We’ve all been there.
You know you’re unlikely to find anything that pays more than $4 an hour, but work is thin on the ground and you’re feeling optimistic. Thirteen hours later you’ve watched 8 seemingly sensible buyers fall for the cut and paste bids, had 2 people tell you you’ll never make it in freelancing unless you halve your rates, and made exactly 0 pennies.
I’m sure there are some people who make a good living out of these sites but if you, like the me of a year ago, feel that freelancing sites are your best bet to get some portfolio work, read on.
First I’ll go over a list of things to always bear in mind while dealing with freelancer sites, then I’ll regale you with my experiences of each.
You will not make a real income
Pocket money, yes. If you’re in this for the experience and don’t need the cash then fair enough and I’m sure we’re all jealous.
You are unlikely to score a portfolio-worthy project
At least at first. You’ll find your best chances of being hired with no feedback are for the all too common $20 PSD to HTML projects.
Buyers are often inexperienced
There are exceptions, but most of the buyers using these sites don’t really understand what they’re asking for. They’ll often reel off a list of requirements totalling around a month’s quality work, and their budget will be under $300. Don’t be afraid to point out the discrepancy, but don’t be surprised if another provider comes in under budget and steals the job.
A lot of bids are cut and paste
You’ll recognise them immediately. Some buyers go so far as to request you type a codeword into your bid to ensure you’ve actually read the job description! If you’re awake and facing the right way, you’re immediately at an advantage with this type of buyer.
Most buyers want a real person
You’re likely to see a lot of bids from companies, but in my experience the personal touch can go a long way with securing a job. Whenever you bid, send the buyer a message detailing exactly what your bid includes and how you plan to complete the project. The more information you can give them, the more confident they will feel about hiring you, especially if you have no feedback.
“So which are the sites to avoid and which are veritable goldmines?”, I hear you cry.
Probably the most well-known freelancing site, and therefore by a wide margin the most spammed. Getting your voice heard here isn’t easy, and there are so many providers without feedback that you can even find yourself facing more competiton when bidding on the newbie-only trial projects. On the other hand their escrow payment system seems secure and I have met some very nice buyers through this site, you just have to pick your battles.
This is a sister site to GaF, and is by contrast rarely used. Still worth keeping an eye on however, since you can sign up to it with basically no effort by clicking a link in your GaF admin.
Scriptlance suffers from the same major overcrowding as GaF, but makes it even worse by being horrendously designed. The front page is essentially a wall of text (or links, whatever) that will make you squint, and half of them are repeated under each heading! I’ve bid halfheartedly on a couple of things here, but never actually been chosen. I think I’m grateful.
A nice change of pace, wpfreelance usually has one or two new projects per day and there are regulars who bid on just about everything (*shifty eyes*). In case the really obvious name didn’t inform you, this site is for WordPress-related jobs only. As usual you have the mix of unpleasant and perfectly nice buyers, though I’m glad to say the balance is more in favour of the latter. Unfortunately the escrow system on the site leaves something to be desired. On one occasion my buyer released the funds only for them to disappear! Thankfully the buyer was lovely about it and sent them a sternly worded email, resulting in me getting my money within a day or so, but it did nothing for my confidence in the site maintainers (they didn’t actually reply to his email, just sent me the money).
Sounds like another specialist site doesn’t it? Well actually you get a bit of everything listed here, which scientifically proves my theory that everyone who works with Joomla is mental. Don’t be offended, I count myself in that group too. My one experience with this site was not a good one, and that obnoxious buyer only has herself to blame when she reads this (which will definitely happen) and sees that her rudeness got the entire site a bad review. Sweet revenge.
Ok. So maybe that’s a bit mean. Joomlancers has actually changed a lot since I last used it, including the addition of tests providers can take and display proudly on their profile to attract more buyers. Good idea.
I only recently discovered this site, and am very impressed so far. There are of course your usual selection of idiots, but the site has a few measures in place to make it much easier to find the decent projects. First of all, as with the new improved Joomlancers, as a provider you can take tests in pretty much whatever your expertise might be. Secondly, buyers can list certain required qualifications with their jobs, such as specific skills or tests passed. Of course plenty of people will bid who do not meet or have not even read these qualifications, but oDesk sends them straight to the bottom of the list. Scanning the job postings for those that list qualifications is how I found my first job there, since I knew I wanted to work with a buyer who actually had standards.
If a buyer is interested they don’t just award you the job arbitrarily, they actually invite you for interview. This can be in the form of private messages, or use Skype or another messaging equivalent. It might seem like a lot of effort, but it’s steered toward finding quality providers for quality jobs, and you’re quality…right?
Compared to other sites of my aquaintance, oDesk works in a strange way. There are two types of job, hourly and fixed. Fixed is where you find the usual “no bids over $20 please” jobs, and hourly is guaranteed payment. The catch is that you must download and run a time-tracking application that then reports your work hours to the buyer. All very professional.
Since I’ve only just scored my first job here, I can’t comment on the payment process. However, I am quietly confident.
That is all!
I realise some of the big-name freelancing sites are missing from my list, but I wanted to give a personal view of each. Some sites are so famous for their lack of quality, I wounldn’t touch them with somebody else’s.
If you really want to give these sites a try, just be prepared for the rejections and the frustrations. Once you get your foot in the door they can become more lucrative but it takes a special sort of dedication to get that far in the first place. Godspeed.
