Using oDesk for Outsourcing Continued
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This post is a continuation of Outsourcing Using oDesk
So far my experiance with oDesk has been met with some frustration but it is not the oDesk system that I blame but the people I am hiring. You see, the oDesk system it self has been great (I do have some recommendations to make it better but overall it is great) but the problem is that the people that I have interviewed and even hired have been less than exceptional… not all of them… but the majority.
So far I have tested a few different people and I have just now found someone that I am hopeful with. The biggest problems have been…
- 1. Not able to dedicate time needed: Even though I put in the job request that I need someone 30+ hours a week, every single one of them (expect for the latest) seems to think that means something entirely different… like maybe 10 hours a week.
- 2. Do Not Understand How to Communicate: I had to actually chase down two people to see if they were actually going to do the “test” assignment. One of them decided no and the other finally got back to me with something that could have taken 20 minutes (it was a joke).
- 3. Are Not As Experianced as They Say: This one was a big lesson for me and it made me revamp my test assignments I have been given them. People will lie about what they can do in their resumes and as a result I assumed certain things and did not bother to test on them… BIG MISTAKE!
OK, so this kind of sounds like a slamming of oDesk, but it really is not. In fact I love oDesk and it has been the features available on oDesk that have really helped… especially the time tracker with screen capture. This has allowed me to see if people are even started on the task and the real amount of time it took them. With elance and rent a coder, I was always left to just hope… but oDesk shows me.
What I am not crazy about is…
- 1. There should be “contact info” front and center on the work team page for each worker. This is not in an obvious spot and is a pain to find.
- 2. Should have a communication area (a message board) for communicating with outsourcers in the team room. Using email and having to track the communcations is a pain in my opinion. I would rather everything be there like how elance does it.
- 3. Even though you put criteria for the job, people can still apply that do not meet it. For example, I would want the ability for applicants to have to confirm that they can be available he 30+ hours a week before being able to even apply for a position. If the say they can but can’t then they get a negative point on their profile.
- 4. When you “interview” some one, it needs to show you clearly on the application board (where all those applying for the job, have their profiles show up) who you have requested an interview for.
- 5. If you have more then one job open and click on a person to interview, you then have to select a drop down box for which one of the jobs you are interviewing them for. That may sound easy but it is first of all in a terrible spot and easily missed. Plus if I am on the page for a certain job that people are applying for, why in the world when I click “Interview” would it not just automatically know that is what I want to interview them for!
Overall, I like oDesk… but with the above changes I would LOVE it!
I am going to work with this system for another week and then put a checklist together for all of you as to how I am going to use oDesk. This will include…
- 1. How to post a job
- 2. How to interview
- 3. How to create test assignments
- 4. What to watch for in test assignments
- 5. How to manage outsourcers after hiring them
So what are your thoughts and what else would you like me to include that I may have overlooked?
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ebook, Make Money in Your Pajamas, helps providers make the most of oDesk. We highly recommend John Cow’s second installment on the oDesk community to both buyers and providers. As a new user, hediscussesthe frustrations of screening providers. It’s a must read for any provider looking to get a leg up your the more slacker-y competition. In case you missed it, Cheryl Ludwig, the oDesk user featured on Good Morning America, gives us the backstory
Sorry to hear that COW.
I’ve had the same experiences with designers and writers who not only lie about experience, but have a solid (assumingly fake) portfolio to back up their claims. I’ve had friends/associates also have these same experiences, almost as if the portfolio wasn’t from the same designer. Ever have that happen? Very frustrating.
It definitely defeats the purpose of hiring a freelancer when they end up wasting your time instead of saving it. That’s the unfortunate part of finding VAs and freelancers online. You have to weed out the bad ones, and hang on to the solid ones.
I love your ideas on making oDesk better. I still haven’t tried them out, but I am going to.
Appreciate the continuing, honest review. I especially look forward to the “how to checklist”.
Hope it works out for you
Cheers!
Jay
I have a need for someone to write at least 3 plugins for me as I don’t have the php coding skills.
I am just too scared of entering into outsourcing in case I get let down. However my lack of confidence in these 3rd parties has made me think outside of the box and come up with another solution.
I would still like to get it done as a plugin though in all honesty.
Thanks for highlighting these issues.
Ian
Yeah, I would like to have someone create a plugin for me. I’m not much of a programmer but I can build web sites. I might just have to take the time to learn a little about creating plugins for WordPress.
Hello Ian,
We are heavily into writing commercial grade Wordpress plugins at Foliovision.
We don’t disappoint and we have very fast turnaround times.
Here’s what our last Wordpress custom plugin customer Dan Wright was kind enough to say:
We’d love to help you as well.
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Very interesting and that confirms my fears about outsourcing the work: Making sure it meets my quality standards! Thanks for sharing these info very honestly with us, I’m sure this will help!
I hate it when people I hire don’t understand when I say I need them for 5 hours a week I REALLY need them for 5 hours a week. I think most people who reply think you’re just over estimating because “working online doesn’t take that much time or effort.” Well to all you schmucks who want to waste my and John Cow’s time, DON’T APPLY UNLESS YOU REALLY HAVE THE TIME TO SPEND DOING THE JOB.
The last 5-7 experiences on oDesk has made me really angry, why can’t people stick to their stated deadlines? I’m not talking about a couple of hours or a day over, I’m getting people rolling in work a week+ over deadline! Am I wrong to hesitate paying the full amount here?
I think you are slamming them. But you should be slamming them because it just doesn’t seem like this company is up to par. They should try to help you by making sure that these people are for real otherwise people are going to constantly get screwed by this company.
I am a programmer who uses Rent-a-coder, oDesk, etc to get work. The problem you speak of is your own fault. You only want cheap labor from third world countries and then you complain about the work. You get what you pay for. Most of the work I get is after a buyer has tried two or three of the cheap guys from places where the cost of living is very low, unfortunately, so is the deliverables.
By the time I get the bid, the buyer is, as you say, very frustrated and takes it out on me. I want the work so I can’t tell them what I really think about the fact that they should have tried to get a quality programmer to begin with.
But that is life today in this business, as the famous quote says “This is the business we chose”, so I will live with it and trudge along.
for my experiences it take 3 month to complete 80% my site from the first web developer i hire and 10% again i hire other developer where only take 1 day to complete it, it’s very suck when deal with bad programmer/designer when we make a full payment first before project started
All you stated above are my fears of getting into outsourcing my work. I would love to be able to outsource, but when working on a budget you cannot afford to have people not doing what you are paying them for. Especially being basically a one man team, it would be great to outsource a decent portion of link building but the fear of getting so so results for good money have held me back.
Thanks keep us updated on how this ends up working for you.
I have been looking at Odesk as a way to freelance and make a little extra cash. I have an accounting degree and background which I thought I could take advantage of. However, there are many people just way too underpriced, both on the hiring end and freelancer’s end. I looked at one job where they wanted to pay someone $6/hr for some more advanced accounting work.
Elance has a job-tracking feature, too.
Wherever you go, it is up to the buyer to check profiles. Elance does confirm credentials and also has tests providers can take–though they are online and (in the writing area) not especially helpful. Programming tests seem to be different.
Look for individual providers or businesses with good feedback and a long-ish history. Visit their Profile to see what others have had to say about them. Look at their percentage of repeat earnings and repeat customers.
Use the Escrow feature. It assures the provider you won’t run off without paying, and you don’t release funds until milestones are met to your satisfaction.
The match-up sites provide a great service, but it is still up to you, the buyer, to do your due dilligence.
Nicki
Writing Partner at HarperCo
After seeing you were looking for help using oDesk, I checked it out. I have been doing some freelance work at Rentacoder but see that it is
hard competing against the 3rd world countries that charge so little for their work. I know what my time is worth therefore I no longer take projects that are not willing to pay me for what I am worth.
Jason, I would like to know where you need help. Maybe I can help?
Not all third world providers are lousy, but yes, the standard of living is low so competition is fierce.
What employers should know, though, is that most excellent providers stay on these sites only for a while and then they work for their regulars off the job site. It’s a matter of trust (and keeping someone who shows consistently good results).
This is a common problem to freelance people. I have been a freelance myself, and now I have started a company to manage these skilled freelance guys. I believe someone should be managing these skilled people and companies or buyers should deal with these managers than dealing directly with the freelancers. This is exactly what my company is doing – taking out the pains most buyers experience when dealing with late deliveries, over commitments, below par completions. COntact me if you need to outsource some services.
i guess some people are desperate and they lied in their resume. rating system are a best way to know which freelancer are good
I can tell that trust is the biggest issue with hiring. I think as a developer I may have figured it out. I can create an web app and have it up and running the next day.. And then the users can test immediately and make customization requests right in place. I’m in St. Louis and I work from http://www.overnightapps.com
I just wanted to let you know that some of your feedback has been addressed with the release of our more detailed candidates queue.
https://url.odesk.com/53vv1
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I haven’t yet used a online coder but was planning to do soon so this article is very useful for when I do.
I have used article writers and after setting a simple task, I managed to get a decent Indian writer. But I still had to correct for dialect. Indians speak much better English than most so the articles can look a little stilted and not very natural.
Thanks for the article. I have been thinking about hiring out some of my work as well. I also appreciate the feedback from the other commenters as well. Keep it coming!
I think there are pros and cons with being both a Buyer and a Provider on oDesk. I’ve been a Provider for just over a year and it is my primary source of income. It’s true, I’m sure, that some Providers mislead Buyers by saying they are qualified for certain projects that they have no clue about. It is also true that there are some idiot Buyers out there that want something for nothing. I hold a BA in English and a diploma degree in Graphic Design and I don’t work for 2 bucks an hour. However (as my feedback proves) I deliver what I say I will – when I say I will deliver it. If it costs you a little more than someone who is charging 2 bucks an hour – you get what you pay for….always.
But I’ve been invited to interview half a dozen times by Buyers – then never heard from them again. What’s up with that?? If you’re too busy to screen and interview for a position – don’t post it until you are ready.
I’ve also been hired by a Buyer who, unbeknownst to me, hired about 30 people that same day, (telling us all we needed to start immediately) posting ads – we all worked the day and then the job was “canceled” that same evening – no notice, no reason, no warning – and NO feedback. (doesn’t look good on the old profile)
I once accepted a “fixed rate” job – worked 90 hours! for this “Buyer” and never got a cent from him. Needless to say, I no longer bid on Fixed Rate jobs, because as we know, oDesk doesn’t guarantee payment for same.
My point is that, there are pros and cons with outsourcing online for Buyers AND Providers alike. As with anything, improvements can be make on both sides. oDesk is usually very good about listening to our gripes and concerns and meeting us somewhere in the middle…both Provider and Buyer.
I’ve been trying to get them to stop showing Provider “earnings” in public profiles. It is acceptable to show a Buyer the hourly rate I charge for work I’ve done, but not my total income. That is personal information, in my opinion. They are trying to work out a solution, as it seems many Providers feel the same.
D. MacKenzie
Hi Deb,
I kind of have mixed feelings about the stop showing provider “earnings” in public profiles. It is important to note that charging x on a long term relation i.e. 6+ months and charging 2x on a specific consulting assignment is really different.
So both the hourly rate + the hours + feedback per job are an important piece of information to show. Which pretty much gives total earning
.
I just read all of the comments, and have to say that I really understand why everyone published most of the comments.
My 2 cents include some info about me:
). This doesn’t denies the need to be clear on time available and to communicate any special situation affecting it i.e. we had to drop someone of the team because was being too unreliable, granted 2/3 of the times the person got sick But it wasn’t a something that prevented him from telling right away so we could handle the situation with the client (instead of saying after 2 weeks each of the times – forcing the rest of us to do a lot of extra efforts to keep the results going for the clients).
- I am one of the third world providers on odesk
- I charge about 3 times many low cost providers, and 1.5/2 times the average
- The difference on service I have given when combining productivity/results/quality/reliability is clearly bigger than the different in hourly rates
And some personal tips for you (both buyer/provider):
- Project risk must be mitigated to keep all of us happy (both providers and buyers). An important aspect of this is embracing the weekly nature of odesk — we must show progress every week we load hours on!. Also applies to the client, review what is being delivered each week so we can all rest assured that the product Is taking the shape that you need.
- Limit the scope of your project as most as possible keeping the focus on the main features (if you can’t do this only expect high level providers to help you on this), other features can be added later — use this more manageable scope to really understand the budget and whether it makes sense to proceed with the project at all.
- Get a plan that makes sense on what is to be delivered on the first couple of weeks, and keep a close eye on it.
- Have someone reliable make a code review early (usually on the first 2 week deliverables), don’t proceed with a poorly written system … odds are that someone will have to rebuild plenty of it to close all the security holes and to be able to add new features (without having to spend the same time doing each change on 40 places)
- Understand what you have with your current code base. A really bad code base means it is best to write it new (given you can commit the time of someone that knows the processes very well) or do a gradual rewrite (with the overall effort usually taking about 2-4 times of making it new … makes sense if you are covering only small pieces of it).
- When we are on different projects, personal time is specially hard to manage, as not only any project can complicate but one does have personal stuff to do as well that can complicate (usually does in the country I am from
So, lets all remember that complexity is one of the biggest cause of failure in software projects (outsourced or not). Always avoid extra complexity and structure project in such a way we can validate results early.
Big success and best luck to everyone
I have had it with ODesk. I am a seasoned, qualified designer and there are so many low-bidding designers on there it’s insulting. Also the buyers want so much for so little, it’s really gross. I saw an ad for a logo, website, and marketing materials for $150. I can’t even express my disgust at that. Overall, ODesk is very disappointing and further damaging the field of design.
I’d have to second what Nicole said, as a Flash programmer I have a portfolio of decent work, but if someone just copies the best Flash projects they find on the web then they instantly look way better than me.
A lot of the oDesk projects ask an incredible amount for a pittance and then get surprised when the work is shoddy.
This conversation has been enlightening. I recently became a provider on O’Desk. I am not a programmer. I have accounting and administrative experience and initially thought this was a fabulous way to get work online. I was shocked at the hourly rates that buyers are offering and providers are taking. Regarding my field …How can you expect quality results for $1.00 hr?
Competition is fierce. Apparently the perfect jobs for me are perfect for everyone or at least 50+ other candidates. Catch 22 is trying to get hired for an ODesk job with no ODesk experience. Most buyers want some clocked hours and feedback ratings.
I am concerned that buyers who had bad experiences with so called ODesk veterans they will be less likely to try someone new. Plus, I refuse to work for less than $15 per hour because I am worth way more than that. Even if I am working in my pajamas:) ? I have applied to 4 jobs and got 1 interview lined up with a buyer who wants someone local to do some phone/customer service work. He was initially offering a lower rate that I have posted for my salary range. We shall see what happens. I am almost willing to do charity jobs just to get a rating. Not there yet!
I thought scoring high on the skills tests may help me land more jobs but I have not heard any of the buyers mention the significance.
Is it possible to test a programmer during the interview process to see if they have the qualifications?
I hope ODesk refines its process to make more buyers happy so I can get working! Buyers who want to hire me for a long term assignment, are welcome to check my references.