Stuart Hibbert from icomplete was kind enough to interview with oDesk and share some of his insights into how to successfully use oDesk as a buyer. His interview was included in a recent oDesk newsletter.

Based in Swindon, England, icomplete.com was conceived by three founders who, after many years of running successful small businesses, wanted to pass on their knowledge to help other companies improve their image, save time, and increase profits.

Their Software-as-a-Service Business Suite incorporates CRM (contact management), calendar, task management, collaboration tools, telephony and website widgets, plus real-life personal assistants to answer calls and undertake tasks clients don’t have time or expertise to do themselves. The beta version is due out soon, to be followed by the commercial launch in the United Kingdom - starting at just £25 ($50) per month - there are no upfront costs, or contract tie-ins. An advertising-supported ‘free’ version will also be available worldwide (minus some of the enhanced features).

CEO Stuart Hibbert is responsible for the day-to-day running of the business and specifically the product and technical teams. “Ultimately,” he says, “the buck stops with me.”
As an oDesk buyer:

Hibbert has been using oDesk for nearly a year, hiring developers within several disciplines; Java, AJAX (JavaScript) and Asterisk; as well as product testing and technical writing. “We started off with just a couple of Java developers back in June 2007,” he says. “We wanted to understand how outsourcing would work for us and which service best suited our requirements. We initially worked with two remote management services, but we liked oDesk so much that we moved those developers over to oDesk too. Our team is now nine providers strong. We tend to have a regular stable of providers - however, for certain skills we do regularly post to the community at large to see if there is new talent available.”

Q: What has been the biggest challenge in using remote providers?
A: To date we have been using individual providers rather than teams, which we feel gives us more flexibility - but at the same time means that we are having to project manage everyone separately. Which, given different time zones (+9 hours in Sydney to -8 hours on the west coast of the United States), is quite challenging - but rewarding when we get it right.

Q: In what way has oDesk made it easier to manage remote workers?
A: Several ways:

* Hire - Instant access to a wealth of providers located around the world. We ask all providers to undertake tests in the field which is most closely associated to the position they are applying for. We read the feedback which has been provided by other buyers.
* Day to day management - The Work Diary is invaluable to us, allowing us to be able to manage remote workers efficiently.
* Payment - We don’t have to worry about the payments to providers who are located across the globe; oDesk manages this all for us.

Q: Do you manage all your oDesk staffers directly, or have you pulled back and hired a project manager through oDesk?
A: A combination really. So far I have managed directly, but as we are developing the business I find that I have less time available. So we have just promoted one of our providers to become team leader, someone who knew how we worked and could see the vision of what we wanted to achieve.

Q: Is it difficult to give up a certain amount of oversight and direct involvement?
A: Sure it was difficult. I am one of the founders of the business, so what we are doing is “my baby.” It is always difficult to give that up. But for the development of the business and for the good of the team, it is best.

Q: We’ve rolled out some new features lately to help with this process, such as Create Team. Is there anything you think oDesk should do in the future to help facilitate a buyer granting more autonomy to teams of workers?
A: More collaboration tools. Providers tend to use email as the primary way of communicating - which can take time for them to “construct” their thoughts logically. Tools that would help to decrease this time would be great. Also, a diary of when providers are ‘planning’ to work - this way buyers would have more visibility as to when providers would be working, especially on an international basis when you have things like different public holidays and such like - would help with current and future planning.

Q: What tips or advice would you have for someone considering signing up as an oDesk buyer?
A: My advice:

* Understand what you want to achieve - be as specific as possible in your briefing/specification.
* Put in proper project management - failure is usually as a result of buyers and providers not communicating effectively.
* Give your providers more than one task at a time - this way if they are waiting on anything, then they at least have another task to work on.

Q: From a buyer’s perspective, what advice would you give to a provider wanting to increase success through oDesk?
A: My advice:

* Get tested. If you say that something is your key competency, then find the associated test on oDesk and take it. Generally, if someone applies for a position, if they aren’t tested we will generally reject them without looking much further than that.
* Check that you match the skills that are being sought. If someone says that they are looking for you to have certification on a particular test or a certain amount of history and you haven’t, then you are more likely to be rejected.
* Make your cover letter specific to the role you are applying for. So many times do we receive generic cover letters which bear little or no resemblance to the position they are applying for.
* Do the best possible job that you can for the provider. They will then give you a glowing feedback report which will help you to secure future work easier.

A recent internal analysis at oDesk yielded some pretty interesting trends within our own network.

We were looking at the total hours worked by all providers and were segmenting the hours by various different criteria. One of the most startling trends we found was the growth in hours worked by providers from the Philippines.

The number of hours worked in Philippines has grown 4x in just 4 months.

The amazing thing to us is the fully viral expansion of work that’s going on in this country. We have not changed anything about our acquisition strategy in the Philippines so this is true word-of-mouth growth. Kudos to the providers that are driving this rapid expansion.

Here’s a few top providers:

Gemma Baltazar is a freelance provider on oDesk and writes her own blog at the Lady Programmer. We’ve invited her to write this guest post.

When I first got into oDesk, I did not have an oDesk work history and a feedback to complete my profile. I started out with a poorly written profile because I was in a rush to apply to jobs, hoping that there might be some buyer who might be willing to take chances on my skills.

As days and weeks went on, no buyer came in and took the time to interview me. Soon, I realized that these buyers are not willing to invest on a provider who seemed to be less serious in taking a job. With so many providers applying for a particular job in oDesk it seemed to me that I was left out to providers with proven track record in oDesk.

I was wrong.

How did able to get my first interview? After much thought I decided to take a day off from applying jobs to polish my profile. I made it as complete as possible to make it stand out among the rest. Here are the things that I did to make my profile speak:

1. Create an attractive one-line title. Having an attractive title is a must because this is the first thing that a buyer sees in his or her candidate list. Buyers tend to click on more intriguing titles and check out what is in store.

2. Have a clear objective. The objective is the next big thing that buyers read. A good objective for me is the one that puts the buyer’s need in mind. Customer satisfaction, quality work and timely delivery are some powerful words that put a buyer at full attention.

3. Show yourself. If you are an independent freelancer, then it is best to show up a picture of yourself - not those types that look good in social networking sites - but the ones that seem to project professionalism. If you are convinced that you do not look good, then go for “symbolic images”. If you are a programmer, then a stock image of a computer screen filled with code can be a suitable avatar. A writer can choose to represent himself with a stock image of a pen and a paper. I have yet to see a funny or interesting caricature of a provider who plans to “sell” his services in the graphics or design category. I think logos are best suited for provider teams.

4. Take tests. Prove to the buyer by measuring your skills. oDesk offers plenty of these for free. Brainbench can also be another good option to go for specialized skills, or if you want to take one step further.

5. Write down relevant skills and experience. Actually, I gained experience from three fields - I was an engineer, an IT specialist and an active blog writer. I decided to “sell” my skills as an IT specialist by doing programming jobs, so I downplayed (but mentioned) my experience as an engineer and a blog writer. I believed in putting the focus into one particular area that I wanted to pursue in oDesk.

6. Complete your portfolio. This is the biggest mistake that I had made at the beginning. In my excitement to hitch a job, I lost precious time in applying to jobs and I got one rejection after another. Completing the portfolio is time consuming, but the effort paid well. If you think you cannot be able to put in something to the portfolio, then coming up with some sample work can be a good option.

7. Preview your profile. Even with a very complete profile, it is best to work with the design of the profile. I made sure that my profile looks good at a glance especially those ones that involve writing some detailed description, such as narrating the details of my past employment experience.

8. Don’t forget to ask for some feedback. The oDesk community is the place to go to ask for some constructive criticism. Do not forget to post your profile permalink so that everyone can take a good look.

The profile is indeed a very valuable tool in showing the buyers what you are made of. With so many providers, I always had in mind that buyers will simply skim through my profile.

I think it would be a lot easier if you think of your profile as a product brochure that needs to be done. If you are to sell a product to a customer through that brochure what are the things that must be included to entice the customer to buy that product?