Where shall I advertise my freelance servies?

[ordellrobie]

I provide a freelance services which could be beneficial to all businesses, students, it's around meetings, so widespread use.

I currently work under companies but I've done a bit of work for universities cause of word of mouth.

I'm making a LinkedIn and have cards. I wonder if there's any inside knowledge about where I could put flyers or cards, or any sites that students or smaller businesses use to elicit services where I could be found easily?

Bigger companies use either their own in-house or a large company, which I already work for.

Thanks for any help.

You have a freelance business providing the same service that your employer provides? Are they ok with that?

I would consider approaching the businesses directly.

What sort of services?

Secretarial support.

I am not employed. I am self-employed and can work for whomever I wish, I work for a few companies and off my own back.

Services that are utilised by every single business and students.

Why would a student need secretarial services?

Most businesses use in house staff or agency etc, so you'll need to be competitive on that front surely?

I mean this helpfully, but

• if you're providing a freelance service that you think people will want to buy, you should really already have an idea of your target market and where people will be looking for that service

• no one here could possibly have any inside knowledge about where people might "elicit services" without knowing what your service actually is!

cross post, but secretarial services for what?

Just a heads-up, this is AIBU... you might get more responses in "Work" or "Chat"

Maybe if I ask:

Is there a specific website that students use to find services such as essay typing?

Student Room?

This is still going? OKay that's very well established then, I remember that from my student days back in the 00s.

Thanks. I will ask there too :)

Why would anyone want you to type their essay? They can type themselves or use voice recognition software.

Surely students these days wouldn't hand write an essay and then pay for someone to type it up for them? Isn't that a bit antiquated?

Most students will have already been accustomed to using Word in secondary school for writing essays, especially if they did A levels, for the benefits of easier editing, cross referencing, word counts, etc.

Those who have problems with typing or using computers would mostly have support in place as provided by the Uni disability team etc so wouldn't need to pay a third party.

Or do you mean students paying you to actually write their essays for them, rather than typing up their own work??

Because they are from wealthy backgrounds and English is their second language. VO cannot capture accents well and editing takes more time than a straight type.

No, they'll dictate it and have it typed. Not everyone can type 100wpm and they often need the time to study.

No, you can't write essay for them, it's their degree and they should do the work.

Will you type verbatim or edit their output into grammatically correct English?

Yes that's the type of thing.

But this is a bit off-topic, I just wanted to know whereabouts students convene these days and if there was a space I'd not heard of to put my flyers into.

Thanks.

If you are pursuing the foreign student market, I guess you could think about placing a cards on noticeboards in the lobbies and communal areas of the student residences in your area that attract the most students from China and the rest of the Far East / the Middle East / the Indian Sub-Continent. Word of mouth, if you are any good, will grow your customer base.

Completely different business idea but a former work colleague of mine did this kind of marketing for his private taxi / airport runs. It was his 'retirement business' - he bought a posh car with his lump sum, and a chauffeur's uniform! He's actually busier than ever, and making a fair bit of money.

Will you have a website with examples of your work, a price list, etc? You'll need to show that you can not only type up accurately from the tape, but proof-read too.

Are you investigating student fraud/cheating etc? In my experience they use private WhatsApp groups to chat but maybe you’d find people advertising these find of things in TikTok. I think if a student can’t type their own essay and they don’t have a disability then they must be very lazy and not suitable for their degree. But they are often very rich so I understand why you would want to tap that market.

Which one? Type verbatim? Or edit into grammatically correct English?

It's not really off topic, if you think about it.

If you change their sentence structure so it doesn't relate to how they are in class, they will get hauled up on it.

Typing up their essays will inevitably involve organising paragraphs, correcting spelling and grammar, correcting sentences that don’t quite make sense in written formal English. So even on the most benign interpretation where you are just typing up their own ideas, it is still cheating. These are skills that students are meant to be learning and being assessed on and if you do it for them it is not their own work.

I think you're misunderstanding the nature of Uni "teaching" these days for many subjects, particularly "essay" type subjects, rather than hands on in labs etc.

The lecturers don't usually get to know their students anymore. They just "lecture" in front of a large group of people. The seminars are taken by Phd students. "Tutorials" are pretty rare and again often done by Phd students. Of course, now more is done online, there's even less "face to face" interaction between lecturers and their students.

My son has just finished a Maths degree. He only "knew" his lecturers from lectures and never met them at all in person. There's no way any of them knew who he was. To them, he was just a random name/student number - they obviously would know his submitted work, but even that was mostly online through online quizzes, multiple choice tests, online exams, etc., with only the year end exams done in handwriting! He had an allocated "personal tutor" but again, never met the guy in person - just the odd email every few months was the only contact. DS knew what he looked like from his online Uni profile, and would recognise him if he saw him on campus, but the tutor wouldn't know him back.

The expansion of Unis and vast increases in student numbers has made it much more anonymous than it used to be and nothing like how it's portrayed in TV series and films where students go to lecturer's offices every week - nothing could be further from reality these days. Obviously made a lot worse during the 20/21 covid year when most Uni staff stayed home and everything was online!