10 Tips For Elance Success
Elance is one of the three online freelance sites I use regularly and the one which still stands out for better job quality. It’s come up again in comments here recently, so I thought I’d put together some pointers for those who have had a bad experience with it, or never used it.
I suppose that should read “a bit more Elance success”, as I’m not about to give you some kind of magical, mystical formula that’ll earn $100,000 in a week. These are all basic, important things that should enhance your chances of bidding success – and not just on Elance, but on other sites as well.
1. Portfolios And Profiles Are Important
While profiles are universal, not every site allows users to maintain an online portfolio. Elance does and you absolutely must use it.
Don’t flood it with hundreds of items or enormous documents. Put up three or four that show the range of your work and that are all preferably under 500kb. Graphic artists might find that a bit more difficult with high-quality images, but do not make the mistake of zipping them: ease of viewing is vital.
For writers, two or three sample PDFs or scans of real-world magazine clips are ideal. Editors can screenshot a Word document with notes or upload one with markup to show their work
Your profile should also reflect your experience. Fill it in. No one wants to hire The Invisible Man.
Why: A surprising number of potential employers look at the portfolios. Before I uploaded mine, I won one bid. Now I win more and have had invitations to bid on several projects from new clients.
2. Take The Tests
Like more and more sites, Elance includes built-in ability tests to show that you have skills. For writers, these mainly consist of grammar, vocabulary and spelling – in both US and UK English.
The tests take at most 40 minutes each (though native speakers may find they go through them a lot quicker) and you can always have another browser open to look stuff up if you need it. The tests are usually free.
Why: Employers will check the skills list as an indicator of ability. Some will even demand that you have a certain rating before accepting your bid.
3. Bid Carefully
Most sites limit the number of bids you can put in at any one time, to stop huge organisations from bulk-posting on every job. Elance is one of the least generous (in the free membership). Even with a paid membership, you’ll only get 20 bids to use, and some higher-paid jobs will cost you more than one bid to apply.
Consequently, blanket-bidding is out of the question. Pick your jobs carefully, only bidding on those that match your skill-set and price range the closest. Use the basic membership for a month or two and see if it’ll be worth investing.
Why: If you spread your net too wide, you’ll run out of bids long before they refill (once a month) and may miss some good opportunities. Conserve them.
4. Bid Sensibly
Contrary to popular belief, the lowest bid doesn’t always get the contract. In fact, of the bids I have won, none of them have been the lowest. Admittedly, I’ve also had a lot of proposals rejected with “Bid too high” as the given reason, but that’s fine. It’s better to miss an opportunity than be paid badly for too much work.
Why: Some employers will take advantage of lower-income countries’ freelancers to keep bids very low. That’s fine for them, but you have living expenses to cover – make sure you’re not using your paid time on a cheap gig when you could be using it elsewhere.
5. Be Clear That You’re An Individual
Many co-operatives and article-mills bid on the main freelancing sites, so it’s generally worth making it clear if you’re an individual and not an organisation. Employers aren’t always picky, but a lot want to hire the person they’re speaking with: they don’t want their work sub-contracted.
Why: Dealing with an employer personally can provide repeat work once the first job is complete.
6. Make Bids Individual
This one is so incredibly important that I can’t stress it enough: do NOT use a template when bidding. Yes, there are sites out there that will provide you with “a template that works every time” and promise you’ll win every bid, but it doesn’t work that way.
At first, a template bid is fine. After two or three postings, people start noticing. After half a dozen, they start ignoring you. I’ve seen it happen and – a terrible thing to admit – I ignored two or three bidders on my own posted project because I recognised their copy-pasted text.
Always write an individual piece of text. It doesn’t have to be long, but if it says something appropriate about the job and covers the employer’s questions, it’s great. Even when I’ve not won a job, a proper bid has often led to further discussion and leaves a good impression.
Why: Not only does copy-pasting affect your reputation very badly, but it enormously reduces your chances of winning a bid. It’s very, very bad practise.
7. Be Clear On Rates And Hours
The employer needs to know what you’re going to cost. If the job is a one-off, fixed piece of work, give them a price. If it’s dependent on length or duration, quote them a rate per hour, per 100 words or per design (or per whatever sub-division of your work is appropriate).
Personally, I make it clear that I am stating my standard rates, and that I am open to discussion, dependant on the precise nature of the work. If there’s very little research or it’s a simple, short task, it’s negotiable. That leaves the door open to come to an agreement (without short-selling yourself, of course).
Why: Professionalism is essential. Surprising an employer with hidden charges or changing the terms once the job has started will not only annoy them, it will affect your future opportunities.
8. Get The RSS Feed
Trying to trawl through all the current projects is an inhuman task. Click. Click. Click. Back. Click. Back. Argh.
Go to the area of your choice, list the projects in date order (newest first), then get the RSS feed for that search. Plug it into your feed-reader and get the new projects as they arrive.
Elance’s email notification isn’t very good: it shows the featured jobs (only a few) and the first ten basic jobs. With a hundred or so being posted every day, you’ll miss a lot if you rely on the email. (GAF is the opposite here – their email is excellent; oDesk’s email is similar to Elance.)
The down-side is that the RSS feed doesn’t show the budget info, so you still have to click anything that sounds interesting. They’re working on making it better. (oDesk’s RSS is very good, by the way – it shows all the important info.)
Why: It’s a question of efficiency. Looking through all the jobs on-site would take hours every day. The RSS simplifies it and allows for quick filtering.
9. Get good feedback
The feedback system on most freelance sites is the same: a double-blind rating that both parties must enter for either to be published. That is, you rate the employer and they rate you – when both are complete, they’re shown.
Feedback is essential to continued working. While you will land your first job(s) without it, every employer after that time will look at it. Importance varies, depending on the employer, of course, but you can guarantee that they’ll look and – if it’s lower than 80% of maximum – they’ll want to know why.
Every effort should be made to maintain good working relations with each employer.
Why: Since they don’t know you personally, the feedback system is the best indicator that employers have of how pleasant it is to work with you. It’s vital.
10. Never Give Up, Never Surrender!
Another point that cannot be over-stressed: stick with it. It took me a month to work out what kind of jobs to bid on. It took me another couple of weeks to realise the importance of portfolios, then a while longer to land a job. Be stubborn. Keep watching the project list.
Why: Like all communal sites, a lot of the postings are junk or are just not interesting to everyone. There are, however, some real gems. By being tenacious, you ensure you do not miss them.
Those ten tips should make sure that you improve your chances of finding gigs on Elance, or on any other freelancing site. It’s a lot to digest all in one go, I know, but it’s definitely worthwhile keeping them in mind.
Once you’ve committed these tips to memory, you’re ready to discover the Key to Freelance Bidding Site Success!
If you have any other tips, I’d love to hear them, of course!
Hi,
I’m surprised I haven’t come across other blog posts on this topic. As an Elance user I think this provides a great checklist for new and experienced users alike. One of the biggest problems service providers face is building credibility from scratch. For this reason, displaying or signposting to previous work and gaining good testimonials is absolutely vital.
As you mention “No one wants to hire The Invisible Man.”
A great post and an interesting read!
Hi Jon,
Thanks for dropping in – great to see a new visitor on ScrawlBug, and one who’s a freelancer, too! That initial break-in is incredibly difficult to manage, as you say. For me, I got lucky with a batch of simple product postings on a blog as my first job – might I ask if you were also lucky or if you built credibility with your web site first?
Dropped in on your site, by the way – love the layout! Nice, clean and simple. Loads darned fast, too.
Hi,
I am new in Freelance world! I was researching and reading articles about how beginners can start doing business online I came across your useful article.
As Jon said it is a good check list for beginners.
I came across this article as well
http://www.allbusiness.com/specialty-businesses/home-based-businesses/3876039-1.html
in this article Frank (the writer) looks the topic from buyer points of view which I think, it is interesting!
Hi AJ. Thanks for dropping by, and welcome to my humble blog! That article you pointed to is, indeed, a good reference: seeing what buyers are looking for is always helpful for providers, too. I’ve also been in that situation, which I blogged about in the entry “Through The Looking Glass” – that might be of interest to you, as well.
Good luck with your freelancing: if you have any questions, maybe I – or one of my often very knowledgeable visitors – can help out.
Good stuff, Spike. I wouldn’t agree with your assessment that Elance has the best projects, but definitely better than those other two sites you mention. I would rate Guru’s project quality equally.
And, as I’ve mentioned in other comments to your site, the high cost of Elance bids ruin every other positive about the site. The best freelancers/bidders probably don’t win much more than 20% of their bids – most are less than 10%. That translates to an average of 1-4 jobs for every 20 bids purchased. I’m not sure about GAF and ODesk, when I looked at those sites last year, they just didn’t have enough projects to make it worthwhile. Elance and Guru have the most projects, and Guru provides 50 bids for the price you pay for 20 on Elance.
Also, as you mention, Elance projects can cost more than one bid credit, and it’s logical to assume that the more expensive projects (higher budgets) are posted by more serious buyers. Thus, you may get as few as 5 bid opportunities for your $20 Elance monthly fee.
There is simply no advantage of the Elance site that overcomes that huge price differential. Any freelancer should make more money on the Guru site than on Elance just as a result of bidding 50 jobs to as few as 5.
And, as, again, I mentioned previously, the high value of those Elance bid credits create a huge conflict of interest for the site. There are plenty of fake projects (or non-serious employers) posted on each site already without using a business model that motivates the site itself to post even more fakes. I don’t know for sure that Elance does that, but their business model makes it darn attractive for them to do so, and where temptation exists, greed soon follows.
thanks for the good work!
r
Ron: Elance membership (basic) is $10 per month, but your commentary still stands as important guidance. Personally, I cannot get past the lack of RSS or email delivery from Guru. I just can’t face sitting there and loading page after page of job details, trying to tag them or figure out which ones I’ve seen. I know you said you had a neat method for that, but I get no check-boxes on my login, for example (maybe that’s a paid thing?), so it’s just horribly long and arduous. I must force myself, though, to give it a proper second chance.
As always, your comments are food for thought!!
I’ve been on Elance for awhile now. The key point your post conveys is that it takes time. It takes time to establish a relationship. Wish I could say my experience has been great. My first big job ended up with the contractor going silent. So frustrating. In any case, I’ll stick with it. As you say, there are the gems.
Hi Chris: Yes, being tenacious (or just downright stubborn) can help a lot with the bidding sites. I just picked up another good one on Elance, so I’m doing OK. Must check out Guru, though – as Ron has said, there’s a lot of good stuff on there.
Hi Spike,
I like your writing skills and knowledge. I am new on Elance also finding some good articals about freelancer tips. this tip will help me more.
thanks for you great post.
Hi Alpesh! Thanks for dropping in: it’s always good to see new faces on the blog, with new opinions and comments. Another site to have a look at is getpaidtofreelance.com – very nice chap who runs it and, although it’s still quite new, he has some good info.
Great info, thanks for sharing! My experience with Elance is that the vast majority of projects I bid on are never awarded! This alone is very frustrating as I do customize each proposal for each bid. Now, I don’t bid unless the buyer has a awarded percentage higher than 60%.
Also, as for the lowest bidder, you are correct in that bidding super low doesn’t always get you the job. However, I have lost several bids where I bid around $500 and the winner won it with a bid of $50!!! You get what you pay for!!!
Tom
Hi Spike
I joined Elance a month ago, I won 3 projects in the first week (transcription work) and two of the clients offered me more work this week.
The only problem I have had is with withdrawing the funds. It has taken Elance two weeks to add my bank account to my profile. I finally withdrew my earnings today.
After reading some really bad feedback about Elance today I am starting to panic and wondering if the funds will actually hit my bank account.
Do you have any idea what the transfer time usually is to a UK bank account?
Really glad I found this site, hopefully you can put my mind at rest.
Tom: That sums it up – “you get what you pay for”. One of my happiest (and most recent) clients is a guy who just asked me where I’ve been all his business life: I cost more than most of his other freelancers, but boy, does he get value! No rewrites, no follow-up work, no chasing: just results.
Jo: I’d be interested to hear the negative comments. Elance took ages to add my bank stuff, too, but I think they’re overwhelmed on that front. The payouts usually take a day or two to arrive (I go direct to PayPal, so it may be a bit quicker for me). Reassuringly, they have never let me down on that front – I’ve transferred funds at least half a dozen times – probably more – and although it’s a wee bit slower than a direct payment, it has always arrived.
Great article and wonderful tips! I personally love Elance and have been an Elancer for over 10 years. To date, I have completed over 700 projects and I highly recommend it to others. The only advice that I would add is for providers to scrutinize buyers carefully and only bid on projects with reputable buyers that have a history of paying. I also recommend that providers learn how to weed through the garbage to find the gold. You mentioned using the RSS field. However, using keywords like ongoing and longterm are another option. ALso, sorting projects by budgets is another great tip. Lastly, don’t give up – it may take some effort but if you put your mind to it, you can succeed on Elance, the leading marketplace for online talent.
Kristi: Thank you for visiting – and also for the extra tips. They’re all worth remembering, though I’ve found an increasing number of employers use the “ongoing work” carrot to underpay on their original project…
I don’t know about using RSS. My routine is to go into the category I am interested in and glance thru them sorted decendingly by closing date. I am more interested in small jobs that will not tie me up, so I may refine my search to lets say “wordpress plugins”.
After the list pops up, I smack the description link to see what the job entails. If it sounds interesting, then I add it to my Watch List. I can skim through scores of pages fairly quickly using this system and have a good list of possible jobs to look even closer at.
And yes, I skip over any jobs that mention “ongoing” or “future work” etc. I also skip over the hourly jobs at $5 to $10. I hover over the employers name, and can see a brief synopsis of how many jobs they posted and how many they have awarded.
Working from the Watch List is probably the most efficient way to work the system at Elance.
I like your writing . I am new on Elance also finding some good articals about freelancer tips. this tip will help me more.
thanks for you great post.
Your post is extremely helpful for new comers on Elance. The comments and tips I found here are also useful and serious. Thank you!
I am new to elance! Your article is very informative, Thank you. I want to know more about elance biding like how may bids allow to post for free user & paid users.
Cheer inform appropriate me to frame collection
Very informative post. I am myself an elancer and I use these strategies already. But the communication part is difficult now as Elance no longer allows PM’s and Prebids.
Thanks for the post, it’s very important to me. Btw, can you post about how to make a good profiler at Elance too? I will appreciate that
Thanks
Всех с наступающим Новым Годом!!!
And a happy new year to you, too, Bugagashka!
I guess I fall into the category of those who gave up on Elance. Most people are not willing to give you a chance so getting feedback is next to impossible. Since I have good feedback on oDesk.com, I tend to apply for work there. But thanks for the encouragement, I am certainly going back to Elance!
All those tips apply just as much on oDesk as they do on Elance – or, for that matter, on any of the bidding sites. If you’re finding success on oDesk and you’re happy there, it’s probably smarter to stay than to try to build reputation from scratch again on another site (unless, of course, you want to use both).