The January release of vWorker included some great new changes.
1) Skrill/moneybookers:
As requested by our Pakistini virtual workers, Skrill (formerly known as Moneybookers) is now available as a payment method on the site. Although PayPal pays to 99% of countries and is very cheap, it is not available in a few countries, including Pakistan. This new option gives Pakistani workers a new option to get paid (in addition to the existing methods of Payoneer direct transfer, Payoneer debit card and Western Union).
2) On-the-job trials (trialsourcing and next generation crowdsourcing):
Employers, you can now hire the best worker for your project every time…without interviewing! Our new “on-the-job trial” feature eliminates all the guess work of trying to divine who the best worker will be, using just unreliable resumes and portfolios. Instead the workers audition by performing a portion of the work (or all of it, if the project is a tiny one). The best one wins a prize. Ultimately, you know *exactly* who the best worker is, instead of guessing and can then work further with them. This is done with trialsourcing (for projects 2 days or more) and next-generation crowdsourcing (for tiny projects less than 2 days).
Our crowdsourcing is very different than competitors. Other sites restrict your crowdsourcing to design projects and small projects. They also burden the process with clumsy fixed pricing, which is almost always too high or too low. Ours works on every category and size of project. And our market-based PerfectPricing(tm) uses the power of the marketplace to ensure the right price, every time.
Workers: Crowdsourcing offers top workers the chance to earn 6-10x more than they would earn in a direct outsourcing project. If you’ve used other crowdsourcing sites and didn’t like them because of the pricing, you will love our market-based PerfectPricing mechanism. If the prize is too low, you let the employer know how much you would need to participate. We notify them and show them your resume. If they want your bid, they increase the prize, escrow it, and we notify you. Like all other projects on vWorker, you are guaranteed the prize, if you are selected a winner.
Click here for more information: http://www.vworkerchanges.com/2012/01/site-rollout-2011-12-29.html
- In: Freelancing
- Tags: crowdsourcing, Moneybookers, Skrill, trialsourcing, Vworker
Update: January 03, 2011: VWorker has also added skrill (moneybookers) as a new payment method for countries where Paypal is not supported.
Since Paypal is not available in Pakistan, you can withdraw money from your Odesk and VWorker accounts using the following withdrawal methods.
Skrill (Formerly Moneybookers):
Odesk: Simply sign up at moneybookers and then go to your odesk > Wallet > Payment Methods , here you have an option to sign up for skrill (formerly moneybookers) and the other option is “Already registered with Moneybookers? Click here.”, choose the later option as you will be already signed up by now. Remember to use the same email id that you use with your odesk account. For this method you are charged $1 per withdrawal.(Additional currency exchange and commercial fees charged by Moneybookers.)
Vworker: To setup skrill (moneybookers) in vworker, login to your vworker account and then go to My Account > My registration/Settings >My Pay Option and then choose Skrill and click next. The minimum amount you can withdraw is 3$ while vworker.com withdrawal fee is 2$.
By now you have added your moneybookers account as your withdrawal method, question is how to withdraw money from moneybookers, well for this you need to verify your address and then verify your bank account. To verify your bank account you will need the swift code, you can get the swift code by calling your bank for example swift code of Bank Alfalah Abbottabad is ALFHPKKA068.
In moneybookers account go to My Account > My Profile > LIST OF BANK ACCOUNTS and click manage to add your bank account. The last time I withdrew money from moneybookers to my bank account I received the payment on 5th day. I withdrew the amount on 30th July and the amount was credited to my bank account on August 04.
Wire Transfer (PKR)
Using this method you can withdraw money from odesk directly into your bank account. For this you will need the swift code again. To add this method go to your odesk > Payment > Payment Methods (Old Navigation) and click “Setup Wire Account”, you will be then asked for Swift Code, add swift code and click go. Now add your account number, branch name and address and account holder information. (Please make sure that you enter your name exactly as it appears on your bank account. Name mismatches can lead to delayed or failed payments.)
- $4.99 per withdrawal in PKR.
- Highly competitive exchange rates.
- Direct transfer. No need to deal with 3rd party-payment providers.
- First withdrawal is FREE!
Payoneer Debit Card
You can get an account and card by signing up through any of the payoneer partners (odesk/vworker.) Once you sign up a card will be sent to you within 28 business days. The activation process is an easy 2 step process.
1) Once you receive the card you will go online to http://payoneer.com and activate it there.
2) The process is complete once you receive your first payment from a partner. (Odesk/Vworker)
Pakistan, along with a few other countries (Angola, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Turkmenistan and Sao Tome and Principe) was listed by the US government as carrying an increased level of risk and having strategic Anti Money Laundering (AML) deficiencies. Payoneer still offers its services in Pakistan (unlike many other payment providers) and to comply with the new regulations Payoneer requires a copy of your government photo ID.(Please use the same ID that you provided during the registration process.) However, offering this special service requires them to adjust some of their fees, to cover their cost of addressing the increased level of risk. Thats why the enhanced service to Pakistan and few other countries incurs an activation fee of $24.95 that will be charged as soon as funds are loaded to the new card.
Once you have activated your Payoneer Card, there will also be a Monthly Maintenance Fee of 3$. Payoneer Card is a debit card and can be used at ATMs, at stores and online.
Payoneer Card Limits:
The daily ATM withdrawal limits is $2,500.
The daily purchase limit (at stores/online) is: $2,500
Total daily spending limit – $5,000
On vworker.com minimum withdrawal amount is 50$ while odesk withdrawal to Payoneer is 20$
Western Union
I dont personally recommend this method as this is very costly. This method is available in vworker.com. When you withdraw money using this method you are charged $10.00 Processing and/or postage fee by vworker.com. After that Western Union”s sending/conversion fee will also be deducted from the amount.
To claim your Western Union payment, you will need to go to your nearest Western Union office (see www.WesternUnion.com for locations) and give them the following information:
Sender’s Name: Exhedra Solutions Inc.
Sender’s Address: 1209 La Brad Lane;Tampa, Florida 33613;United State of America
Sender’s Phone #: (813) 908-9029
Money Transfer control (MTCN) #: (Your MTCN No here)
Other wire details
You will need a copy of your CNIC and your MTCN No to collect the money. Western Union rates are
<= 123 $15
<= 230 $22
<= 334 $29
<= 444 $34
<= 551 $43
<= 682 $50
<= 813 $56
<= 945 $62
<= 1084 $68
<= 1343 $83
<= 1594 $92
<= 5000 $100
Others $125
So if you are withdrawing suppose 550$ from vworker.com via Western Union you will end up getting 550$- $10.00 (Processing and/or postage fee vworker.com)- 43$= 497$
As the CEO of vWorker.com, I have close contact with many of the 300,000+ freelancers who use the site to earn a living. I’ve seen virtual workers of all temperaments, nationalities and ages. But the thing that always strikes me is how there seem to be two distinct types of freelancers.
The first seems to enjoy a charmed life. It’s not unusual for such a freelancer to be brand new to the site and yet win not just one, but several jobs in the first few weeks. They enjoy great success, build up repeat business and enjoy an easy and constant stream of projects and income.
The second struggles for weeks just to win their first job, and don’t understand what they are doing wrong. Then when they finally do wine one, they don’t manage the project properly and have numerous problems with it and their employers. They usually end up with a dissatisfied client and no chance of getting repeat business, and have to start all over again at square one.
I’m writing this article to help you be the former type of freelancer, and avoid the fate of the latter.
1. Successful Bidding
Put yourself in the employer’s shoes for a minute. You’ve just posted a job on vWorker.com to create your asp.NET company website and are evaluating bidders. Which one of these bids would make you want to correspond with the bidder further?
Bid #1:
Description:
Hi, I’m Andre Jones and I’m an expert in the following:
a) Web site design
b) PHP
c) ASP.NET
d) Java/Javascript
I also am a fantastic photojournalist and marketer.
Here are example of my work:http://example1.com
http://example2.com
http://example3.com
Please see my resume for more details. I’m looking forward to working with you!
Bid amount: $2,000
Bid #2:
Description:
Hi, I’m Andre Jones and I have 5 years of experience in ASP.NET.
I read through your description and think this is going to be an excellent way for you to attract new clients.
What kind of security did you have in mind for this project? The reason I ask is that, I can build whatever you want. But I don’t want to quote you the price of the equivalent of a “limosine” if you are really looking for an economy car. For instance, are you expecting a special admin section that only you can access, or will it all be public?
Bid Amount: None
Who will the employer prefer? It’s not even a close competition. 99% of employers will respond back to bid #2, while deleting bid #1. Why is there such a difference? The main problem with bid #1 is that it gives off the foul stench of a copy-and-paste spam bid from an amateur. Bid #2, on the other hand, comes across as engaging, interested, enthusiastic and competent. Look at the differences:
- Bid #1 has listed every skill he has, including most that are not asked for in this project. Why would the employer care about this? He’s making the classic mistake of talking about what’s interesting to himself (his skills) rather than what’s interesting to the client (how he can help the client solve his problem). Bid #2 on the other hand shows respect for the employer’s time by only talking about the relevant skills.
- Bidder #2 showed the employer that they actually read the description by asking specific questions about it. Pertinent questions compel a person to answer them. Bid #1 on the other hand has no questions and is not compelling. Incidentally, it is so generic that it gives the impression it was probably spammed to everyone on the site with similar projects (and it probably was).
- Bid #2 expressed enthusiasm for the project itself. When an employer has to choose between two equal candidates: the more enthusiastic has a huge edge. Note that he did this in a sincere, honest and specific way. He didn’t throw out platitudes (which can be even worse than not saying anything at all). So if you can do this sincerely, then it’s a powerful tool. If you’re not sure about this, then don’t take a chance of doing it incorrectly.
- Bid #1 put in a $ amount on their first bid. This is usually a huge red flag to any knowledgeable employer. 99.999% of the time, there’s no way someone can make an accurate bid without getting additional information. This reeks of a freelancer who is too inexperienced to realize how bad this is. Bid #2 didn’t make this rookie mistake.
(Insider scoop: Speaking of bids, I’ll give the readers of this blog who use vWorker an exclusive “scoop” on an upcoming feature that will be of interest to you. Currently when you make a bid (say $1000), the vWorker fee is deducted from that. But in a few weeks, that will change and instead we’ll raise the amount the employer escrows to cover the fee. So if you bid $1000, you’ll get $1000 and you no longer have to worry about the fee during you bid. See vWorker updates for info on this when it becomes available.)
Alright! You’ve followed the above tips and you’ve now won the bid! Working properly during the project is the key between a client who comes back to you over and over again for a long time, and one who can’t wait to get rid of you. The key is to remember to think long term.
2. Managing client expectation
Even on a very well laid out project, you can expect 10-15% of a contract to be unclear. This means you will have to work out the details during the project. Go through the project at the beginning to find these areas and get them hammered out.
Don’t make the mistake of ignoring things, or worse: getting no input from the client and instead implementing them in the easiest way possible and hoping the client won’t notice. Communication is key to working out these issues and avoiding an unhappy client later.
3. Managing deadlines
Deadlines are real and should be treated as such. But every human being misses at least one deadline in their lives. If you can’t make a deadline, don’t wait until the day before and say “Oh, by the way I won’t make it. Sorry, dude!”. The last-minute surprise (when you’re expected to be finished) can cause your employer a premature heart-attack, and cause you to lose all credibility.
Instead, you should be communicating with them constantly during the project. As soon as you notice you are behind schedule (weeks before), let them know and let them know why (i.e. “we ran into xyz because it was more complicated than expected”). With advanced notice your employer can often make other arrangements.
And never just say “Oh it’s going to be late,” and not say when you think it *will* be done. Just like you don’t like to be left in limbo…neither does the employer.
These are all small but important things that make the difference between keeping your client’s trust or losing it completely and never working for them again.
4. Uploading deliverables
Disputes happen… even to the best of freelancers. They key is to be prepared so you can avoid problems when they do occur.
For some reason, many freelancers hate uploading their work to the vWorker site. Yes it does take a little more time to do this. But ask yourself this: would you rather do that, or would you rather lose the funds for the project you worked so hard on, simply because you didn’t take the time to do this simple task?
On a site like vWorker we guarantee that you will be paid if you complete the project to the contract, on time and in the industry expected manner. However, without the upload, you have no proof of what and when you delivered. And without that, we cannot enforce that guarantee and you can end up not getting paid. So you can easily avoid the entire situation by just uploading the deliverables. Then you are fully protected in a dispute and can get paid for the work you did.
5. Repeat business
You finished the job and have a happy client! Congratulations! Now that you’ve earned their trust, you can look forward to a recurring revenue stream from future projects. However, many people don’t think about how to save money by structuring that repeat business properly.
For example, if you won your first project from the employer via an open-auction pay-for-deliverables project, we charge a 15% vWorker fee. On repeat projects, the employer skips bidding, which saves us money (bandwidth costs, advertising to bring in bidders and employers, etc.) and we pass that savings on to you. The key is to make sure the employer posts the project to you as a “one-on-one” project. This cuts the cost to 12.5%. On a large project this can be a significant savings. If you both trust each other so much that you can forgo escrowing, you can set it up as a bonus and only pay 10%! And there are other ways to save as well.
Once you’ve established trust with the employer, you can have the switch from pay-for-deliverables to pay-for-time (PFT). In PFT, you clock into a timecard and are guaranteed payment for every hour you work. This is a really good deal compared with PFD, where any cost overruns (or bad estimates on your part) are your responsibility. On top of that, the fee drops to just 9%! So this is a fantastic way to give you more flexibility AND save money at the same time.
And on all the above options, you can drop the cost by another 2.5% by asking the employer to use a preferred payment method (snail mail check or wire). These are cheaper for us to process, so we pass it on to you. Note: Once the bidding change I talked about earlier is in place (in a few weeks) we expect employers will be much more likely to use a preferred payment method, because they will actually see the difference (will not have to escrow as much).
Using the above tips, you can have a very successful freelance career. I hope these tips were helpful!
Note: This post is written by Ian Ippolito, CEO and founder of vWorker.com and has been posted here with his permission.
- In: Freelancing
- Tags: 5 ways, Freelancing
Usman Shahzada: Where are you from and tell something about yourself?
Ian Ippolito: I grew up in Merritt Island, Florida, which is the home of Kennedy Space Center. Most of the people who lived there worked for NASA and my dad did too. He first worked in the Apollo control room, and then later became the director of the U.S. shuttle tracking station. It was an huge inspiration to see my dad (and his co-workers) use their brains and technology every day, to conquer huge challenges and push the boundaries of human knowledge.
After college, I moved to Tampa, Florida for my first job. I loved the weather, lifestyle and affordable housing and decided to stay. It also became an excellent place to start a business, because of the lost cost of living and ease in bringing in new recruits.
Usman Shahzada: When and why you started rentacoder.com (now called vworker) and what was the reason behind it?
Ian Ippolito: It was back in 2001. 6-7 years earlier, I had created a site called Planet-Source-Code.com, which was the first site to enable programmers to share source code. As the webmaster, I was bombarded by people asking me to help them with their code. I was an independent programmer/consultant at the time and was happy to be getting so many requests for paid work. But it also hurt to have to tell so many of them “Sorry I can’t help you, because I’m too busy.”
I realized there was a need that wasn’t being met, so I decided to create a marketplace that would connect people to programmers. But I didn’t just want to create a copy of the same thing that already existed in the real world. Traditional freelancing/consulting has a lot of serious problems and I felt it was a broken model. I saw many good programmers work very hard and end up getting ripped off by clients, who never paid them. I also saw extremely bad programmers ripping off good clients by walking away with their deposits and never delivering…or by delivering shamefully buggy code and never fixing them.
So I wanted to create something much better. I came up with the idea of a marketplace where the employers would not pay the programmer directly, but instead would escrow the funds in advance. This would prove to the programmer they had the ability to pay, and relieve them of the worry about being ripped off. And if the employer acted poorly and refused to pay them, we would test the deliverables and pay them anyway. And by the same token, we would protect employers from bad programmers who would otherwise walk away with an advance payment or who didn’t deliver the final work in a quality format.
Usman Shahzada: Now vworker has more than 300,000 registered workers but when you started it what was the initial response of the people?
Ian Ippolito: I created the first version of Rent a Coder in 2001 on my laptop during a long plane ride back from Italy, and it went live a few months later. We were profitable in the very first month, but it was not much of a profit (less than a few hundred dollars). But every month was better than the last. The company’s first big break came when a Wall Street Journal reporter used the site to have some programming work done and wrote a very glowing article about the experience. After that, more customers and publicity from others followed, and we grew very rapidly.
Usman Shahzada: How did you market your business/website after the launch?
Ian Ippolito: This was back before Google adwords even sold PPC ads, so that option wasn’t available to us. We marketed on Overture to get a jump start, but soon word-of-mouth became a much better source of new business.
Usman Shahzada: How many teams members you have at vworker?
Ian Ippolito: 12 full time employees, 3 part time and a team of another 10-12 virtual workers from the site. Staffing is a significant cost, so I purposefully keep it to a minimum, so that we are able to pass the savings on to our customers.
Usman Shahzada: Do you have other businesses/websites other than vworker?
Ian Ippolito: Yes, I own Exhedra Solutions, Inc. which is the parent company of vWorker. It runs the Planet Source Code website, sells some shareware products and offers consulting services. However, after 2002 or so, 99% of my time has been, and is continued to be taken up by vWorker.
Usman Shahzada: How do think makes vworker different from odesk, elance, freelancer, getacoder, guru and other online market places?
Ian Ippolito: The online marketplaces are as different and unique as if they were real people! There are about 50-60 major differences between us and the rest. I don’t want to bore anyone, so I’ll talk just about the top two differences between us and the first two you mentioned. Then I’ll give links where they can more details.
1) oDesk: oDesk offers two services: pay-for-time where the employer pays by the hour (they call it “hourly”), and pay-for-deliverables where the employer pays for the entire job (they call it “fixed price”). I take my hat off to them for inventing the idea of pay-for-time, and first enabling the employer to monitor the workers’ desktop and webcam so they know for sure they are being billed accurately. However, today, we also offer this service, the exact same guarantees, but charge customers 10-35% less for it. On pay-for-deliverables: their tagline is “Guaranteed Work. Guaranteed Payment”, but they actually don’t guarantee either party on it. This makes that sort of work much riskier than on vWorker where we guarantee safety to both sides. More info is at: http://www.vworker.com/RentACoder/oDeskVersusVWorker_ForWorkers.aspx
2) Elance: has improved a lot over how they used to be several years ago. They emulated our ideas of escrowing and arbitration, and today offer a base-level pay-for-deliverables guarantee. However, it still is not ideal. First, arbitration isn’t free like it is on vWorker: it costs $99 or $199. And if the other party wants arbitration and you don’t want to automatically lose, you are forced to cough up the fee, just to avoid forfeiting. This doesn’t happen on vWorker. They also charge workers $10-$40/month for bidding privileges. Again, there are no fees for doing the same thing on vWorker. More info is at: http://www.vworker.com/RentACoder/ElanceVersusVWorker_ForWorkers.aspx
For 50-60 other differences, with elance, Odesk and the rest, your readers can read more at:
http://www.vworker.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/WhyRentACoder_ForBuyers.aspx
http://www.vworker.com/RentACoder/DotNet/misc/CompetitorInformation/WhyRentACoder_ForSellers.aspx
Usman Shahzada: Where do you see vworker after five or ten years?
Ian Ippolito: We’ll have expanded into other areas of work, beyond what we do today. We’ll also be taking advantage of better bandwidth to allow better and richer communication between employers and virtual workers. And finally we’ll have expanded the model to other countries and languages as well.
Usman Shahzada: Any upcoming and new exciting features that are to be launched in vworker that you wish to share?
Ian Ippolito: Yes, we are putting out about 100 new changes every month. Here are some that your readers might be interested in learning about:
1) Change to bidding: Right now if a virtual worker bids $100, we take out our fee (say it’s an open auction project, so that is $15) and they receive $85. However, after this change, if the worker bids $100, we’ll add our $15 fee to it, and the employer will escrow $115. (Many workers are currently in the habit of adding the fee to every bid. So after this change, they’ll have to remember that they will no longer need to do that.) This will make it easier for workers to bid.
It will also give employers an incentive to save money with a preferred payment discount. The PPD is a discount for them sending us funds via a cheaper method (wire or snail mail check). Since it’s cheaper for us, we pass the savings on to the customer. Currently the employer doesn’t really “see” the affect the discount very clearly, so they don’t take advantage. After this change, they’ll see when they escrow the fund that doing this can save them significantly (because it will require less to escrow). So I expect we’ll see employers saving considerably more money this way than they currently do.
2) Tech Sherpa: Non technical employers with no experience managing programmers have a very difficult time using any online marketplace. That’s because effective supervision requires a combination of skills they don’t have: the skills of a technical lead, outsourcing manager, project manager, and quality control manager. We currently have in beta a feature where these people can hire a pre-screened Sherpa to manage their project for them at just $25/hour-$90/hour (depending on location in the world and skills). This is going to enable entrepreneurs to finally be able to take advantage of outsourcing and make it mainstream.
3) Worker qualification: The best virtual workers are 10x more productive than the worst, so choosing the right one is crucial. However, most employers don’t have the skill and ability to choose effectively. In a few months, we’ll be putting out a way that will enable them to do this, while drastically cut the time and cost required to do so. I encourage those interested to subscribe to http://siteupdates.vworker.com, to be notified when it’s ready.
Usman Shahzada: Any message for the newbies who want to start their freelancing career?
Ian Ippolito: That’s a great question, and to answer it well, would require a whole article in itself. The main keys are effective bidding, managing client expectations, managing deadlines and doing things to protect themselves in case of a dispute. For those interested, more details can be found here: http://imtips.co/freelancing-career.html
- In: Freelancing
- Tags: CEO VWorker, Ian Ippolito, Vworker
An Interview with Gary Swart, CEO of odesk.com
22 May2011
Usman Shahzada: Where are you from and tell something about yourself?
Gary Swart: I grew up in the New York City area and moved to the Bay Area of California almost 18 years ago. I moved to Palo Alto to work for Pure Software, and through a series of mergers and acquisitions, I ended up at IBM. After 1-1/2 years at IBM i recognized that I was happier in a smaller company environment and the opportunity to make a larger impact in the world. oDesk provides me with the ideal opportunity to have an exciting career while doing something meaningful for the world.
Usman Shahzada: When and why you started odesk.com and what was the reason behind it?
Gary Swart: I was not a founder of oDesk although I did come in very early, over 5 1/2 years ago. oDesk was started by our cofounders Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamanlakis with the goal of enabling people to work on the jobs they want from anywhere in the World. From day one we have been maniacally focused on our vision of enabling people to work from anywhere on the jobs they want, helping employers to access qualified talent anywhere in the world, and making online workers and teams just as effective as on-site, and not just early adopters utilize them.
Usman Shahzada: When you started it what was the initial response of the people?
Gary Swart: The initial response from our community was extremely positive. Our employer customers told us that they liked access to hard to find talent outside of their local geographies, guaranteed work through unprecedented visibility into work as it happens, and the ability to pay without the hassle of payroll. Similarly, our contractor customers told us they liked access to jobs and the guaranteed payment that oDesk provides, whether or not we collect the money from the employer. The positive response from our community continues to improve each year as our marketplace strengthens with more quality jobs and even more highly qualified contractors.
Usman Shahzada: How much you invested initially to setup everything? Were you able to find venture capitalists?
Gary Swart: oDesk has raised 3 rounds of venture capital to help us to build our business to where we are today providing $18M per month in payroll to over 1.4M contractors from around the world.
Usman Shahzada: How did you market your business/website after the launch?
Gary Swart: oDesk is primarily marketed via referrals from our customers. Our employers get great results and tell other employers how great oDesk is for getting work done cost effectively and contractors also bring other contractors to oDesk to make money. In addition to referrals we also leverage Search Engine Marketing, PR, and social media.
Usman Shahzada: How many teams members you have at odesk?
Gary Swart: We have 55 employees at oDesk and 170 full time equivalent contractors that we have hired from our network to help us to build and run our business. We are proud of the fact that we use our own service to get more work done.
Usman Shahzada: Do you have other businesses/websites other than odesk?
Gary Swart: I do not currently have other businesses in addition to oDesk.
Usman Shahzada: How do think makes odesk different from vworker, elance, freelancer, getacoder, guru and other online market places?
Gary Swart: oDesk is the largest and fastest growing company in the eWork space. We are the only marketplace that offers guaranteed work and guaranteed payment and as a result we have the worlds largest network of highly qualified rated, ranked, tested contractors and the most employers looking for long-term, time-based workers.
Usman Shahzada: Where do you see odesk after five or ten years?
Gary Swart: oDesk will be a globally mainstream way to hire and work. People can work from anywhere on the jobs they want.Employers can access qualified talent anywhere in the world.Online workers and teams are just as effective as on-site, and not just early adopters utilize them.
Usman Shahzada: Any upcoming and new exciting features that are to be launched in odesk that you wish to share?
Gary Swart: Stay tuned for even more continual innovation in all areas of hire, manage and pay.
Usman Shahzada: What do you think is the main reason behind your success?
Gary Swart: oDesk is successful based on the continued innovation and execution by our highly qualified and capable team.
Usman Shahzada: Any message for the newbies who want to start their freelancing career?
Gary Swart: My advice to new contractors that would like to start a career on oDesk is to recognize that it may take some time to get your first job on oDesk and not to give up too soon. Here are some tips to get started,
- Complete their profile including uploading a photo, adding samples of their work to the portfolio and take a few tests to demonstrate that they have the right skills and knowledge.
- Look through the 80+ jobs posted on a monthly basis to identify those most targeted to their strengths.
- Apply to jobs of interest with a very focused and relevant cover letter, clearly articulating how your capabilities will be an ideal fit for what the employer needs done.
- Be flexible on your desired hourly rate to get started
- Don’t give up!
- In: Freelancing
- Tags: CEO Odesk, Gary Swart, Odesk
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