Elance, Odesk Outsourcing Experiences !!

RICK430

RICK430

Banned
Aug 31, 2008
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Los Angeles
HI Guys

I am looking for a expert programmer to customize and enhance our current wordpress blog and been getting applications and proposals from alot of candidates thru Elance and Odesk but have not been able to find anyone decent.
It seems many sales people are applying on the behalf of a company. Has anyone found any decent talent from these sources? Anyones experience in what to look for would be appreciated. Thanks.
 


Odesk is real hit or miss.

I wanted a VA / Bookmarker and interviewed 40, narrowed to 2, hired 1. She flaked on the second job I gave her.

I have odesk screenshots of her working on other peoples projects, cleaning her computer, etc..... All while billing me.

But they give you 4 days to review screenshots. But seriously the reason I outsource is because I am busy.
 
I find that programming and technical stuff works well on elance. Graphics and design can be a headache if there are communication problems. I usually look for great English skills if I'm doing graphics.
 
Drake said:
Odesk is real hit or miss.

I wanted a VA / Bookmarker and interviewed 40, narrowed to 2, hired 1. She flaked on the second job I gave her.

I have odesk screenshots of her working on other peoples projects, cleaning her computer, etc..... All while billing me.

But they give you 4 days to review screenshots. But seriously the reason I outsource is because I am busy.
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This.
 
I've got 7 out of 8 projects done on elance, but the biggest project I had wanted to do didn't get done on elance and cost me quite a bit, then the clown from India took the money out of his account so paypal couldn't get me my money back. 7 out of 8 were good though.
 
I went through three Indian companies on elance for a Drupal project. They all sucked, despite good feedback ratings and front men that all said the right things. They all showed the same behaviors - appearing to understand the requirements then going off and doing something completely different, reporting time and again that work was finished when it had not been touched, professing Dural expertise and then giving answers to Drupal questions that were just plain wrong.

Maybe I'm just good at finding the weak links, but my elance experience has been quite bad with (Indian) programmers.
 
I am finding the same thing, mainly on Elance. I am getting front men similar to a salesman who knows good English but not involved in the project. Does anyone think the reviews and feedback's have been altered or faked by these companies themselves.

I am specifically interested in hearing from anyone who has completed a major site creation or re design on elance or odesk successfully.
 
Never tried elance but I spent over $5k last year on odesk just with indians outsourcing various things. I can't speak for the people who are trying to use the super cheap guys (the people asking for like $1/hour) but we use people who are mid to upper range in the data entry type stuff (we pay around $2.40/hr.) and people with rep and have NEVER had a problem.

good luck
 
RICK430 said:
I am finding the same thing, mainly on Elance. I am getting front men similar to a salesman who knows good English but not involved in the project. Does anyone think the reviews and feedback's have been altered or faked by these companies themselves.

I am specifically interested in hearing from anyone who has completed a major site creation or re design on elance or odesk successfully.
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I've been using oDesk and eLance for some things for about 5 years.

The key is tests. Don't be afraid to hire several companies and give them all similar smaller tasks to see who can deliver quality work on time.

That way you can weed through the bullshitters. It may cost a few extra dollars to start, but once you find one good worker you will end up saving a LOT of money in the long run.
 
I want to work for either or both writing sales copy as I do for WF. If you're freelancing at these places, which is best place to get higher paying quality assignments?
 
My experiences with Odesk weren't so well I have herd alot about Elance so I'd just go with it. In my opinion I thin Odesk has a bad setup.
 
Anyone still using GAF? Never had a problem, but my last project on there was a fucking nightmare. Same thing, front man had me convinced everything was sweet and when it all went to shit he kept trying to get me to deal directly with the coders and acting like it was out of his hands. Got half my money back but stuck with an incomplete project. Haven't tried eLance or Odesk because I have an established account on GAF with feedback etc, but if GAF is complete shit now I'll switch.
 
GAF have 1,7 millions or so coders with earning only like $60 mil lifetime.... Sure they are full of shit.

Compare all numbers with Elance or Odesk. I would go with Elance, you pay more, but quality will be better.
 
My Odesk experiences always turn out to be overpaying for SLOW work and usually having to do it myself to get it done right. One of the reasons I am here on this forum is to find people who know how get things done like they say they will.
 
I had a friend hated his job and started freelance coding on oDesk. He did a couple assignments for this company and now he's a full time employee (telecommuting). If a majority of the quality coders are gobbled up like this that might explain the lack of quality.
 
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