confused with job postings
hi! i am just wondering why some job postings seem like resumes. i mean, why are there posts about a provider's skills and offered services on the job listing. it's a bit strange because these posts get applicants too (even though it is clearly a resume post). .
Lack of Understanding?
It's because the person who posted the job didn't read the rules and thinks this is a place to advertise to get a job. And the persons who applied are just shot-gunning applications, not reading the listing.
I report any I find as inappropriate.
Some are just copy/pasting
Some are just copy/pasting their "resume", and some people are even using automation software to parse jobs available and auto-post cover letter and hourly-rates. Both of these categories of people don't even bother to read oDesk terms and not going to follow them.
there is an automation
there is an automation software for this? wow. is it like spamming?
Similar to spamming. Lets
Similar to spamming. Lets say daily update of jobs is 200 new project posted. Their software visits every project, finds out if there's a required set of keywords and their density present in project description (like "real estate", "portal", "php") and posts specific cover letter for specific type of project.
The one who registered provider's account and using this tool works on something meanwhile, or drinks coffee. Not fair, when comparing with other providers who abide to oDesk terms and posting their cover letters manually.
P.S. Copy-pasting same resume manually for any project isn't a violation, unlike automation with software, but a thing that makes buyer think that this provider is not a serious person.
oh, that's very sneaky! i
oh, that's very sneaky! i hope there are no providers doing that application style.
but i think the ones who post resumes are just confused with the rules. hope they get the concept of the job posting list soon.
Maybe you guys can do something...
Similar to spamming. Lets say daily update of jobs is 200 new project posted. Their software visits every project, finds out if there's a required set of keywords and their density present in project description (like "real estate", "portal", "php") and posts specific cover letter for specific type of project.
The one who registered provider's account and using this tool works on something meanwhile, or drinks coffee. Not fair, when comparing with other providers who abide to oDesk terms and posting their cover letters manually.
P.S. Copy-pasting same resume manually for any project isn't a violation, unlike automation with software, but a thing that makes buyer think that this provider is not a serious person.
If you know how it works, can you think of a way to counter this?
I know how it works, but
I know how it works, but don't know how works every single software that could be coded for this reason.
Anyway, it's just a software, and ofc it could be stopped. User-agent check, speed check (for multi-threaded tools), e.t.c 
oDesk just need somebody from their team to spend some time to analyze webserver logs, find what's looking suspicious, investigate this, and find the way to stop these softwares.
Percent of people using
Percent of people using automation software to post their bids/cover letters at oDesk should be very, very small due to limitation of max 20 project bids. So i assume it's not very critical. It's a plague only at Scriptlance and RAC (but they are lazy and don't care of bots)
Some are Spamming and others might just be confused
on Mon, 2008-10-06 18:31.We apologize for the occasional job posts that seem more like applications and/or provider advertisements. We do monitor our daily job openings but sometimes it's not feasible to check every single one. In that respect we would like to solicit the help of the community to flag these "inappropriate" job openings. I believe in most cases, the users who posted were genuinely confused and after being flagged once, they would not do it again.
As for the automated applications to jobs, we are aware of the issue though again, it does not seem to happen very often. As one of of the earlier responses pointed out, the oDesk Job Application Quota is implemented to prevent exactly this sort of Spamming behavior. Additionally, we highly encourage buyers who receive this type of applications to flag them as Spam and those providers who have been flagged multiple times will be suspended.
In a bit of poetic justice, application bots appear to be wasting their providers' job application quotas on "inappropriate" job openings. Furthermore, I would guess that Spam applications should actually help serious providers (who apply with relevant and well thought-out coverletters) stand out by comparison.
Yang
oDesk
i noticed it too...i find it
i noticed it too...i find it ridiculous...that's why i send a report right away to avoid confusion with providers...