Why I Never Use Online Freelance Job Sites
Recently, FreelanceSwitch wrote an article asking what do you think of job bidding sites, and from the latest results of their poll 61% of respondents said they have never used those sites, showing that most people don’t like them.
I totally agree with the majority on this one. I really dislike sites like eLance, Get a Freelancer, or Rent A Coder. These sites are a perfect example of the type of service provider you don’t want to hire.
When I first started I used to look through those sites and find work, but I found that the typical client posting on those sites were people who had little understanding of the type of work they were looking for and just wanted someone to do it for as little money as possible. I was totally disgusted when I saw that a project I would have typically charged over $2000 for, went for $300. It was ridiculous. I was more confused as why someone would actually work for so cheap, these can’t be decent clients you’d want to enter a long-term business arrangement with. Another thing that bugged me was the fact that most of the projects on those sites went to people simply because of their price, and not at all because of the experience or quality of the bidders. Finally, I noticed that a lot of clients asked for design work up front before they made their decision, or that they wanted to see the whole project before they would provide any payment. Sorry, but unless it’s a really large project I invoice 50% up front when I start the project.
A perfect example of what I mean occurred last year when I gave someone a quote for a web site. After they received it, they called me back and said it looked great and we should get started on the project. Then a week later he called me back and said he wasn’t sure why he was paying so much for it, because his buddy got a web site built for $300 the month earlier. As soon as he mentioned that I decided I didn’t want to work for that client. Period. First of all, any client that hires you solely because of price is not a good client. That’s part of the reason why the best firms stay away from RFPs, but I’ll explain that further in a future blog post.
So when would it make sense to use these sites? For a professional, I would say never, but…
- if you’re a student and you need some cash on the side then these can be great places to find work. It will help you build your resume and learn which will be as valuable as the money you’re earning.
- if you live in a country with a low cost of living, where $500USD is a lot of money, then great, go ahead and bid on these sites you might make a lot of money, relatively speaking.
- The only other way time I would say it makes sense to use these sites is if you are just starting out and need to build up a portfolio. In that case you can do a bunch of these projects for little money but you’ll be building your portfolio to help acquire bigger projects, that pay appropriately.
If you expect to start a freelance career by working for these types of clients then you need to reconsider your freelancing decision, I have rarely heard of anyone who’s built a decent business, and personal income, off of finding work from these sites.
