Develop These Mental Qualities to Increase Your Success with Leapforce

People ask all the time for tips on how to pass the entrance exam.  I can’t tell you the answers or give you a formula to follow that will help you pass, but I can give you some ideas of the way Leapforce wants you to think about webpages.  They are looking for people who can follow detailed instructions, turn off their own biases and analyze webpages based on the guidelines you are given.

To be successful as a Leapforce agent you can’t look at the internet the same way as a casual user; you have to try to understand what the user wants to see when they issue a query, you then have to try to understand what the creator of the webpage intended to convey, then analyze how well the webpage served the user.  To do that well you have to dig deeper and think more critically than the casual user.

Here are some of what I believe to be the most important mental qualities for a Leapforce agent:

Understanding – ability to get inside the head of the user.  Probably the hardest part of evaluating search results is figuring out what the user wants when they type in a query.  Some queries are straightforward and easy to understand; others are vague or outright impossible to grasp.  How do you interpret something like this (a query I actually had to rate): “Knuckles when I was young”?  How about: “je”?  Or: “anchors tow”?  Your job is to figure out the most likely interpretation of these queries.  Sometimes it’s an individual thing and you can’t figure it out, sometimes if you play around with words a little you can find something online that is similar and may be what the user meant.  You have to use your imagination and understanding of people to try to work out these puzzles.

Skepticism. Don’t trust everything you read on the internet.  You have to be skeptical about every website you visit.  Does it really have the authority to make its claims?  For instance, I was rating a page by a “Dr” about uses of an herbal supplement.  I tried to find out what kind of doctor he is, there was nothing on the site stating his qualifications or even if he really is a doctor.  If you can’t find that information, what does it say about him?  To me it says he’s not the kind of doctor we would want to take advice from.

Attention to detail.  Does the page give the user the latest information or is it outdated?  Is it about the latest version of the software or device the user is asking about? Is there something else with a similar name that is not showing up on the search results, but may be what the user wants? If the user gave very specific details in the query, do the results match exactly?

Curiosity – willingness to dig deeper to understand the query, willingness to go beyond the search results that are given to see if there is something even better.  What would happen if you search for it a slightly different way?

I hope this will help those of you about to take the exam, or those thinking about applying.  This is the way Leapforce hopes you will be thinking when you work for them.  Good luck in your efforts.

Explaining the Leapforce Qualification Exam

Updated Information on the Leapforce Qualification Exam

I’ve been working for Leapforce for 3 years now, but recently I was unable to work for a couple of months.  Leapforce really is serious about the requirement that agents work at least 200 tasks per month or they may remove your authorization to work.  

That is what happened to me; however, they did give me the opportunity to re-qualify and get back to work.  This is great for my blog readers because now I can give an update on the way the current qualification exam is conducted.

The exam is given in 3 separate parts; you must pass each part in order before you are allowed to go on to the next part.  You will receive an email outlining basic information about each part, however I can tell you some things that the email doesn’t.

Note: As needs change, Leapforce changes the methods of evaluation and when that happens the Qualification Exam will also change.  So the information in this post is only true of the exam that exists at the time of this writing.  It will change some day in the future. The exam today is VERY different from what it was like when I originally took it three years ago. 

The main thing that has changed in the last year is that you must begin rating pages from a mobile device user's perspective by rating pages on your own smartphone.  If you don't have a smartphone and don't want to get one, you can't work for Leapforce.

Part 1 Theoretical

The email you receive says that the Theoretical part consists of (one email says 32 but its really) 33 questions.  This is misleading, each question has 4 parts and you must answer each part so it is in effect 132 questions. 

They aren’t trick questions, but some can be tricky, so take your time and read them carefully.  You are allowed to refer to the guidelines while taking the exam and I recommend that you do.  

You should plan on taking at least an hour to complete this portion of the exam. Once you have submitted the last page of questions the evaluation platform will display the following message:

No tasks are currently available. Please try again later.

In my case, within about 10 minutes of submitting the last page of questions I received email notice that I passed Part 1 of the exam.  The next batch of tasks will take a few hours to show up on your evaluation platform, so take a break while you are waiting.

Part 2 Page Quality

In this section you will evaluate a webpage, fill out the online form that is only mentioned in the guidelines, and give your rating of the page. 

As with Part 1, you are allowed to refer to the Guidelines while doing the evaluation.  It is advisable that you use this resource.  Take your time and think about what you are doing.  How well does this page achieve its purpose?

Note: the email about Part 2 that you receive says: Comments within the tasks are not required for the exam and will not be read. However, if you don’t put anything in the comments box when you submit the task you may get an error asking you to comment. So if this happens just put something in the comments box and hit Submit again.

You do not have to complete this part of the exam all in one sitting.  You can take a break by hitting the "Submit and Stop Rating" button when you are ready to submit your rating.  The rest of the tasks will be there when you sign in again.

When I took the exam there were fewer than 10 pages that I was required to evaluate.  After submitting my last rating, I received an email within about 10 minutes stating that I had passed Part 2.

Part 3 Send to Device  

This is a relatively new way of evaluating pages for Leapforce.  When Google decided that webpages should be mobile friendly if they want to be ranked highly on search engine results, Leapforce began evaluating webpages based on how mobile users see them.  The most recent change has been that agents are now evaluating pages directly on their smartphones.  So now in order to be a Leapforce agent you must have an internet enabled smartphone.

To complete this part of the exam you must follow the instructions carefully, there will be a link to a video in your email notice that you passed part 2.  Watch it, do what it says and you should have no technical problems with the tasks.

Note: Here’s a trick if the User Location map doesn’t display properly on the task page (this is a glitch that has always been there and hasn’t been fixed).  If you have a blank map at the top of the task page, hit the back arrow button at the top next to the page address:

This will pop you out of the task, but you will still be on the Evaluation Platform.  There it will say: "Incomplete Tasks" and next to that will be a Continue button.  Click on Continue and your task will come back along with a usable user location map.

Again, you don’t have to complete all of Part 3 in one sitting.  You can use the "Submit and Stop Rating" button to take a break and complete the other tasks later.

You can also refer to the Guidelines while completing Part 3, and you would be wise to do so.

When you have submitted the last task on your exam the only notice you will have is the message:

No tasks are currently available. Please try again later.

This time you will have to wait longer to learn whether you have passed the exam depending on when you finish the last task. For some reason Leapforce waits until after the due date and time before they will let you know whether you have passed.  I got my notice on the morning after the due date.  You won’t be able to start work immediately, once they have all your paperwork and permissions in order you will receive another email letting you know when you can start working.

Much of what is in my older post Leapforce Qualification Exam Advice is still valid, so take a look at it too. You may also like my original post on Leapforce and my 2nd Year Update. Also my latest post on the mental qualities that Leapforce is looking for may help you when taking the exam.

Good luck on your exam!

How to improve your rating performance with Leapforce tools

Leapforce has several new tools to help agents improve their rating performance.  Every month the agent’s work is evaluated and a score ranging from unacceptable to perfect is assigned.  If the agent has too many unacceptable ratings they may be restricted from performing those tasks they are doing poorly on or their contract may be terminated.  It is in the company’s benefit to retain trained workers so they provide detailed feedback and tools to help raters improve their performance.  It is always in the raters best interest to go over the monthly feedback of their performance and make note of the kinds of tasks or categories they are getting wrong, and alter their future ratings accordingly.

On the agent’s Rater Home Page are visual tools that provide a quick way to monitor performance.  A rater can easily see which categories he might be misunderstanding.  With that knowledge the agent can review the guidelines for just the problem categories.  Another chart also shows whether the rater has a tendency to either over-rate or under-rate the webpage’s quality, so the rater can make adjustments accordingly.

Leapforce hosts a weekly webchat, giving agents the opportunity to ask questions about specific issues.  I haven’t been able to attend one of these sessions as they are held on weekday mornings when I am at my full-time job, but they do make transcripts available and allow agents to ask questions or suggest topics in advance of the chat session.

These relatively new tools that augment the quizzes and examples available on the rater’s home page and the detailed feedback provided as part of the monthly evaluation.  Using these tools, agents should have no problem keeping their performance in acceptable ranges.

How to be a successful Leapforce Agent

That’s great, you’ve been given a 6 month contract to begin working as a Leapforce Agent, now what happens?   After all your online “paperwork” is completed you can start working and earning money.

Much of the work you will do will be just like the applied part of the qualification exam.  Occasionally when there isn’t much work available, you will see some odd tasks in your Evaluation platform.  These tasks will have their own instructions to follow.  If the task is not very complicated the instructions will appear above the task itself.  If it is a complex task there will be a link to a pdf document that you can read to learn how to complete the task.  I recommend leaving the pdf open on your computer while you do the task, that way you can quickly refer to it when needed.

How to get good review scores

Leapforce reviews its agents’ performance monthly.  Most novice agents worry about getting good reviews.  There is a good chance that your first reviews won’t be very good.  Leapforce is aware of this and they will give you time to improve, but they do expect to see improvement in the first few months.  Leapforce will provide detailed explanations of their reviews of your evaluations.  When you get your review read the explanations carefully and learn from them.  There are also simulations on your rater home page that you can do to improve your skills.

You may occasionally disagree with the reviewer on how they interpreted the intent of the query, but you can’t argue about it so just learn from it and move on.  To be successful you have to learn how to think the way Leapforce thinks.  In order to get consistent ratings from all their workers they need us to all be thinking the same way, they aren’t looking for individuality.

How to monitor your speed

Another issue of concern to new workers is how to be sure that you are working fast enough.  Leapforce will have you change the time on your invoice if you work slower than their average time estimate.  But they don’t measure the time spent on each task individually, rather it is an average of all the tasks you’ve done in a month divided by the estimated time that should have been spent on all of those tasks.  So if you go too slow on some tasks it will even out as long as you work fast on others. 

It is difficult to keep track of your time while also trying to research and rate the webpages in your task. So it is best to not try to keep track of your time, but just be sure you are working efficiently. 

Some tips for working efficiently

•   Have everything you need nearby before you login to start work
•  Minimize distractions, turn off the phone, make sure everyone else in the house knows you are not to be disturbed when you are working
• If you find a fascinating website or video that you must spend more time on – bookmark it and come back later when you are not working
•  If something happens and you have to stop working for more than a few minutes, log out and log back in later
• If a particular type of task takes you consistently longer to do than their estimate, don’t do that type of task unless there is no other choice, or at least don’t do those very often

What to do if there isn’t enough work for you on Leapforce

Leapforce does have slow periods when there isn’t much work available.  We agents have no control over that, but there are things you can do to maximize the amount of work you are offered.

• Keep your review scores above average
•  Always try to qualify for any new project they announce.  Leapforce will often give agents the opportunity to qualify for new projects.  Qualifying means learning new instructions and guidelines and doing some tasks that are evaluated to see if you can follow the guidelines.  Although this can result in time spent reading the guidelines without pay, if you qualify you will have more work available to you than if you didn’t try to qualify.  The more tasks you are qualified to do, the more work will be offered to you.
•  Have a back-up plan like Mechanical Turk, Clickworker or freelancing to supplement your income when Leapforce work is not available.

Keeping in mind that I can’t discuss the specifics of how to complete particular tasks, is there anything that you would like me to discuss on the blog?

Thanks for reading Leaving Low Wages!

Leapforce Qualification Exam Advice

Recently several people have asked me about the Leapforce qualification exam so I thought I’d write a short post to address this kind of question.  I can tell from what people are asking that the exam is very different now from the one I took 2 years ago, so my experience taking the exam probably won’t help any of you taking it now.  When I took the exam I was tested on only one type of evaluation task, and I don’t think they even use that task anymore, at least I haven’t seen it in over a year.  So the best I can do is give you general advice.

What Leapforce is testing is how well you can follow instructions, and how well you can understand and apply the guidelines when evaluating a landing page or website.  Therefore, the best advice I can give is to study the guidelines, go over the examples they provide until you understand what they want.  Do not try to apply your own criteria when making an evaluation—Leapforce wants everyone evaluating the same way so everyone must use the guidelines and not their own opinions.

It may seem like a lot of studying that you aren’t being paid for, but if you enjoy doing this type of work it will pay off in the end.  Leapforce pays the best of the work-at-home opportunities I’ve researched.  It’s good to have a back-up source of income when Leapforce doesn’t have enough work to keep you busy, but I still rely on my Leapforce income a lot.

To everyone taking the qualification exam:  Study hard and good luck!

Updated Information Available!  Read the most current information here: Explaining the Leapforce Qualification Exam

See my initial post on Leapforce and my 2nd year Leapforce Update

Leapforce Update

I have worked for Leapforce for 2 years now (see my previous Leapforce post), making an average of $300-400/month.  It’s a good job for me, but I’m not sure it is right for everyone.  It is very detailed work, and it is work, just because you are evaluating web sites does not mean you are being paid to “surf the internet”.  To be successful at this job you will need good analytical skills and the ability to understand and follow detailed directions.

When you are being evaluated for the job and while you are working for Leapforce you will have 100-200 pages of detailed guidelines you must learn and use to evaluate the websites you visit.  You can not make your own judgments about the websites, you must use their guidelines even if you do not agree with them. You will be evaluated on your work, both how many tasks you complete and how well you follow the guidelines.  This can be frustrating; some tasks do not seem to allow enough time to do a thorough evaluation.  Sometimes Leapforce will make adjustments to the allotted time for tasks, sometimes they don’t.

I don’t know how they evaluate the quality of your work.  My quality ratings have gone back and forth from good to bad and everywhere in between.  I don’t think that the quality of my work has really changed that drastically so my suspicion is that different people do the evaluations, or it may depend on which individual tasks they choose to evaluate you on, they can’t evaluate every task you do so they pick several at random (I think).  Fortunately they now provide very detailed feedback on each task they evaluated so you can understand your errors and (hopefully) not make the same ones again.  They do keep renewing my contract so it seems that they will keep you on as long as you aren’t getting consistently bad ratings, and they are much more lenient about poor ratings during your first six months.

One thing that is essential if you do this job is a good anti-virus program that is frequently updated.  You will at some point click on a malicious site and you have to rely on your antivirus program to stop anything from infecting your computer.  Norton has worked will for me for the last 2 years.  Also, be aware that you will occasionally end up on a porn site even if you tell Leapforce that you do not want to evaluate porn.  You can release a task with a porn site if you really don’t want to deal with it.

There are several types of tasks that you will be given to do.  I can’t go into the details about the tasks because of the confidentiality agreement I signed.  Some tasks are enjoyable to work on, some are tedious and some seem totally pointless.  You never know what type of tasks will be in your task list until you log in and start working.  Another bit of frustration comes when there is little or no work for you to do.  This happens most often in the summer, so you may not be able to make as much money in the summer as other times of the year.

In conclusion, working for Leapforce is much like any other job, frustrating and tedious at times, interesting an enjoyable at other times. The good points about working for Leapforce are that your work hours are flexible and you can do it from home and it pays better than other online work I have investigated.  The job still pays $13.50/hr.  You can work at any time of day and for as long as you want, providing there are tasks for you to do.

Use this link to apply:   https://www.leapforceathome.com/qrp/public/jobs/list?uref=f16e8eb5ab8dea5fccd319d7d970c6e7

I am currently investigating 2 other sites that offer pay for doing online tasks, some of it is similar to work on Leapforce, except these sites pay by the task rather than by the hour as Leapforce does.
See my  advice for taking the Leapforce Qualification Exam.

Next topic:  An online task site that I’m trying out, called Clickworker.