Here are some basic tips to get started as Job Wrangler on JobSpooler.

1. Focus your services.
While Jobspooler is suitable for executing a variety of types of jobs, if you are wrangling on behalf of your own service business, it is recommended that you specialize in a particular category (i.e. data collection, transcription, translation, image processing, document processing, retail support, software development, etc.)

Specializing in a particular niche will help target your market, price services, and help Spoolsmiths (freelancers) better understand what kind of work you need performed.
Over time, you will be able to streamline your labor needs and optimize revenue.

2. Describe Jobs carefully
Spoolsmiths can only perform well when they are well-instructed. Take the time to describe each step involved in your job and show examples of how the end product should look (image, template, sample file,etc.). Also describe exactly how you would like the work submitted.
The more rigorous you are with the job description, the lower your rejection rate will be.

3. Establish a solid pricing model.
Once you have established who needs your service, you will discover what kind of pricing the market will bear. Your net profits will depend on many factors including volume and management overhead so be sure to incorporate all these factors into your pricing.

• Remember that pricing your labor too low may result in slow uptake and a prolonged turnaround time on your job as Spoolsmiths gravitate to higher paying assignments.
• Also remember to price in your management time (setting up the job, reviewing/approving threads, delivering materials to your client).
• Lastly, remember that there is a 10% Jobspooler commission on all approved threads.

You may find that you need to adjust your pricing as the job progresses or offer bonuses to Spoolsmiths who do exceptional work.

4. Thread Distribution
JobSpooler is built around the concept of dividing your job up into smaller tasks so that many people can work on it at once. Deciding exactly how many threads (assignments) there should be deserves some consideration. For some kinds of easy-to-grasp repetitive jobs, dividing tasks up into many threads that take a minute or two makes sense. For other jobs that require a bit more thought or preparation, fewer threads with larger assignments might make more sense since it will take the Spoolsmith a bit of time just to understand what is required and get all the appropriate software or specifications set-up.

For example, asking Spoolsmiths to translate a single paragraph of text might not be as effective as asking them to translate a page or more of text since they will understand more of the subject matter as more context is provided.

Generally we have found that threads that take between 5 and 60 minutes to complete work well and that the more adept Spoolsmiths complete many threads while those less interested complete fewer.

5. Turnaround
While Jobspooler generally speeds the completion of a Job by a significant factor, it is impossible to precisely predict when a job will be completed. Factors mentioned previously (clarity of description, threading, and pay rate) all contribute to the uptake rate (the rate that threads are taken and submitted by Spoolsmiths).

When wrangling, be sure to give yourself some cushion on deadlines. You may find that 80% of your job is completed in a day while the latter 20% is completed over the next several. You may even want to build speed incentives into your service agreement with your client. For example, you might say that if we deliver the entire completed job in 48 hours, we'll be rewarded with a 20% bonus. This gives you more flexibility in how you might price your pay rate and thread distribution.

As mentioned in tip #3, you can adjust pay rates or bonuses during a job if you feel that you'd like to increase turnaround speed. You can also use Jobspooler promotional tools such as 'featured listing' to attract more attention to your job. Finally, you can do your own recruiting by posting a link to the job on your website or social network to increase the number of people working on your job.