oDesk

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webling

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Is oDesk a good site to get work? I found this recently but have found many of the jobs listed pay little to nothing. But there are some that seem half way decent, but you have to look way down the long list.
 
Good for finding cheap indian labour. I used it once for a website, however ended up never using the design. I suppose its just luck really.
 
odesk is just your regular run of the mill outsourcing location. There's a number of them out there. I've worked with some people on odesk before, but I've found more often than not that the quality of the work is not up to par. If you have VERY specific instructions, it can be a great place to get work done, but there's definitely no free thinkers that I've run into over the years on there.

As for getting work - the problem with odesk is that you're competing directly with the lowest dollar amount. This is always a bad way of competing.

Also, just so you know, when I look for someone on oDesk I search with the following criteria - minimum 100 hours worked, active within the past 6 months, minimum 4 star reviews. I also filter out anyone who "self assesses" their work or English skills. You must pass the tests provided by odesk, and you must be in the top 85% - anything less and I won't even consider someone.

Finally, the last filter I use is the ability to follow instructions. I do not want cover letters, I do not want the sales pitch. Often I'll put in the posting "you must use the word elephant in the first sentence" - anyone who fails to do that, I don't even read the rest of the posting - I just delete them.

Crowd-sourcing can be a great way to keep costs down - but as always, since they're one off jobs, often the quality is just not there.
 
We, at our company, used both odesk and elance, but as a provider (elance calls it contractor) and not posting jobs.
We found odesk to target very low paid providers, with unrealistic expectation from the clients.
Like the other comments, it seems like people go to odesk to look for cheap and not quality labor.

We do find, however, elance to be more realistic as far as budget and client expectation.
The quality of projects has gone down in the last year, but we still have a good amount of customers hiring us, using elance for outsourcing.

I'd recommend you give elance a try.
 
You can find some real quality people at sites such as oDesk though I'd say the majority is not up to the quality you pay be after.

You get what you pay for so when choosing oDesk work be careful you find the right people or you will end up losing more money.
 
koddos said:
I don't know if Indian labor can be quality.
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You can - but you have to look pretty hard. We have a graphic designer that we utilize and he's located in India. He's been a huge asset in turning graphics around within minutes/hours rather than days.

You CAN find good workers, but they're definitely a tough find!
 
handsonhosting said:
odesk is just your regular run of the mill outsourcing location. There's a number of them out there. I've worked with some people on odesk before, but I've found more often than not that the quality of the work is not up to par. If you have VERY specific instructions, it can be a great place to get work done, but there's definitely no free thinkers that I've run into over the years on there.

As for getting work - the problem with odesk is that you're competing directly with the lowest dollar amount. This is always a bad way of competing.

Also, just so you know, when I look for someone on oDesk I search with the following criteria - minimum 100 hours worked, active within the past 6 months, minimum 4 star reviews. I also filter out anyone who "self assesses" their work or English skills. You must pass the tests provided by odesk, and you must be in the top 85% - anything less and I won't even consider someone.

Finally, the last filter I use is the ability to follow instructions. I do not want cover letters, I do not want the sales pitch. Often I'll put in the posting "you must use the word elephant in the first sentence" - anyone who fails to do that, I don't even read the rest of the posting - I just delete them.

Crowd-sourcing can be a great way to keep costs down - but as always, since they're one off jobs, often the quality is just not there.
Click to expand...



Your posts are always full of good information, great stuff. Always appreciated.
 
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eyal_tst said:
We found odesk to target very low paid providers, with unrealistic expectation from the clients.

I'd recommend you give elance a try.
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I've approached oDesk from both sides, to find work and to find workers. But at the rate I require which is equivalent to a Junior Web Developer rate is way over what other bids on there are, even though in the US it would be considered affordable for most employers. I'm looking to supplement my own income until my hosting company gets off the ground more. Also when money allows it I may hire a php programer. I have dabbled in PHP enough to do modifications and write some small scripts but not enough to do any serious work.

I'll check out elance, thanks for the tip.
 
Our company has used odesk as well and we got really good contractors.. It is just a matter of really choosing the contractor with best experience, work feedbacks and rates as well.
 
oDesk is all right in general. We have found some really quality people through oDesk and it's actually useful to put a sort of test question in your job posting to weed out spam applicants.
 
We use oDesk to find a qualified engineer from the country where our datacenter is. Using Odesk you can either find a contractor, and invite to interview on your own or just post a job offer and wait until someone gets back to you. We found a good specialist on Odesk and are very satisfied with the quality of work done. So when it comes to hiring a person or finding a job, do not hesitate to use Odesk.com
 
DynaBoot said:
We use oDesk to find a qualified engineer from the country where our datacenter is. Using Odesk you can either find a contractor, and invite to interview on your own or just post a job offer and wait until someone gets back to you. We found a good specialist on Odesk and are very satisfied with the quality of work done. So when it comes to hiring a person or finding a job, do not hesitate to use Odesk.com
Click to expand...

Through oDesk you can post for full time positions and have a dedicated person work for you? I thought it was just for freelance type work?
 
oDesk is a good choice to start a freelance. A friend of mine found a good job there ( System Administrator of a small hosting company ).
 
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