOR ANSWERS. I did pretty well with this career and made it as my primary service.

And so I learned about affiliate marketing. There was a time that I neglected the idea. “I am not a salesman” why would I sell your products? After I read several articles and blog posts about affiliate marketing and PPC/SEM, well, I gave it a try. I lost a fortune after trying blindly!

I never gave up and finally found a mentor who made it in this field. Oh please don’t get excited here for I will be detailing all of these in my next posts. Is this long “novel” not enough for you?! take a deep breath, have a break and SUBSCRIBE so you can be updated of my story, fair enough?

So to sum it all up, I am now having a balanced life, in a place I called home, enjoying life with my family and my fiancee (we’ll be getting married soon, as of this writing) with no worries and regrets.

did I mention about my online gaming addiction?