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The Know How
Now that you have been freshly equipped with knowledge of the benefit of mission running - you're hopefully still interested and would like to know how to begin. This is quite a simple process. First you must identify a corporation you wish to work for and a "division" of that corporation. So the logical step here is - what sort of missions do you wish to do? Maybe you're aiming for combat missions in order to rid New Eden of hideous and swarthy, rum loving pirates or something to that effect. Perhaps you are a traveller at heart and seek to run a series of courier missions rather than have your ship put at risk. Alternatively you could be a budding scientist and be seeking R&D agents and their associated missions. Whatever your choice, there is something for you. In all likelihood you will be working for corporations that fall under the umbrella of your chosen race, for example the Caldari State. If not, this doesn't matter. To find out all the corporations within your faction use the "People and Places" search function (set to Faction) and type in your faction's name (Caldari State, Minmatar Republic, Amarr Empire, Gallente Federation) and "Show Info" on that faction. You will find all the corporations within that faction under the "Member Corps" tab.
Obviously there are a lot of corporations here and you are expected to choose only a handful of them. It pays to do your research and good advice would be to seek the highest available quality agent that is relatively close to your start point. Feel free to do some heavy travelling if you decide you dislike the area you are currently in but to save you that time, look around and find an agent that suits you nearby. For example within the Caldari State, corporations like Home Guard and the Caldari Navy have a plethora of agents within reach of the starting stations.
Examine a corporation, and use the "Agents" tab to provide you with a list of agents both available and not available to you amongst the different "divisions" in that corp. These "divisions" are important as they determine the type of mission you will receive. The clue is usually in the name: Surveillance, Security, Command and Internal Security are almost exclusively killing missions, whilst R&D and Mining speak for themselves. Others provide more of a mix such as Personnel or Accounting. Identify what you want and head for the location of the agent, once there begin a conversation and you will be on the right track for your first successful mission in EVE Online!
Some Tips
There are several important things to note from here on out:
Firstly, the 'Journal' is a key part of mission running. In here are placed all mission offers whether you have accepted them or have yet to accept them. If you need to check details of your mission, you can find it in the 'Journal'. A word of advice is, when speaking to an agent, before accepting the mission always ask for more details and check the location of the mission to ensure you aren't straying anywhere you don't want to go. Very irritating to accept a mission only to discover it's inside a 0.2 security sector! Secondly, if you complete 16 missions in a row for the same corporation, you receive a special mission known as a 'Storyline' mission. You will receive an email from an agent requesting to speak with you. These missions provide a boost to your Faction standing, unlike normal missions which simply boost your standing with a specific corporation within that faction - this makes them very useful. They vary in difficulty, from simple hand-ins to more complicated kill missions with several parts. My advice is to complete these missions wherever possible, if not only for the standing but for the fact that you often receive decent implants or other modules/ships as a reward.
The final tip is something not often mentioned. Players are made aware during the tutorial that ignoring a mission or failing one will cause you to lose standing with that agent and his/her corporation. This often leaves players scared of saying "No" to an agent and refusing a mission, even if it is something which is beyond the player's capabilities. The good news here is, you are entitled to refuse one mission every four hours with no penalty to your standing. Keep this in mind.
The Aftermath
Mission running in EVE Online is a rewarding, if sometimes gruelling process. The steady progress from lowly Level 1 missions to high powered Level 4 marathons is impressive and personally gave me a nice perspective on how far I had come since starting the game. Of course it's not all personal satisfaction, the ISK rewards increase exponentially and when coupled with salvaging and general looting it becomes a very nice earner for both casual and hardcore players.
