Sites where you bid for work

Hi to all,

I'd be interested to know others opinion of sites such as elance, guru, etc.

Have you used them? How did you get on?

Ive used one, and although I found that I had to bid quite low to get the job, on some occassions it has led to some good 'off site' working relationships both at home (UK) and abroad.

I suppose the advantage for me is that it gives me access to jobs that I would never have known about. The downside is that by the time I pay my subscription, commission, escrow, paypal and then the final sting from my bank at this end, what makes it into my account seems to bear no resemblance to what I stared out with! (Bear in mind that I get paid in $ and end up with £)

I would like to hear others views on these sites.

Regards

Christine.

 

Haven't really tried them out, but from a writer's point of view, it looks like a very crowded market with people trying to stoop down to ridiculously low prices.

There will be the occasional good deal, but they are by and far hard to find

 

Well, I didn't try any of these, but just visited and observed exactly what gr8liverpoolfan has said.

 

There are also freelance sites where you can get jobs/request jobs.

 

I use a few sites like this and definitely have some advice for you. At first you need to get established as a legitimate source. How I did this is take a few jobs (6-7) and do them for very low prices. Sure, you may feel that you are selling yourself short but that is not the case. After you complete those jobs you will have 6-7 ratings or however many cheap jobs you take. Ratings are big to any buyer. Would you rather buy from John with 0 ratings or Joe with 7 positive ratings? The answer should be simple. The buyers don't really care what the past jobs were or what they were worth...they just want to know whether or not they can trust you for quality work. Once you have gained some ratings you can start bidding quite a bit higher and still get the job. There is one instance where I bid nearly $120 higher than anyone else but I snagged the job due to my qualifications. In the beggining I was diong jobs for literally $3 (which was painful)...but in the end I am now getting jobs worth $450+. So just withstand the initial beating and then you can move on to better things.

 

The only thing is that the site sucks away a good portion of your profits, its better to go out and try to find projects on your own or through friends.

 

I don't use them myself. I tried elance back when it first opened. It was okay.

As was mentioned, the writing section is generally just a pool of amateur writers who undercut or people shopping for price not quality.

And as was mentioned, ratings are always important. If you're a new writer, it might be an easy way to build your portfolio. That's what most of these sites are there for anyway.

 

As a buyer, I always use getafreelancer.com, lots of buyers, but for you service-providers, a lot of them too.

I've actually hired two people full-time based on the work they did for me on projects through that website.

 

Thanks for your comments all.

I use guru quite often, and have managed to build up a decent rating (247), but as some have said, there is quite a few layers of costs to be absorbed by the writer.

But, on the other hand, it has given me access to writing jobs, that, being in the UK I would not have heard about, and it has led to some perm. work with 5 or 6 clients (off site so no costs).

So, I suppose they have their good and not so good points, and as one poster said, are a way of building up a portfolio and reputation.

 

I determined a long time ago that bid sites weren't for me. I'm simply not interested in that caliber of work. The pay is terribly low and the buyers are overly demanding. It's not worth it.

I've bid on some assignments before, but I was always on the medium-high end. I refuse to ask to be paid only $2 for 500 words.

 

Maybe Ive just been lucky. Ive never written for that low a fee, and like you, never intend to. I bid my usual rates and see what happens. They are not the main source of employment for me, so its not a big deal if I get it or not.

To my advantage is that there seem to be more UK buyers on there now, and they seem to understand that they have to pay a decent fee to get the work done to the standard they want.

Ive used some of the other bid for work sites, and have to say that the fees on offer were really bad. I suppose there is also the prospect of damage limitation...I have gone for jobs that I maybe would not have gone for otherwise, with the attitude that if I foul up....lol....(hangs head in shame - does that make me a bad person??? lol)

 

I've never used getafreelancer.com, but I just picked an ad at random and got this:

Woot. Fifty articles for $75. Damn that's a lot of work.

 

Having worked with lots of clients, I can tell you that shopping yourself on low-bidder-usually-wins sites is a loser's game. Your better off focusing your efforts building a base of local clients who are willing to pay local market rates for your services and the personal touch you can bring to helping their business.

I'd go with locality-specific PPC and getting on directories like FreelanceLocalTech and others that are focused on letting you market yourself to potential clients without the nastiness of lowering your rates to compete against people on the other side of the world.

 

so far am using this forum to find work

 

I personally like that plan better than the "low bidder" project sites.

 

We have used (paid subscription) Guru, Elance
Also used Rentacoder and Getafreelancer

Guru : Too much sophisticated for small jobs. Have to go through several procedures before coming to an agreement with the client. Not worth for projects less than 100$. On top of it they have an escrow system. The projects appears good but I doubt a bit on the genuineness in it. Good thing about it is you can have Express projects where you can advertise your service package, which is cool.

Elance : Nice interface, lot of projects but the project quality isnt as good as Guru. For eg people will be asking 100 one way PR5 links for 100$. Certainly a great place to know the feel of the industry.

Rentacoder: Free but the commission rated are way too high. Here too you will find a good number of unrealistic projects but you can filter them to your needs. We have some good clients from RAC. I like the arbitration system, monitoring of reports etc. Site is generally slow loading but a good place to start with.

Getafreelancer - If you are a beginer you can try this to know the industry. But don't expect any decent pays here. Lot of the projects are fake and they never pay. Initially we did a project for a guy called Rahn Heart who never paid. Professionals keep of from it .

 

I quite like Guru. Ive found that after a while you can spot the good projects from the bad. The level of fees that I seem to lose along the way can be a pain, but Ive picked up quite a few long term clients from the site, who seem happy enough to pay 'proper rates'.

Ive tried Elance, but have found that there seem to be lots of posts that dont actually award any projects. Get a freelancer is just plain wierd! I can't understand how people can afford to work for those rates!

Im building up more local clients now, which is always good and using the 'international' market as a place to sell articles/PLR packs etc.

Christine

 

I tried seriously on GetaFreelancer.com for about 6 weeks (as in bidding on everything I felt I was qualified for - working up samples and specs in advance of most bids etc)

I found that:

1) It's incredibly hard to get picked if you don't have pre-existing feedback (because GetaFreelancer attracts the bottom end of the market - people tend to choose people that have some kind of inherent trust ranking because they've successfully completed a task
2) Price is really, really difficult to match if you are living in a Western Country. A couple of other people in the thread quoted prices and it's honestly impossible to compete.

As a buyer (if you can't beat 'em join 'em) I found it variable as well:

1) Quality is generally pretty low
2) But sometimes people sneak through - have a full-time copywriter at prices only twice quoted above that's absolutely fantastic (and no I'm not going to share )

I dabbled in elance - which is reasonable but expectations are high.

I also participated in designquote.net. You have to purchase leads in advance of bidding - so it can be fairly expensive (particularly if the buyer is not really serious) but interesting concept.

Dylan

 

I had got some good projects from GAF, scriptlance by low but smart bidding, and hence i got more work to do with the client.

 

How mean So youre not a caring sharing kind of a guy?

:whisper...promise I wont tell...:

Christine