Horrible oDesk Contractors

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vinnythejinny

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Mar 5, 2008
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I have been using oDesk for last 2-3 months and have seen very mixed results. The contractors are now very bitchy about their rates. They purposely bid lower and then after hiring, act like they mistakenly bid a wrong amount and now need higher rate.

Is this just me or everyone else is dealing with these annoying fuckers. I remember a idiot posted how he overpaid a indian girl when she bidded low. I believe employers like you are ruining for everyone.

Only pay what they deserve. A guy I hired for a simple task back in August @ $30 is now asking $110 for the same task. For fuck sake, what skills did he add in 1 month?

I finally hired him at $50 and sent all the documents. He then replied saying, he is busy moving into a new apartment and will take another 4 days to start the project. 4 days long gone, but that asshole still didn't reply.

This guy is from China. I think we can expect a third grade service.

Can you guys recommend a better place than oDesk now?
 


That's what you get when you try to handle foreigners. I don't know why you're bitching here. Take your bitching skills (they're pretty good btw), and bitch your workers into gear.
 
Chief Broham said:
That's what you get when you try to handle foreigners. I don't know why you're bitching here. Take your bitching skills (they're pretty good btw), and bitch your workers into gear.
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This is true but I think the main problem is you're underpaying them.

I hire a few full-timers on oDesk and things have never been better.

Pick the right person, slightly overpay and treat them with respect.

If you can't find good workers on oDesk, I don't think you can find them anywhere else.

Oh, and most importantly, hire them HOURLY! Most paid per deliverable projects fail, for a reason!
 
ODesk is VERY hit and miss, but you can find some absolute gems for miles below market value. The catch is you usually have to go through some duds to get to them. The absolute best employee/contractor I've ever had I found on ODesk, who does truly remarkable work in shockingly quick time for a fraction of what the going rate for similar skillsets go for. That said, that exact role I had to fire the first 3 people I hired for it, for being woefully unqualified, having truly awful communication skills, and one who decided to quit with 15 minutes notice before they were scheduled to be my 'technical contact' on a conference call.

You are right that on those fixed price tasks, you definitely see contractors try to increase their rates, often substantially, over time.

My personal rule on ODesk, evaluate your workers based on the SECOND task they do for you. Tons of contractors will bid peanuts initially, deliver their best work, have amazing turnaround times, not use the Odesk viewer for half the time to make themselves look faster etc. on the first task, as they want to secure you as a client and not get a poor review if you do terminate them. The second task usually shows their true colors however.

For large projects where you need a firm to do a full polished project with a $5k+ budget I like Elance, but for most the stuff people around here need do, ODesk really is as good as anywhere else
 
Do not hire the cheapest guy for each new project. Best way is to find a guy who knows his stuff and work with him on long term basis.Also check elance.com
 
clyde said:
This is true but I think the main problem is you're underpaying them.

I hire a few full-timers on oDesk and things have never been better.

Pick the right person, slightly overpay and treat them with respect.

If you can't find good workers on oDesk, I don't think you can find them anywhere else.

Oh, and most importantly, hire them HOURLY! Most paid per deliverable projects fail, for a reason!
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Agree with this. I've hired people on oDesk and have never run into issues. Post an offer with competitive hourly wage so that you get a ton of applicants, weed them out and require sample work, and you'll find a couple very qualified people who will be thrilled that they are making an extra $1.50/hour and you generally don't have to waste time dealing with shitty contractors.

You get what you pay for no matter where you hire; oDesk is no different.
 
stop paying 3.00 an hour

even at 15 - 20 an hour its a deal... its been said b4 but... you get what you pay for
 
Give them 1 star rating... They will come back begging you to change it... Tell them you will if they finsih the job correctly for free...

Then... do what everyone else is saying

1. Pay more
2. Do due diligence
3. Hire fast
4. Fire faster
5. Build your team
 
I stopped using hourly rate a while ago. It's a lot easier to weed out the crap by setting a fixed price based on a real hourly rate. So instead of paying them $3 an hour, which they will undoubtedly fuck around or work on other projects, work out how long the project should take and pay them a multiple of the $3 at the end.

In my experience they will take their time if you pay hourly, but once a set amount has been agreed they deliver faster, and you end up with better quality workers.
 
King. said:
I stopped using hourly rate a while ago. It's a lot easier to weed out the crap by setting a fixed price based on a real hourly rate. So instead of paying them $3 an hour, which they will undoubtedly fuck around or work on other projects, work out how long the project should take and pay them a multiple of the $3 at the end.

In my experience they will take their time if you pay hourly, but once a set amount has been agreed they deliver faster, and you end up with better quality workers.
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This. Paying hourly is just asking to get taken advantage of. Set the target job price and have them bid based on that price. They're free to bid more or less if they like. Also never pay money up front. Quite a few contractors will ask you for 50% up front and then under perform once they've got their hands on that deposit. There's no recourse through Odesk to seek a refund either. Pay %s on achieved milestones if you must, or total payment on delivery only.
 
I stay away from the dirt cheap people, because I've never had anything but trouble with them. You'll spend more or the same in the long run as hiring a good person with a decent rate up front.

I wanted help working on a project, because I didn't feel like coding the entire thing myself. I ended up hiring a guy for roughly $300 a "project". Where a project was a feature on the piece of software. He was a CompSci PHd student in Russia. I learned a fuck load working with him and personally feel I got off "cheap" for what I got. He helped make my software better and taught me some stuff. I ended up paying him several thousand dollars of the course of a couple months and it was worth every penny.
 
Fatbat said:
This. Paying hourly is just asking to get taken advantage of. Set the target job price and have them bid based on that price. They're free to bid more or less if they like. Also never pay money up front. Quite a few contractors will ask you for 50% up front and then under perform once they've got their hands on that deposit. There's no recourse through Odesk to seek a refund either. Pay %s on achieved milestones if you must, or total payment on delivery only.
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NOT this. Cannot fuck around on oDesk, there is a program that takes screenshots all the time of your deskop and monitors mouse movements etc...
 
I hired 2 people a couple years ago who never did anything. I gave them the login/password for my webserver and it was just 1 excuse over the next why their internet wasn't working, computer wasn't working, just need a little longer to get started. One was for a designer, the other was to integrate some code frameworks I'd purchased into the new design. I'd drawn diagrams and outlined exactly what I wanted, color scheme and all. After 2 weeks of excuses I just cancelled the job and started learning programming myself.
 
Very diverse thoughts here but I think I am going to experiment with a hourly concept. Been only using a fixed priced model which is a hit or miss.

I never pay 50% upfront and I think no one should ever do that, its just makes us weak.
 
EricVonDoobie said:
Treat them like shit and they'll love you and produce better results, not even kidding.
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For low end employees in the $1-8 dollar an hour range, you're sadly right. People in that skill bracket usually don't have much in the way of ambition or pride, so fear and money are their prime motivating factors. You're giving them money already, so now you have to threaten their future money to get your work done.

vinnythejinny said:
Very diverse thoughts here but I think I am going to experiment with a hourly concept. Been only using a fixed priced model which is a hit or miss.

I never pay 50% upfront and I think no one should ever do that, its just makes us weak.
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Paying a substantial down payment on someone you haven't worked with multiple times before is asking to be ripped off. Fixed/Hourly should be chosen based on the task. Ie, if your task is coding a PSD into a Wordpress theme, go with Fixed. For something where there's any sort of uncertainty then go hourly. Hourly is also much better for long term employees, as the whole increasing rates with every project is far more common when they bill hourly
 
The trick is to stick to the right ones. Don't always go back and post all your projects on Odesk. 90% of applicants are a waste of time. Once you find someone that's truly an asset to your business, add them on Skype and fuck ODesk.
 
In my experience geography is the main way to filter on odesk for tasks. For programmers, go eastern europe/russia, I have had mostly positive experiences. You can get good programmers there for $20-25/hour.

For most other menial tasks, call center stuff, collections, data entry, etc. go to the Philippines and over pay by $.50. PM me for a contact over there that will get you 5+ skype interviews within an hour, they are hungry for work, you just need to interview and filter them. It helps to overpay a little bit and also have a manager, as they know if they screw around with you the manager will not give them more jobs, as it makes the manager look bad.

We always pay per hour, if they rip me off a little I dont really care as there is no way you can find a US based worker for what they charge, plus I dont have to deal with employment taxes, etc.

Also anything graphics related that is a bit complex, I just pay a US based person as I have never had a good experience with offshore.
 
EricVonDoobie said:
Treat them like shit and they'll love you and produce better results, not even kidding.
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Are we talking about workers on odesk or girls on match.com?


More serious note: I recommend posting cheap screening jobs that are specifically designed to weed out shit contractors.
 
Posted screening jobs, 90% of them asked for raised rates for future jobs, some for x2 as much. Kept the 1/10 that didn't and just paid them bonuses for good work. It's only normal to try and get more money, I guess more so in the countries the workers are based in.

I've had a couple go above and beyond what was asked of them for the original jobs, those were keepers.
 
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