Hi there! So, you signed up to TaskExchange to help on health evidence projects? Excellent! Maybe you’re looking for more experience and to build new skills, or maybe you’ve got some spare time and want to use existing skills in a meaningful way. Whatever your reason, here are 6 tips for success on TaskExchange.
Hang on, you’re not a member of TaskExchange? Interested in getting help or helping out on health evidence projects? Take a look here.
Tips for finding relevant tasks
1. Sign up to weekly task alerts
Make your life easy by signing up for weekly task alerts. Select the type of tasks you are interested in, and tailored tasks matching your interests will be popped into your inbox each week. Simple!
Sign up to email alerts by logging in and heading to Manage Preferences on the dropdown menu.
2. New to health evidence? Look for green leaf tasks
Many of our members are new to health evidence and looking to gain experience. If that’s you, look out for the beginner tasks marked with a green leaf on the task list. You can even go directly to the beginner tasks from a link on our homepage.
Check out available beginner tasks here.
Tips for being chosen
3. Sell your strengths
Task posters want to know a bit about you. So we recommend setting up a really great TaskExchange profile before applying for your first task. It should be up-to-date, accurate and complete. And another wee tip: proofread! Treat this a bit like a job application, so give it a read over and make sure it inspires confidence. Task posters will be knocking on your door!
Set up your profile by logging in and heading to Manage Profile in the dropdown menu.
4. Send winning messages
Found a task you’d like to do? When you message the task poster, let them know why they should choose you. Again, treat this like a job application and include details like your relevant experience, why you’re interested and whether you’re available within the designated time period for the task. And allow us to reiterate, please proofread!
Once you’ve been chosen
5. Be reliable, be accurate, be polite!
You’ve been chosen for a task – that’s fantastic! Now it’s time to get on with the job. The usual things your mother taught you apply here: Do the job to the best of your ability, ask questions when you need to, be polite and get the job done within the agreed timeframe.
Once you’ve finished the task
6. Get recommended for future tasks
Did a great job? Of course you did! Now is the time to use TaskExchange’s recommendation feature. When you complete a task, the task poster can recommend you for future tasks. Your recommendations appear in your public profile, and you can use them in your CV and in job applications too, so they’re very handy.
How does this work? Once you’ve finished a task and sent the work to the poster, log in, go to the My Applications tab in My Tasks and click complete on the relevant task. The poster will then be prompted to fill out a recommendation.
Sign up to TaskExchange, follow us on Twitter and contact us at taskexchange@cochrane.org.
Support for Project Transform was provided by Cochrane and the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (APP1114605). The contents of the published material are solely the responsibility of the Administering Institution, a Participating Institution or individual authors and do not reflect the views of the NHMRC.