__Comparing The Major Freelancer Sites
_
Heap explainer videos
Amongst a number of other guises, including the whole marketing thing, I'm a voice artist. And it's also like a voice artist that I use these freelance sites, but you will find many jobs to them all divided into categories and sub categories from design and digital art, to animation and proofing jobs.
Heap explainer videos
So, if you are a graphic designer or a singer, keep in mind things i do and why I personally use these sites as my experience may vary from yours… I am seriously planning to paraphrase here - don’t expect breakdowns in to the sites’ intricacies, you’ll simply have to trust my judgement go for any nose around yourself. Right, blogs with long rambling intro’s never get read, everybody knows we read the title arehorrified to find that the very first bullet point, so without further ado…
1. Elance 8/10
Elance has been well constructed and makes you feel quite comfortable whilst utilizing it. Incredibly, particularly when you think about the amount of designers sort out internet websites, a lot of freelance sites tend to feel dated, but Elance doesn’t. The UI is quite slick and also the features are way better than most. The come out dialogue box is useful and finding work in your particular genre is straightforward. Little touches just like having a local store of your demo files to merely attach to a proposal on the mouse click is good inside them for hours an enormous limit to how many files you can use is ideal in addition to a massive individual file size limit. Everything works nice and smoothly, has the freelancer in your mind and this is usually the one I am going to first. Top billing.
2. Skillpages 8/10
This is gathering momentum and looks just like the way forward for freelancers. It’s essentially a social networking for work but with no horrible boundaries that makes LinkedIn so bloody frustrating. No fees in the first place, Skillpages let’s you advertise a posture or role at no cost and similarly reply to other’s jobs. They don’t wish to muscle in and hijack your best and preferred ways of communication and let’s you handle your personal business. It is without it’s own system to guard each party with regards to the transaction, but let’s tell the truth, that’s all a façade produced by these websites to warrant the charge and to maintain it all in-house. I’m confident we're quite effective at protecting ourselves in a small business transaction without the need for a big bro watching over us anyhow. Definitely take a look. One of the reason’s it’s not toppling every one of these other sites is that it’s a little on the quiet side and you don’t hold the immediacy of job turn-arounds when you apply the other services, but a fast look round immediately suggests it’s definitely getting busier and i also have recently had work through it and possess considered it to market two roles - one that has been filled and the other looks great for applicants to date. Let’s just hope there's something in place to prevent those darned spammers who join this sort of free loveliness. Go and register and provide it a chance.
3. oDesk 5/10
This is favoured by India and also the East. As a guy perfectly located at the UK my bids can’t contend with the simply enormous quantity of bidders on the website. This doesn’t mean I haven’t had work from oDesk but I often give it a large birth. The favoured hourly rate just doesn’t suit the voice work either - for my type of work you must bid for an entire product. It’s filled to the rafters with freelancers ready to work on an exceptionally low rate and people expecting work to be achieved as well kind of rate. I find the bidding perplexing - you’ll have a guy asking for individuals to work at a wild $5 per hour for something and then you’ll have people bidding a fee for the completed job and a few bid way over what he's got requested - it’s somewhat of a mess and when I'm able to, I ignore the site and venture in when times take time and effort. This is a very good functional website and it may suit certain genres and industries, although not mine, however, if there is a “voice talent” sub category, you need to focus on it.
4. Freelancer 5/10
It’s no Elance but it’s not too distant in terms of the site’s functionality but there are numerous little niggles. There's a strange “bid after which PM (personal message) your files” approach which makes no for good business and just results in people bidding with “Please see my PM for details.” If you possess the job list for your industry you can’t work off that list simply, you can’t open the jobs in tabs for instance. It is possible to only acquire one file at a time up to the customer too. But perhaps most significantly you need to be aware that Freelancer take their fee whether or not you obtain paid or otherwise not. When challenged they'll tell you just how they are merely in the role of the “introduction” service which the dealings between you and the employer are nothing related to them. That could be translated as “we don’t give an excessive amount a shit, as long as we take our lump of the transactions happening round here.” If you win a job for $1000 your money will immediately go to -$100 as Freelancer immediately take their 10% fee; in the event the employer gets cold feet, deletes his account and runs you're left with a $100 debt to Freelancer and ironically NO contact details for the guy who ran because Freelancer frowns upon sharing contact details! Why not a compulsory 100% escrow or why they can’t get their fee from your transaction, I don’t know. In terms of withdrawing your cash, in order to use Paypal they inexplicably charge a fee $1 for withdrawals in dollars and £1 ($1.60!) for withdrawing in GBP. Why the real difference?! It’s suspiciously random (ie what is the fee for exactly? If it’s an amount for the kids, then Freelancer needs to have one cost that is equal across all currencies). That’s anasty little sting within the tail after work is completed of course, if you've got a great deal of transactions happening, particularly if you've fees for every job, potentially to join to the service and Paypal’s own over-inflated fees at the top, all of it adds up. The profiteering runs right through the service and it’s score has suffered for doing this.
5. People Per Hour 4/10
Hmm. They’re working on it. Still it has some way to go to catch up but they recently reached out for feedback in a big way (see the red feedback tab on the right side of each page). It doesn’t feel as old skool since it did earlier but someone seriously needs to acquire that logo; it feels as though an 80's supermarket! Apart from the aesthetics it's some major conditions that you can’t get passed. For me being a voice artist for instance there is no “audio” category so jobs are strewn across categories such as “design” or perhaps “secretarial” however, you is only able to bid in a group of categories therefore i can’t even reach the jobs without fiddling with my categories! Whenever you bid for work you own an upload limit of your utterly ridiculous 2mb (it absolutely was 1mb up until a couple of weeks ago!) then when it comes to showcasing media files - you’re stuffed, and when you connect to a hosted file, the hyperlink isn’t even live leaving clients baffled. Lots of these minor/major gripes make-up a big one; however they are working on it apparently.
6. Guru ?/10
I don’t know how this has evaded me for so long however i have just discovered it and early indications are very positive. They don’t look uptight in regards to you getting in touch from the website which can be refreshing. The threats from all of the above mentioned about daring to make contact on Skype, for example, isn’t solving a challenge and is very off-putting. I need to get a handle on Guru but to date it looks up there with Elance and might eventually turn out to be a normal spot for me; particularly since the web site is the first one to differentiate between male and female voice jobs (note to all freelancer sites please also try this, and differentiate between accents required and character or commercial work - it’s far deeper than “voice talent” and is needed us enormously).
Honorable Mentions
Office Cavalry Not used to the scene. While the interface looks nice, the horrific stereotyped characters on the website is enough to put anyone off and it’s dead quiet!
Freelance Just seen it whilst Googling - think it's just launched. Appears like a fresh look and incredibly quite promising but no apparent audio category (on a personal front). Is PPH reincarnated?!
Google Does it trump all? It certainly can. Have a close eye on it; particularly as its business elements get launched.
Heap explainer videos
Amongst a number of other guises, including the whole marketing thing, I'm a voice artist. And it's also like a voice artist that I use these freelance sites, but you will find many jobs to them all divided into categories and sub categories from design and digital art, to animation and proofing jobs.
Heap explainer videos
So, if you are a graphic designer or a singer, keep in mind things i do and why I personally use these sites as my experience may vary from yours… I am seriously planning to paraphrase here - don’t expect breakdowns in to the sites’ intricacies, you’ll simply have to trust my judgement go for any nose around yourself. Right, blogs with long rambling intro’s never get read, everybody knows we read the title arehorrified to find that the very first bullet point, so without further ado…
1. Elance 8/10
Elance has been well constructed and makes you feel quite comfortable whilst utilizing it. Incredibly, particularly when you think about the amount of designers sort out internet websites, a lot of freelance sites tend to feel dated, but Elance doesn’t. The UI is quite slick and also the features are way better than most. The come out dialogue box is useful and finding work in your particular genre is straightforward. Little touches just like having a local store of your demo files to merely attach to a proposal on the mouse click is good inside them for hours an enormous limit to how many files you can use is ideal in addition to a massive individual file size limit. Everything works nice and smoothly, has the freelancer in your mind and this is usually the one I am going to first. Top billing.
2. Skillpages 8/10
This is gathering momentum and looks just like the way forward for freelancers. It’s essentially a social networking for work but with no horrible boundaries that makes LinkedIn so bloody frustrating. No fees in the first place, Skillpages let’s you advertise a posture or role at no cost and similarly reply to other’s jobs. They don’t wish to muscle in and hijack your best and preferred ways of communication and let’s you handle your personal business. It is without it’s own system to guard each party with regards to the transaction, but let’s tell the truth, that’s all a façade produced by these websites to warrant the charge and to maintain it all in-house. I’m confident we're quite effective at protecting ourselves in a small business transaction without the need for a big bro watching over us anyhow. Definitely take a look. One of the reason’s it’s not toppling every one of these other sites is that it’s a little on the quiet side and you don’t hold the immediacy of job turn-arounds when you apply the other services, but a fast look round immediately suggests it’s definitely getting busier and i also have recently had work through it and possess considered it to market two roles - one that has been filled and the other looks great for applicants to date. Let’s just hope there's something in place to prevent those darned spammers who join this sort of free loveliness. Go and register and provide it a chance.
3. oDesk 5/10
This is favoured by India and also the East. As a guy perfectly located at the UK my bids can’t contend with the simply enormous quantity of bidders on the website. This doesn’t mean I haven’t had work from oDesk but I often give it a large birth. The favoured hourly rate just doesn’t suit the voice work either - for my type of work you must bid for an entire product. It’s filled to the rafters with freelancers ready to work on an exceptionally low rate and people expecting work to be achieved as well kind of rate. I find the bidding perplexing - you’ll have a guy asking for individuals to work at a wild $5 per hour for something and then you’ll have people bidding a fee for the completed job and a few bid way over what he's got requested - it’s somewhat of a mess and when I'm able to, I ignore the site and venture in when times take time and effort. This is a very good functional website and it may suit certain genres and industries, although not mine, however, if there is a “voice talent” sub category, you need to focus on it.
4. Freelancer 5/10
It’s no Elance but it’s not too distant in terms of the site’s functionality but there are numerous little niggles. There's a strange “bid after which PM (personal message) your files” approach which makes no for good business and just results in people bidding with “Please see my PM for details.” If you possess the job list for your industry you can’t work off that list simply, you can’t open the jobs in tabs for instance. It is possible to only acquire one file at a time up to the customer too. But perhaps most significantly you need to be aware that Freelancer take their fee whether or not you obtain paid or otherwise not. When challenged they'll tell you just how they are merely in the role of the “introduction” service which the dealings between you and the employer are nothing related to them. That could be translated as “we don’t give an excessive amount a shit, as long as we take our lump of the transactions happening round here.” If you win a job for $1000 your money will immediately go to -$100 as Freelancer immediately take their 10% fee; in the event the employer gets cold feet, deletes his account and runs you're left with a $100 debt to Freelancer and ironically NO contact details for the guy who ran because Freelancer frowns upon sharing contact details! Why not a compulsory 100% escrow or why they can’t get their fee from your transaction, I don’t know. In terms of withdrawing your cash, in order to use Paypal they inexplicably charge a fee $1 for withdrawals in dollars and £1 ($1.60!) for withdrawing in GBP. Why the real difference?! It’s suspiciously random (ie what is the fee for exactly? If it’s an amount for the kids, then Freelancer needs to have one cost that is equal across all currencies). That’s anasty little sting within the tail after work is completed of course, if you've got a great deal of transactions happening, particularly if you've fees for every job, potentially to join to the service and Paypal’s own over-inflated fees at the top, all of it adds up. The profiteering runs right through the service and it’s score has suffered for doing this.
5. People Per Hour 4/10
Hmm. They’re working on it. Still it has some way to go to catch up but they recently reached out for feedback in a big way (see the red feedback tab on the right side of each page). It doesn’t feel as old skool since it did earlier but someone seriously needs to acquire that logo; it feels as though an 80's supermarket! Apart from the aesthetics it's some major conditions that you can’t get passed. For me being a voice artist for instance there is no “audio” category so jobs are strewn across categories such as “design” or perhaps “secretarial” however, you is only able to bid in a group of categories therefore i can’t even reach the jobs without fiddling with my categories! Whenever you bid for work you own an upload limit of your utterly ridiculous 2mb (it absolutely was 1mb up until a couple of weeks ago!) then when it comes to showcasing media files - you’re stuffed, and when you connect to a hosted file, the hyperlink isn’t even live leaving clients baffled. Lots of these minor/major gripes make-up a big one; however they are working on it apparently.
6. Guru ?/10
I don’t know how this has evaded me for so long however i have just discovered it and early indications are very positive. They don’t look uptight in regards to you getting in touch from the website which can be refreshing. The threats from all of the above mentioned about daring to make contact on Skype, for example, isn’t solving a challenge and is very off-putting. I need to get a handle on Guru but to date it looks up there with Elance and might eventually turn out to be a normal spot for me; particularly since the web site is the first one to differentiate between male and female voice jobs (note to all freelancer sites please also try this, and differentiate between accents required and character or commercial work - it’s far deeper than “voice talent” and is needed us enormously).
Honorable Mentions
Office Cavalry Not used to the scene. While the interface looks nice, the horrific stereotyped characters on the website is enough to put anyone off and it’s dead quiet!
Freelance Just seen it whilst Googling - think it's just launched. Appears like a fresh look and incredibly quite promising but no apparent audio category (on a personal front). Is PPH reincarnated?!
Google Does it trump all? It certainly can. Have a close eye on it; particularly as its business elements get launched.