If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

What kind of freelancer are you? Floater or Full-time? As for me, I’m a full-time writer. Really, I don’t have any choice in the matter ever since the “Duck Incident” that happened at the place I used to work and the resulting psychological screening (I call it profiling). Apparently, orally …

ShareThis

You just got an interview for a position. If it’s your first interview, you’re probably bouncing off of the walls with excitement. If not, you realize that getting an interview is not a guarantee that you have the job.

So, what do you do when you have an interview?

First off, you’ll receive an E-Mail alerting you that someone wants to interview you. If they searched for you and invited you to the job, then you’ll just follow the link in the E-Mail and accept the interview request. If you applied for the job, then you don’t have to “accept the interview” because it’s assumed both parties want to communicate.

The first thing you want to do is to read the message that the buyer sent to you. It should be somewhere in the middle of the E-Mail, and it will contain the information you need to start the interview. Sometimes, a buyer will ask for more examples of your work or to complete a small test-project to see if you’re able to complete the project at hand. If they ask you to do any significant portion of the project they are hiring you for, then you should be very wary! At times, shady buyers will try to get you and the other applicants to do all of the project in sections for free. If they want you to work on the actual project before hiring, then that’s probably the case.

If they just want some samples or other simple information like that, reply to their E-Mail address (or contact them via IM if they have it listed and want you to do so) to state a few times that you will be available for interview.

Here are the three main types of interview you will encounter and the best practices for each:

ShareThis

Recently, I was working with another freelancing service, and I’d just signed up. Therefore, I had no credentials and a rather pathetic profile, so I had to depend on my cover letter to do the talking for me as well as some negotiation skills with the buyer.

Normally, when people think about negotiation, they think about dropping their price to make up for their lack of credentials. That’s just not my style. I see myself as a business providing a valuable, high quality service that customers need, and if they want to purchase that service, they pay the price for it. The reason this system works is because I don’t set insane rates. High, yes. Insane? No.

What happened on this service is that I applied for one job to test it out–writing a half-page sales E-Mail. That comes out to about 30 minutes of work, so I figured up what it would cost at an hourly rate and set the fixed-price rate to $60 USD. The buyer hired me, I spent about 30 minutes writing the E-Mail and sent it to him. After, he gave me a bonus, two 10-star ratings, favorited me, and recommended me to people to the point where I’ve been spammed with job offers since.

I’ll tell you how I got that job when others were willing to do it for a few bucks.

ShareThis

I used to work in a call center in Canada, and I just got news today that it’s closing down.  It’s no surprise really, they’ve been hemorrhaging workers for a long time and the rise in the Canadian Dollar hasn’t helped them either.

It’s one of the Catch-22’s of outsourcing:  Outsourcing overseas works better when there’s a strong US dollar.

Most of us instinctively know why, but just in case someone’s been paying all their attention elsewhere I’ll give a quick rundown on the details.  Everyone pays for their daily needs in their own currency, and prices are a lot less volatile than exchange rates.  So when the US Dollar is high it provides people overseas who’re paid in US Dollars a lot more purchasing power than when it’s low.  This also means US companies can get more work done for less money because the dollar goes further.  It works well because everyone’s taking advantage of the interface between the two economies.

With the economics lesson over let’s look at the call center I mentioned at the opening of this post.  When they opened the Canadian dollar was hovering around 68 to 70 cents US.  Now the two currencies are running pretty close to par.  Think about that for a moment.  The drop in the dollar means that even if all costs remained equal in terms of Canadian Dollars, the parent company’s costs would have increased by close to 50%.  That’s before increases in average wages and site costs are figured.  They just can’t afford it so they’re pulling back to the US.
What does this have to do with you?

ShareThis

I got the idea for this post from a comment by Doreen Martel on my previous post entitled Be Yourself: But Remember There Are Some People You Don’t Want To Be where we were discussing people who come to various freelance sites and complain about how hard it is to get work at the rates they want to earn. One thing that often comes up in these sorts of complaints is the idea that freelance sites such as oDesk are in a conspiracy with buyers to keep provider rates down.

Well, gather around closely and I’ll tell you a secret:
Every freelance site wants their providers to charge every penny the market will bear.

ShareThis

First off, I’d like to thank Josh Breinlinger for commenting on the first part of this series with handy information as well as boosting my cool status by a full ten points! I hope you continue reading and commenting.

Now, on to business. What are some good ways to protect yourself when doing fixed-price jobs? How does it apply to oDesk, GAF, and Elance? Why does Nelson hate GAF and Elance after a couple hours of using each? We’ll be discussing all that and not a whole lot more in the second installment of Tips for Fixed-Price Jobs!

ShareThis

When looking at doing a fixed-price job, there’s a lot of things to consider when using oDesk. First off, you’re not guaranteed to get paid for your work like you are with hourly pay. That’s a bummer. However, if you pick good jobs from good buyers, then you’re very likely to get paid so they don’t get slammed with a zero rating and a nasty buyer review.

So what are some good practices and tips for you to get fixed-price jobs, do the jobs, and get paid for it? I’m going to be discussing these points and a few more in a series called (drum-roll, please) Tips for Fixed-Price Jobs!

ShareThis

The answer is usually “no. ”

You probably saw this answer coming (because what a short and depressing post this would be otherwise!), but let me tell you the two top reasons why I believe that cost is not the primary issue.

From a buyer’s perspective, the ideal outcome is to get their job done well at a reasonable price. If the job is not done well, no matter how low the bid, the buyer doesn’t get what they want.
Low-quality providers with cheap rates often present themselves so poorly that buyers start to avoid the lowest bidders.

I tried an interesting experiment recently as part of the process of writing the oDesk Insider book. As a buyer, I know what catches my interest, and I know what makes me immediately reject a candidate, but before giving advice to providers based solely on my experience as a buyer, I wanted to test that advice from a provider’s perspective. So I set up a provider account on oDesk.

ShareThis

You’re a freelancer. The other guy or gal is the buyer. Just like you can be a good or bad freelancer, the buyer can be good or bad. So what makes a good buyer? How can a buyer be “bad”? How can I tell if a buyer is good or bad?

These questions and probably not a whole lot more will be discussed in this episode of The oDesk Insider Blog.

ShareThis

Today I want to talk about a few things, but I’m going to start with what James D. MacDonald calls “Yog’s Law.”
Money flows toward the writer.
As a freelancer you always have to remember this rule. We’re in this to make money and as soon as you forget that, bad things start to happen.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t just use oDesk as a source for freelance work; I can’t afford to. The problem is there are more writers than jobs out there, so in order to succeed in this business you need to be on multiple sites. The other site I normally use is called Get A Freelancer and works on fixed price jobs only. Between the two of them I’m able to keep myself busy and meet my personal income goals. One feature I really like about Get A Freelancer is that I was able to set things up so I can withdraw money to my existing oDesk Debit card, which makes getting paid easier.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get back to the point: Money flowing in my direction (or yours when you’re on the job).

ShareThis