SmallBizResource Blog -- Internet

Know-How For Hire: Top 100 Web Skills

Posted by Gayle Kesten Monday, Jun 15, 2009, 09:00 AM ET

While the economic recession continues to roll on, Elance's June jobs report provides an unprescribed dose of optimism -- providing you have the right skill set.

Elance, which I blogged about earlier this year, is a Web site that connects employers looking to freelance projects they don't have the time or expertise to do themselves with skilled contractors who can meet those needs. It's a valuable resource no matter which half of that relationship you represent, and something is clearly working given this week Elance says it'll be passing the $200 million mark for work that has gone through the site. "The notion of working with someone who is a stranger and paying them for important work to get done doesn't sound as far-fetched as a few years ago," said Brad Porteus, Elance's chief marketing officer, when we spoke in February. (Apart from Elance, it's also the way I've been working for two years.)

My conversation with Porteus came a couple of weeks prior to the company's launch of the monthly Elance Online Work Index, which ranks the skills most in-demand on the Web based on data from tens of thousands of jobs posted on Elance. (Jobs fall into eight broad categories, each of which are then further divided into dozens of specific skills.) Since March, the types of expertise cracking the index's top 10 remain 80% unchanged, though positioning has fluctuated a few spots in either direction. Big picture, "businesses are in need of people who can code, people who can design, and people who can write," Porteus blogged.

Elance offers this perspective about index activity, and it's valuable insight whether you're the one with the goods, are considering a new career path, or need of someone to fill the following gaps for your own small business:

Email Handling: No one we know covets the time spent wading through email trying to find the important from the mundane. Companies have discovered the benefits of hiring experts to handle email, with Email Handling jumping 24 slots to #60 of skills in demand.

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