I am new to the the MTurk scene and also just turned on to this website today. I see you fellow turkers who are pulling pretty good money in a day and wondering what are some good ways to get off the ground so to speak. I've noticed a lot of video/audio transcribing HITs available but not sure if I am ready to spend 6+ hours to make that money. Are there any good Qualifications that I should go for? Any general tips that I should know about?
Transcribing could be worth it if you have a super face WPM typing speed, but it is a lot of work and there is a lot of room for error... Really the best thing you can do is hang around in the Great HITs forum and gobble up what's being posted in there. I do have a few general tips though: 1) Keep yourself busy. You should strive for HITs that pay $.10/min or $6.00/hour but when things are slow, don't be afraid to go for lesser paying stuff. It all adds up and every minute spent searching for HITs is money lost. 2) I can't think at the moment of any *specific* qualifications that you should seek out right now, but request or take the test for as many qualifications as you can. There's no negative consequence to it and you'll open up your opportunities a lot. 3) Volume. Smash through as many HITs as you can. Not only will it make you safer in the event of rejections (your approval rate will be hurt less if you've got a ton of HITs approved, obviously) but it will make your income more secure. If you get enough HITs done, you can afford to take a day or two off which is always great because burn-out will more than likely happen eventually. And that leads to my biggest point... 4) Do batch HITs. They're monotonous however not only will they get your numbers up quickly, but they can be VERY profitable if played right. Of course many of them are shit so it comes down to being in the right place at the right time, but the potential is there. The only word of warning I have is to be EXTREMELY cautious when doing some batches, as some of them use a "majority rules" system in which your work is compared to that of other Turkers. If yours doesn't match theirs, you get slapped with a mass rejection that can potentially ruin you. That is a quick way to permanently end your Turking career so be careful. Like I said earlier, hang around in our Great HITs forum and you'll pick up on what the hot batches are very quickly. In the end it all comes down to how much you put into it. Put a lot of work (and time) into it and you'll get a lot of money out. Don't put so much in and hey, you've still got some nice pocket change at least.