Has anyone tried them? They, of course, look and sound impressing... but it is paying to gain access to the jobs. I just got an email from them for a seven day trial for $7, but thought I'd see if anyone else has any firsthand information about them. Thanks!
I wouldn't waste time with sites like this. There are better ways to market yourself... your goal should be to get the business to come to you and not throw yourself into a pool of competition competing at least a good deal on price (never smart when you're offering services). There are plenty of free resources listing jobs. There's no excuse for any service provider to pay for that - payments should generally be covered by listing fees from the hiring companies (since technically what they're doing is advertising).
I second that. The best jobs websites like this are the ones where the employer pays to view a list of employees, not the other way round. To ask jobseekers to pay just to see a list of jobs is scamming them somewhat. It's kind of like being an agency but without doing any of the work that an agency normally does, so therefore I wouldn't bother paying them. As jhmattern says... the business should always come to you if possible. You should try as hard as you can not to invest in something, financially or otherwise, when you are looking for work. As a side-note, I mentioned agencies earlier, but they should generally only charge fees as a percentage of your earnings, and are not paid upfront. This is where this website is being a bit cheeky. My advice? Stay away. There are plenty of much better websites out there. If this one resorts to charging the jobseekers, you have to wonder how many jobs there actually are...
Perhaps you should decide it yourself. You can get better offer from there. Nobody knows from where you can get more jobs. After all, we are here to make money and if it comes with some salt, why not take chances? Personally my opinion is, it is better to start your writing career from a free site, just like our adorable DP. Once you are well conversant with the article writing business in the internet, you can choose yourself where to settle.
Totally agreed with what Jenn and djjeny said... You don't need to pay for search a writing job, if you want to get the free job why don't you go for a visit to Deb and Jodee's site, freelancewritinggis...
I wouldn't recommend using a freelance site to find work unless it is a free one like RentACoder. Even then, good jobs are few and far between. It's best to market yourself, like jhmattern suggested.
You can make a ton of money on freelance sites. But, start with a free one and learn how to market yourself correctly before you shell out money. -ruff
JH I have seen people get pretty much full time jobs from freelance sites. You can find big companies that spend lots of money on websites and programming. If you do good work, develop a solid portfolio, and more importantly send the right message to the people looking to hire you can make normal designer wages (I charge $35 an hour).
Thanks for clarifying. On a freelance basis, $35 / hr (for billable hours) really isn't very much to me and I'm sure some others here. But I can see freelance sites fulfilling that kind of goal pretty reasonably.
Of course... but that's why those of us doing bigger contract deals here spend our time doing them privately. I've said over and over here the good gigs aren't the advertised ones... they're the ones you get through networking. I average well over $100 / hr writing, and my DP clients are no different in that sense than ones I've gotten elsewhere. I know more than a handful of professional writers here who work at the same, or even higher, rates very successfully here.
I just said that because I have no clue what kind of rate he is looking for. If you are starting out its a great way to build your portfolio and learn how to sell yourself. And, bravo on the $100/hr thing. I get around the same form my normal work because I have others do the programming. I usually get the clients, design, and write, but honestly I want to move strictly into Business Marketing Consulting. Way more money and way more fun.
i dont agree with the matter of odesk, that is not a good site, i know some people who post fake projects in this website and get paid from them.
I do a lot of this. It is fun. But I miss writing. So I use the copywriting to really round this out. I love the macro view of figuring out specifically what message works across all media.
I notice that this thread got a bit off-topic Anyways - I'm not a writer by any means, but was actually thinking of promoting this product's affiliate program with CJ. Did some quick looking on google, and the results weren't too positive, so I decided to promote another product. People have mentioned this already, but generally it's a good idea to stay away from job sites that require a membership fee in order to access the information.