How can I prevent providers from uninvited time zones to apply?

 
I have personal experience working whole night till 5:00am to meet the requirements of buyer. Many providers from other time zones work late nights and they give their best. May be providers from other time zones can make themselves available in buyer's required times.

Best providers are always the best to consider.

Thanks for your reply, Gem! Obviously, seen from this perspective, you are right. But, as a buyer, I have a job to be done. I don't care HOW the job is accomplished, but, at the end, I need the product to correspond to MY real requirements. I agree, at the beginning of a job, I do not always know exactly what I want, and the provider helps me to correctly define the project. However, once I made my choice, they become my requirements. If the provider finds a better way or solution, I expect him/her to tell me about that to get the approval before the change. But the point of this discussion is another: from my experience, some providers either do not read what they are asked to do, or they think they know better than the buyer. What are the chances for me, as a buyer, to accomplish a job with a provider who didn't read, or worst, didn't want to follow my requirements right from the job description? Would you hire such a person?

Getting the job done is indeed the strong point why many providers from other locations or time zones choose to apply. In a provider's perspective job openings here in oDesk or even at employment sites like Monster.com, everyone is entitled to submit one's resume, portfolio, profile, CV and other requirements - even one does not fully fits the job. Job openings are often seen as something seen by most jobseekers to take chances in getting to the next step of being noticed and interviewed and not as the way to illustrate the capability of following instructions because most job applicants know that the interview process can take care of that. We know that we run into the chances of not being taken because of the specific requirements, but we still prefer to contact the buyer or HR manager to still consider us for the opening, if not, for other job openings that may be available. This is indeed a standard practice when applying to jobs.

In my situation this had worked for me several times - not just in oDesk but also with other freelance sites and even company job openings posted in newspapers and the internet. I would rather take the risk of contacting the buyer or HR personnel with a cover letter stating strong reasons why I am qualified with the job. Of course, despite of the clear instructions stated in the job opening I would still take the smaller chance of getting noticed - and hoping to make it second to their list.

Even if you see that posting out job openings provides a way to assess one's capability to follow instructions, I do not think that the majority of providers and job seekers see it that way because job openings are always thought of as opportunities that everyone can "market" their skills and as well as "offer bargains" like switching time zones to get that job done. I strongly believe that the interview is the best way to know a provider's personal values and mindset for the job, aside from assessing a provider's skills and capabilities.

Gem

You say: "I strongly believe that the interview is the best way to know a provider's personal values and mindset for the job." And you are theoretically right! But you forget that, in the real world, if I am your buyer, I am a provider for somebody else. Because, to make a living myself, I have to sell my products to somebody else. And, unfortunately, in this real world, I do not have all the time I would like to put weeks to interview tenths or hundreds of providers for every job I have. Time is money! For you and for me. So I have to take some shortcuts to find providers fast. This is not personal. It is just business decision, like any other. It is about my chance of not losing more money  during the already long process of choosing the right candidate among the qualified ones. You talk about your right to post your candidacy for a job, even if you're not qualified for it. (But then, what are the qualifications for?) And I talk about my right to have respected my time, my intelligence and my responsibility that I know what I'm doing when I choose the qualifications I need for a provider.

When you (Well, you know, not really you Gemma!) send me a resume which does not match the qualifications I requested, you actually tell me that I do not know what I want and that you know much better than me what I should really want. You are technically insulting me, saying that I am incompetent on my job of hiring people. Even more, you do that on my time and on my money. And you still expect to be hired! Gemma, you say this worked for  you several times. The only thing I can say is: Lucky you!

Happily, the huge majority of providers respect their buyers! And oDesk does already a very good job for buyers by signaling candidates with qualifications that do not match with their request. But, obviously, this is still not enough. When I posted this topic, I only wanted -- and still want -- to have a tip on how to save my time and my frustration. I certainly didn't want to have an epistemological discussion about why I want what I want. After all, this is my opinion.

Thanks, Gemma! It was a pleasure talking to you and I actually enjoyed our discussion! Bye!

I have been following this thread and not responding deliberately as I was interested in seeing how it played out.

First, I am sorry that you seem to be frustrated by spam applications - that's a lack of professionalism on the part of the provider.

I'd like to share an experience with you - this goes to your issue of time zones.  I will clarify: I am both a buyer and a provider and I am in North America.

Currently I have in the vicinity of 500 hours logged on oDesk as an affiliate and I had nearly 500 hours logged as a freelance provider as well, so my total hours are in the vicinity of 1,000.  My 'normal' working hours are typically from about 8am to 6pm Eastern time.

However, let's discuss the exceptions to that schedule:  I had a client who was in Denmark and needed me available to work with him for an extended period of time (3 months) during his time zone. I adjusted my work schedule accordingly.  Since he was not my only client, I notified other clients of the change in my schedule and let them know that my availability would be changed during that time. I successfully completed his job and none of my other clients were 'left out' if you will during that process. My providers continued to work their 'normal' schedules and we survived it.

Another exception: A shorter term job - one month - client was in London.  I had to do a number of tasks including collaborating with his other team members who were in London, the US and in Russia.  Talk about a hodge podge of  time zones!  All of us spoke at the beginning of the assignment and found out who worked what hours and since I was the only one in the Eastern Time Zone I accommodated the other team members and made myself available for collaboration (sometimes at 11pm or later) to work with them.

I do not know what your time frame is for having this assignment ongoing (i.e. is it going to last a month, 3 months, etc.) but you may find that those who are not in your time zone may still be more than willing to accept the limitations of working in your time zone.

Unfortunately, you might not know that unless they clarified that in their cover letter to you.  Speaking for myself when I have applied for positions that are in other countries (and there have not been many but there have been a few), I do speak to that in my cover letters.

Note to providers: If in fact you are applying to a position as this buyer states that is outside their 'time zone' requirements, do mention it in your cover letter.  Buyers are not mind readers either and if the intention is to have someone in their own time zone and you fail to mention it then you're surely going to not be considered.

To the buyer: I do hope that if someone has applied that is outside of the time zone and they have included something in their cover letter explaining why their applying (i.e. even though you ask for "North America time zone I am applying because I am willing to.....) that you would still consider them.

That's my 3 cents for today.  Good luck in your hunt!

Doreen 

Well, now I got a provider from the right time zone, but who didn't read my requirements either. So I think the question should be a bit more general.

Since you already put a flag on users not matching my qualifications, could oDesk go one step further and let me choose if I accept candidacies from these users or not, as I can decide about the option "Get more candidates - make visible to search engines"?

Thanks for the lively discussion. We certainly understand the frustration for some buyers that get bombarded with "Spam" applications, but we also know that the majority of our providers on oDesk are not spammers. They are hardworking service providers who feel they can do the job posted but might not fit the preferred qualifications exactly.

With that said, we are thinking of a few possible new features to the marketplace to help with the hiring process. Please weigh in with your thoughts. 

• Better filtering to allow the buyer to quickly filter his candidacy queue.
• A "Mark as Spam" button so the buyer can flag applications that are completely irrelevant to their job opening. oDesk will take action again such spammers.
• Allow buyers to specify REQUIRED qualifications so providers who do not match the criteria can not even apply.

The first 2 items are in the works. The last one is somewhat controversial. Our concern here is that buyers may unknowingly specify requirements that are too strict and as a result do not get enough applicants. After all, on oDesk, as it is in real life, we often hire candidates that miss our ideal qualifications but are more than good enough to get the job done.

Yang

oDesk

I have a perfect example for this.  I recently received an interview invitation from a buyer for a job.  This job falls directly in my field of expertise, but I do not meet all the requirements listed listed.

Personally, I am working on the belief that his request outweighs my not being able to tick all the checkboxes.

Thanks Yang! This will be wonderful. And I see your point for the last feature, but I do not see it as a real problem. As a buyer, I seek the ultimate candidate for the job, the one and only who can match at 110 per cent my requirements. If I can find him, I'm in heaven.

But, as you said, real life is different and we all "downgrade" our expectations, going from the "ultimate" to the "best", then to the "second best"...and so on. In oDesk this means if I didn't find the "one", I am diminishing my requirements, one or two at the time, until I get somebody. But I still remain in control of what requirements I am ready to give up to get this somebody for my job.

And Dave's example is relevant. When his buyer couldn't get his ultimate provider, he searched for someone who could still do the job.  So the buyer got his provider, while still deciding who might be the right person for him.

What spammers do posting so many candidacies, is that they drain buyers' time  and, ultimately, prevent them from finding the right person.

Even more, when a buyer posts a job with specific requirements, he addresses his request to a defined user group and expects to get feedback from these users only.

I didn't verify with a lawyer, but I think that candidacies from users not belonging to the group targeted by the buyer are in fact unsolicited offerings, and, consequently, could be legally considered as illegal spam.

However, I certainly believe that we shouldn't be so harsh on them after all. What they want is a chance to get a job and the only thing they miss is to know a better way to get that chance. And I think that, maybe, it should finally be oDesk's responsibility to teach them the right way to get noticed, without being considered as spammers. Isn't it?

I think that the bottom line of the discussion here is on how jobs are being filtered by the buyer. With oDesk growing, there could really be hundreds of applications (which is a reality in the administrative or data entry categories). Having so many applicants in less than a week could really take a buyers time and it does not even count the time that the buyer would still have to interview applicants.

As for spam, there are indeed applicants who submit generic cover letters and obviously does not answer the requirements of the buyer outright. One improvement that oDesk has done (which I really like) is to restrict the job message boards to be used by those who had applied for the job.

The discussion here on how I would still want to communicate with the buyer and how the buyer wants stricter requirements here can still go on, but I agree that it would work on the interest of both the buyer and the provider if the filtering and sorting system on the buyer's job application can be enhanced within the oDesk buyer's job listings. There could be more advanced filtering system like showing which applicants PERFECTLY match the qualifications, and which applicants are ALMOST FIT to the buyer's requirements. That way, the buyer is given the flexibility to see a list of applicants in lesser time without browsing through all the hundred names in the list.

I really do not mean to offend you on the issue (I did NOT want to educate you here, but I used my own personal experience as an example) but I just want to point out that there are some applicants who really have the skills and time to do such job that the buyer required - even if they do not match the posted requirements.

If spam applications that is truly the bottom line of the issue here which I think, it refers to those who submit generic cover letters (there are many who do this). I find too sad that there are too many providers who abuse job openings with such generic letters that does not give a thought to what the job opening is all about. It should work as an advantage to many of these providers if they could compose their cover letters to address the needs of the buyer in the first place - I've seen this along the help articles and it is often mentioned here in the forums.

I think oDesk has done its part to educate members well on the tips with their insider blog, oDesk blog, help articles and forums. If this is not enough, then perhaps a buyer's fresh insight from you can be a lot helpful to oDesk - maybe suggestions on better campaigns for educating providers on job applications?

Gem

Can I just mention here (and it was brought up a couple of weeks ago in a forum post which I was unable to locate).  This weekend I received 3 invitations to interview from buyers I had never worked with before.  Two of these were on fixed rate jobs (and a couple of others who are active in these forums were also invited to two of them so they'll know the ones I'm discussing) and I bet you there were no less than 30 interview invitations sent out and in addition the posting was in clear violation of oDesk policies since it included contact information.

Now this might be a good 'problem' for some (i.e. to be invited) but frankly, I wonder how much time this buyer spent reviewing our profiles? I'd guess little/none because he was asking for work samples and I can tell you that at least 1/3 of the people that were invited have extensive portfolios.

This isn't only providers wasting buyers time with spam, but buyers doing it as well.

Doreen

I've been on oDesk a short time as a Buyer (two projects thus far) and am extremely frustrated by the amount of SPAM posted by Providers in response to my project assignments.  It's a complete waste of my (billable) time.

Your suggested feature to "Mark As Spam" would go a long way to both weeding out the "bad actors" and educating new Providers how to apply "Best Practices" for submitting proper and professional applications.

 You get my vote for your proposed enhancements.