Tuesday, 18 October 2011

3 Skills You Need to Get a Data Entry Position

3 Skills You Need to Get a Data Entry Position

When you go looking for data entry jobs you'll find many companies advertising positions that require no training and no experience. Nine times out of ten, this is a fraudulent position and the company is only advertising as a way to gain your confidential information such as social security number, date of birth, or bank account information. While some entry jobs don't require a lot of training legitimate companies will have a list of skills and attributes that you need in order to get the job.
The main skill needed for data entry is a fast typing speed. Data entry requires you to type in data from a wide range of sources and most likely this information needs to be logged very quickly so people can access it as soon as possible. These positions often require a typing speed between 50 and 60 words per minute. There are a lot of free online tests that will help you to log your speed and others that will give you advice on how to raise it should your speed be lower than what is asked for.
The other attribute asked of in most entry jobs is a keen eye for detail. Thanks to the invention of optical character recognition (OCR) software, the hard part of manual copying hand written data into a computer is rarely used in entry. However, this means that most entry clerks have the job of checking the OCR to make sure that the information has been carried over correctly. A misspelling in a person's name or an inverted number in their bank account details can cause a lot of confusion and hassle down the line, so it is up to the data entry clerk to make sure that this doesn't happen.
Most data entry jobs require that the person do more than just enter data. Many of the position advertisements ask for administration and entry, so on top of knowing how to enter the data correctly the person applying for this job must have a friendly personality when greeting customers in person and on the phone, the knowledge of different filing systems, and the ability to monitor e-mail inboxes.
A lot of advertisements ask that the potential employee have previous experience, and this can be the downfall of many people. If you are looking for a entry job to get yourself started in the industry you should look at job sites like Freelancers.com or oDesk.com to help you to find basic entry level jobs in data entry. As you can see, data entry jobs require a lot more than just sitting and typing at home or at a desk all day.

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