So I rejected a candidate and got a nice reply....very funny read.

I agree, but as a buyer look at my side of things. I had to hire and fire 5 candidates and all of them were with 0 feed back. Its not on technicality but how they did the work, not being online agreed upon time, working on other projects while billing me, chatting with girl friend for a long period of time etc etc....so I made a policy if some one has 0 hrs or 0 feed back then not to work with them. If I give a bad review All they have to do is sign up under different name and they are back on track while i am out of money and a upset client. 

 I have suggested the following to oDesk. If some one signs up then they are only allowed to use that ID always like PayPal this will prevent people who sign up, do a poor job then sign up under a different ID

 Jay

I'm sorry for your bad experiences with 0 feedback providers. Nevertheless not all are bad workers.  There are providers that are serious about what they are willing to provide to you buyers out there. I'm one of them and I'm sure there are more among us 0 feedback providers that know they can provide an excellent job.  I'm here to make money not to cheat someone to give me money for doing nothing.

Maybe an idea to ask for a sample of the work that needs be completed. I'd be willing to do that if it results in getting a project a signed to me and I'm sure other serious providers are too. 

I'd like to dive into this issue a little bit deeper since we understand at oDesk that it can be extremely difficult for a new provider to get the first job. Hopefully, once that first job is complete, positive feedback will be received and it will get easier from there.

 However, regarding that first job - we believe it's very important for oDesk to provide tools to new providers so they can differentiate themselves and prove themselves to potential buyers. Our online testing initiative is intended to largely serve this purpose and allow any provider to take FREE online tests and add their qualifications to their profile.

My question to our community is this: what else would you like to see oDesk do to help new providers? What will help you get the first job opening? What will help you prove your qualifications? What product features would help differentiate the "good" providers?

Josh Breinlinger

oDesk

From a buyers stand point, if a user is new and first time here is what I like to see

 1. I dont want the ability where the user can go and register under a different ID if they screw up the first project and get a bad feed back (it looks like its very easy to create fake ID's in oDesk)

2. Tests help, but these are offline tests and any one can do it for others

3. Reduce the spam, every job post gets so many applicents who are cut and paste so some time the good once get rejected too since we dont want to go through every one.

Jay

Josh, as you well know I started off in the fall and I was like many other new providers frustrated with the process initially.  I guess I can take a more objective look at it now that I have in fact built up oDesk hours, but towards this buyers concerns:

You as a buyer are correct - there are risks involved in hiring someone who has no oDesk hours - however, at one time or another you had no experience in your field either and someone took a chance on you!  Please take a look at this from a providers standpoint for a moment (and please understand I am NOT in any way condoning this persons actions/reactions): As a buyer you have access to hopefully our resume, our portfolio and any feedback we might have - and if we don't have feedback hopefully we've been smart enough to include other things that will help you make the decision to hire us.

Addressing Josh's question about how to assist new providers:  Unfortunately some of the providers are convinced that they don't need to prove themselves on oDesk which I find very unfortunate.  When I realized that lack of feedback would hurt me not obtaining an assignment I decided to approach things differently.  I opened an account with a company called LinkedIn and I set up a profile on there and I asked folks I had worked for and with to put in references. This allowed me to establish references for buyers who might be interested in my services.

I think an education to buyers and to providers both about marketing themselves would benefit both parties

Doreen

This means you own me a job quote .

This means you cheat . I was realy impressed by you`re feedback , but you cheat , just like everibody that made another oDesk ID . How would you feal if every new provider that has 0 feedback would spend 1 quote for every job you apply and put a link here in the cover letter ??? so that everybody would see that part of the feedback isn`t earned here on oDesk , but outside , so as NO PAYMENT OUTSIDE ODESK is allowed , you should make those feedbacks private , or put them elsewhere in you`re profile .

Please excuse me if i didn`t got this right , but you did cheat for getting feedback right ??? and most of all i don`t whant to heart you/someone elce`s fealings , nor to start a big dispute , i just don`t aprove this and i wonder how oDesk staff handled this , and how this kind of situations are handled from now on ( by this i mean providers that make another id , buyers that make another id with different credit card , and providers like you who did make a buyer id and hired themselfs and """asked somebody else to write feedback""".

p.s. once again , please excuse me and please note that i don`t whant to start a dispute i just don`t agree with you`re action , and please excuse my bad english

Sincerely , Dorin P.

Dorin, I understand you concern, so let me explain.

Doreen didn't cheat. She wasn't creating a separate oDesk user for the purpose of circumnavigating the feedback system. And she was in no way soliciting buyers to hire her outside of oDesk. Therefore she wasn't breaking any oDesk rules. A number of users have done similar things, and it's perfectly OK to do - as long as you don't engage in disintermediation or use false testimonials to trick buyers.

She created a profile on a totally separate website that is intended for collecting references from past employers. She would link to her LinkedIn profile in cover letters. I believe her LinkedIn profile linked right back to her provider profile. This would be just like linking to a personal website where you may have posted 'customer testimonials'. Some providers have added info like this to the 'other experience' section of their profiles. 

And it's exactly what you do for most 'real world' jobs - you need both a resume and references. On oDesk, buyers use your profile and feedback. The idea is to show buyers that your 'real world' past employers were satisfied customers. It's a useful way to help get buyers past the fact that as a newbie you don't yet have a reputation built inside the oDesk system.

oki , thanks for clearing it for me.

Doreen i must apologize , i didn`t understood exactly .

p.s. please excuse me if i offended you or anybody else .

Sincerely , Dorin P. 

Not to worry - I saw exactly where you might have misunderstood - I should have clarified that those references were from prior jobs and not from oDesk work.  But Jacqui is 100% correct.  My linked in profile referred right back to my oDesk profile - all of my work is done on oDesk save one client who I began working with long before I knew oDesk ever existed and try as I might I can't get him to come here :)  - so I continue to work with him in spite of that.  Doreen 

As a buyer I think there is a very simple solution to getting your first job...do it for free.  Offer to do a few small jobs in parallel with the provider who is actually chosen and submit your work to the buyer for no pay.  Prove you can do it better than the person paid to do it.  If it takes a few hours to break through, isn't that worth it?  In my business you have to give a little away for free to build up credibility.  Why doesn't that work here?

Here's why it doesn't work - Like other providers I have opted to provide 'small' samples of work to buyers who are requesting samples for their job posting. However, when 50 of us are posting these 'small samples' then the buyer ultimately winds up with what he needs and NONE of us are hired.

As a buyer/provider myself I think it's unreasonable to ask ANYONE to provide ANY service for free.  Take a look at our portfolios, pay us for ONE HOUR of work and if you don't like it fine let us go - but do not ask us (who are trying to make a living by the way) to do something for free.  We don't work on 'commissions' or 'maybes' or promises either.

Doreen 

Doreen...

 I completely agree with you.  I worked with a Buyer not long after I joined oDesk...he wanted a logo/graphic done....and sent me a coloring book image!? to go with.  I re-created the graphic and he came back and said "no I want it to look exactly like the picture I sent you".  So I HAND-DREW the image .....because copying it would have been infringement.....sent that to him and ........well long story short ...I spent seven hours doing this one graphic over for this Buyer three times...and couldn't please him.

I did put a large red SAMPLE  through the middle of what I'd drawn.....but anyone with a bit of graphic sense could get rid of that.

I  finally ended up telling him he needed to find another Provider.  I wasted a whole day on this guy and didn't get one red cent in compensation.  PLUS.......he totally dissed me on Yahoo......but that's another tale.  Assholes abound!

 Bottom line....I don't ever bid on fixed graphic projects any more..for just this reason.  They want "samples" first.

 Sample.......shmample.....I say to a Buyer......you want a "sample"...this is what it's going to cost you.....Simple.
 

I have samples of my work in my portfolio (not this one but my 'provider portfolio'.  If you can't determine my work level from there I'm so sorry   If you'd like something else fine but don't count on it being on a topic you select - that's a RED FLAG for me to NOT get hired to do the job because it's done :) 

Amen. Next time go to a barber and ask for a "test haircut", you can go to another one each month. Try some sample food at restaurants as well and maybe a movie from time to time. You also have to test if a train can get you from one point to another, otherwise you shouldn't pay. I often buy some kinds of food just to check them out, I often throw it away, because I don't like it. I wish I could get them as samples...

The best idea was proposed by Doreen - give a provider a very small task which shouldn't last more than a few hours and see if he's good. That's how it works when an employer wants to test you out in the real world - honest people pay even if you are not what they were looking for, or the oppiste, you didn't like the job.

You should not expect people to work for free, they are spending their time on this and often putting their whole heart into getting that job and if you don't pay you are exploiting them. Yes, I can understand you from the buyer's perspective, I am running my own business and would never treat people like slaves. Period. 

Look at resumes, look at portfolios, have an online chat or a phone call (Skype works very well!) and decide whether this is a kind of person you want to work with. Then give them a task with no further obligations, but pay for it, please!

Totally agree.  Don't have much time to spent writing here, just wanted to let you know I agree with your post.

Very nicely put. I'm sure that it is tough for the new providers since we buyers do certainly look at the hours and feedback scores, but I think most important is professionalism and building trust. 

If I start an interview w someone - I expect a prompt courteous reply - (doesn't need to be perfect English - just needs to be professiona and please please please make it unique to my job and not just a cut and paste). Responsiveness and dedication mean more to me than hours or feedback. Example: I like to give any candidate for any job a little test before even thinking about hiring for any position. The test could be as simple as "take a look at this website and let me know 3 things you would do to improve it". I like to see a little imagination from the candidate and also make sure that they will complete a simple task and deliver on time before depending on them to do anything more significant.

 Anyway, that's my approach...

The issue of Spaming where the provider got a college kid just cutting and pasting with out even reading the job description is the worst. 70 - 80% of the responses are like that, and since oDesk system is slow performance wise (I know you guys are fixing it ) its even frustrating because you cant just reject candidates fast.

Jay 

Regarding the issue of job application spamming - oDesk has currently set a job application quota of 20 job openings per rolling 7 day period. Once a provider has applied to 20 jobs and reached their quota, they cannot apply to any more jobs until some time goes by or some of the candidacies are rejected.

So, it appears that this quota is not having the desired impact. Perhaps it needs to be a tighter restriction? The reason we decided to set it at 20 was to allow enough applications especially for the new providers to get their first interviews and jobs. We did not want to impose too tight of a restriction.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Josh Breinlinger

oDesk

Is my vote. I hope that would cut down on the spam. 

If the limit of job applications were to be cut, it would be more difficult to find programmers for smaller jobs.  If I can't apply for so many, then obviously I will have to apply to the ones which are longer, and give the possibility of more earnings.

Providers of smaller jobs would suffer 

I don't think reducing the job quota is appropriate - many providers work very hard to increase their job quotas and to have this ability taken away because of a handful of people who are not professional enough to handle this type of responsibility isn't fair to them.

Is it at all possible for a 'feedback' system (and that's not really what I want to use for a word but lack of a better one at the moment...) where if a buyer feels that the cover letter is in fact spam that they have a way to 'report as inappropriate'  (much like we have the option as providers to flag job postings) and if a person continues to violate this they have their oDesk privileges suspended? Seems to me that this penalizes the folks who are doing it.

As an aside in regards to the letter that this buyer received: I am ashamed that a supposed professional would take this approach.  It gives too many folks a bad reputation since we're all judged on first impressions.

As a new provider I think 20 is a good quota.  At other sites I always come short.  There are more jobs that I'm able to do than what I can bid for.  At odesk I have bids left each week but I'd rather have some left over than find myself wanting to bid for a perfect opportunity and than to find out I've reach my limit.

I guess it has to do with how serious you are about finding a good job/project and how serious you are in your work.  Everybody just bidding because they think they can are not being serious.  I don't know how you could eliminate this problem without hurting the serious providers out there.  I think it's going to be very hard to sift out all the providers and buyers that are just here to cheat someone else.

I wish you could come up with something that would eliminate this without hurting others but that's live.  The bad always mess everything up for the good.

There seems to be a BIG problem with providers applying to jobs and not reading the job description at all. I have posted many jobs now of which had a specific requirement for the provider to be based in North America so they would be available during business hours for the rest of my team. 95% of applicants were from India or some other country... there is nothing wrong with this... but if the job posting was actually read, they would have seen that there is no use to apply to the job as they don't fit the requirements. Also, I ask applicants to include a verification word in their cover letter... To this date.. I have only ever found 2 candidates who actually followed these simple instructions... 

There is a solution in place on another site that I use to outsource some of my local onsite work.. providers are required to read over the entire job posting before being able to apply... This works in two steps... first the job posting is displayed for 90 seconds... this gives the provider ample time to read through the entire post and decide whether or not it is something they would like to apply to. After the 90 second timer runs out... a button to proceed to apply appears and then the providers can submit their bid for the project. Of course this would need to be tailored for use here.. but it really is a great solution and cut right down on the application spamming at that site. 

You make a couple of very good points:

You are absolutely correct. Professionalism is key to success whether it's online or offline! 

When we were talking about sample work however we were not discussing this type of thing - I like this approach myself but what the problem we were discussing is in fact the buyers who ask for a specific topic for instance the job posting might say "I'm looking for 50 articles on XYZ". "Each applicant must provide to me a 500 word document talking about XYZ"  Frankly the one or two times I was silly enough to apply for this type of a position it came out to nada.  But I suspect that is because me and at least 49 other people provided these items and the buyer went merrily on their way with 50 documents fully written that they didn't pay for - and they tweaked them a bit and got what they want.

The 'test' or 'sample' you use is far different and any provider could live with that as it's a simple visual and quick reply. Now perhaps you still might do the same thing but it's simply not the same time investment - not that it may not produce the same result - but it's more palatable.

The high res passport scan is a very good idea Konstantin . Maybe even 2 pieces of ID for sign-up (passport, drivers licence, student ID etc). This would at least give people more confidence in the oDesk application process and make it far more difficult to falsify registration.

Scanned documents are easy to falsify. Besides, how do you know that they really belong to the person sending them?

Better to make it like moneybookers did. They send confirmation code to the home address via air mail. To complete registration you need to wait for this mail and enter the code sent.

I also agree with opinion that oDesk should set application quota even less. This should reduce amount of spam and providers will focus on quality of their applications.

For example, never I or my friends applied to 20 openings per week even when we started here in oDesk.

I think identification of providers is certainly an issue (as I feel it is with buyers).  But for my 10 cents worth, I don't think asking for any type of scanned document is going to help that.  All in one printers are pennies these days and anyone can get a fake identification.  I guess I am missing something - we are providing EIN's or TIN's to get a job in the 'real world' and we do the same thing here.  Why would anyone waste so much time to scam a buyer for a few dollars and risk ruining any reputation they might have? I just do not get it.

Anyway, I don't think scanned documents are the way to go.  I feel that you're going to have bad apples in any market (online or offline) and that no matter how hard you try you're going to have them. 

But, on the flip side of that don't make it more difficult for the people who are legitimately trying to do the right thing by catering to the few who are not doing the right thing.

Don't assume that you can "mold" a provider with no oDesk hours, or that you can't do this for someone who has more oDesk experience. For all you know, someone with no oDesk hours is actually a seasoned pro with years and years of experience, and just recently joined oDesk (I am in this category).

Besides, why would you want to "mold" your providers? If they are any good, they will comply with your requirements. Of course, if they are any good, they will probably have good ideas ("do[ing] the job their way") that you disregard at your peril. On the other hand, if they're not good, why hire them in the first place?

This post has just scared me off from accepting your assignments. I don't want a job where I expect to be "molded"; I want a job where I can fill the buyer's needs through the benefits of my expertise. That's what the buyer is paying for.

Any time that a buyer wants to control 100% of the providers work is a red flag for me (and I would hope most other professionals).  While we may be 'new' on oDesk most of us have other professional experience. The entire idea of being a freelancer is that we are free to discuss our opinions about how something should work/feel with a buyer.  Otherwise we might as well go and be a corporate America clone that only thinks the 'company thought' all the time.

That's my opinion.

Remember, if you are a US buyer and the provider is also a US citizen or resident, you are hiring the person as an independent contractor through oDesk. To "expect them to do the job the way I want it done" could turn them into your employee, and you could find yourself in trouble with the IRS for not giving them their rights as such.

I'm new here but have a fair bit of experience with this. One of the hardest things is picking which provider to use - and part of that is because you have to say "No" to people who are qualified, helpful and friendly - but just not your 1st choice.

As such now I tend to remain silent until I'm fairly sure I have narrowed things down a bit. I really dislike chatting to someone, getting on great and then saying the N word.

As such 'no news is good news', for at least they haven't said no yet!

Interesting discussion.  Jay - that reply was way over the edge!  Wow!  Weirdos abound everywhere I guess. 

My 2 cents on newbies getting hired - research some sites that offer instruction on composing a decent cover letter.  That along with your relevant education and experience will go a long way to getting you "in".
Your first impression needs to be a good one or Buyers will indeed pass you by.

I've been with oDesk since November and am currently working for four Buyers pretty much full time all combined now.  I have logged over 232 oDesk hours to date and have 0 feedback - because my assignments have all been ongoing.  I know I can ask my Buyer(s) to end the assignments and rehire me - but I can't be bothered.  They're happy with my work or I wouldn't still be working for them.

But I have seen some dandy cover letters in here.  Misspelled words, bad grammar, one of them I saw was one sentence.  There was no date, no Dear Sir/Madam, no signature - simply  "I can do good work".  LMAO!

Now I found THAT funny.  I suspect this person of few words is still looking for a position on this site.  I write a kick-ass cover letter (if I do say so myself) and honestly believe it was my covers that got me the jobs I have.  One of my Buyers actually told me it was my cover letter that got me my interview with him...so that being said - it can't hurt to give that a try.

 oDesk would be smart to hire someone (like me)   with a Bachelor's degree in English and a hundred years of experience in the working world - who would be willing to either write cover letters for new Providers that don't know how - or instruct them on how to write one that will grab a buyer's attention.

 
Debbie. MacKenzie

Personally I would far rather hear from a buyer directly that they have opted to go with another provider (for whatever reason) than have no idea that the job is closed out and expect to hear back from them.

Let's face it, we're all supposed to be adults and professionals and all of us have been turned down for jobs in our lives.  If not, then a reality check is warranted.

Doreen 

Talking of exactly that, I have now selected a coder for my work, how do I politely thank the other candidates and let them know?

I don't feel comfortable hitting a "Reject" button, then again it would be weird to "interview" them to say "Thanks but the job has been filled".

Also I'm not sure how things work here yet, again I'm very much an RAC bod', and on RAC the fact I've hired someone automatically closes the bid. I would usually just type a short thank you note to the others before doing that.

It's partly my fault, I selected "Leave other candidates active" or whatever it was but now I'm fairly confident in the guy chosen, how do I politely thank peeps for applying?

A.

I am myself, don't have problems with standard messages from oDesk, as: "Reason for not being selected: Chose another provider", if you care much about providers fillings you can send personal description, for example when i reject interview invitation i add few lines about reason with thanks and apologies.
But i think "Leave other candidates active" it's very bad practise, as you know now oDesk have anti-spam policy, which limit candidacy to 5-20 per week, so leaving it active you deprive provider possibility to search for other job. Alan, I think you are really nice person, but in this case your kindness can be a problem, the longer provider wait the more chances to find work he loses, the bigger disappointment he will meet later.

I am myself will never begin to complain if someone reject my candidacy fast, i only can give gratitude to him for respect to my time.

...is to make a post on the job message board -- everyone who applied for your job will get a message saying you've posted to the job board. It's a good way to communicate with everyone at once before closing out the job.

Arron Washington

I've gotten lots of invites to interviews and then the person who wanted to interview me just drops off the face of the earth and goes incommunicado suddenly. For example, I had one recently that I had been emailing back and forth with and he liked what I had said and then we arranged a time for him to call me to do an interview over the phone and he didn't he even bother to send his apologies and never contacted me again.

He may have found someone who fit his requirements better and I understand that but if you say you will call someone and then you don't that is just rude. Because I was never hired for a job by this person, I cannot give that person any sort of feedback.

I'm convinced for every provider there is out there that lacks etiquette there is also a buyer who lacks it as well.

I agree that there should be a way for buyers to report non-serious providers applying for jobs because I notice some of the other people who apply for the same jobs I do clearly did not read the requirements, but if you do that I think you also need a system whereby we can report non-serious buyers too. 

I think it should go both ways. I think there should also be a way for providers to report buyers who weren't serious about a job posting to begin with.) (job expired/job closed - with no one interviewed or hired) I am sure it is different under every job category, but a lot of the jobs I have a.) applied to b.) been asked to interview for the provider just dropped off the face of the earth.

I think a lot of that has to do with buyers who are simply shopping for the lowest rate possible and once they see that no one is willing to do their work for $2.00 per hour (I know it happens in Data Entry not so much programming) they just run off to sites like guru.com or elance where if you aren't willing to work for .50 good luck finding work to begin with.

Closing down one job without a hire - no big deal - but I am sure there are a multitude of registered buyers on here who will close out 75% of their jobs without interviewing one person. That should be deemed an abuse of the system and buyers should be first warned to stop and then removed.

I understand why oDesk doesn't want to institue a so called minimum wage, but I believe that if there is a proccess to weed out buyers that are not serious in their job postings; you are weeding out buyers that probably weren't as serious in paying a fair rate to begin with.

Also, I think the message board mechanism in each job posting needs to be brought under control. Nine times out of ten all I see is a cover letter posted there or simply email addresses with "Hire me! Hire me!" I think the message board should only be opened on a per provider basis when you are invited to be interviewed. I think oDesk needs to realize that they are potentially losing revenue from providers contacted outside of the system with contact info left in the message boards.

Let me be honest in saying I think oDesk blows your competitors out of the water. On Guru.com, from personal experience as a provider, you are completely flying blind when it comes to seeing your competition in the bidding process. Not only that, but their rates to even become a provider are sickening. I have had only one working experience here so far, but I hope to have many more because I love the functionality provided here. (plus the enormous cost benefit)