Guess I'm lucky. Not one bad experience. I *ALWAYS* pick the middle-of-the-road price, I *ALWAYS* pick those with a massive work history and high reviews, and I *NEVER* give newbies a shot. It's not my business to worry about someone's portfolio.
Horrible oDesk Contractors
- Thread starter vinnythejinny
- Start date
SO Fuckin this^.
Never had a dud myself when using these golden rules, in both my On AND Offline biz.
Week# 2 this guy was hospitalized with a fever-
Week# 3
Hello Sir,
It's been a long time i haven't show up. I have gone through an road accident while driving. My left hand was wounded so badly, and i was in the hospital for some days. That's why i could not show up.
I am really amazed you still didn't fired me. If you allow me i am ready to dedicate myself to your work. For the working help, can you provide me a webmail. Forum moderators appreciates it easily.
Best Regards,
Week# 3
Hello Sir,
It's been a long time i haven't show up. I have gone through an road accident while driving. My left hand was wounded so badly, and i was in the hospital for some days. That's why i could not show up.
I am really amazed you still didn't fired me. If you allow me i am ready to dedicate myself to your work. For the working help, can you provide me a webmail. Forum moderators appreciates it easily.
Best Regards,
I have hired both gems and duds on oDesk. I might try another service like Guru next time. One guy took complete advantage of the hourly model and decided to add 'manual' hours. Like finding gold, you gotta dig through a lot of crap first...
That's great if you want to sit and review hours of screenshots. I'd much rather say I will pay you $X for this job, and you can jerk off 20 times and day as long as the job is done on time to my specifications.
Another simple trick is to chat with contractor in skype for coding/development type contract. Make sure his English is above average apart from technical soundness.This trick does not work for Russian/european coders though.
^yeah well English score doesn't mean shit. I hired so many of them who were Level 5 and couldn't put 2 words together that made sense. Odesk really has to do something about these English tests because it's getting ridiculous...
I had mixed experiences with oDesk. There is shit load of crap there and some gems. I hired an Indian guy to develop a system for $400 and he did it successfully but the 2nd round I wanted to make some updates to the already built system and he quoted me $600 lol.. My rules for oDesk;
1. Never pay upfront ever.
2. Don't fall for a nice portfolio. I hired a team in India which had the most beautiful design portfolio once which took me on a ride and left me with -$600 and a pretty awful output.
3. Get them to do mocks and samples upfront for free. Have several people do this and pick the right one. Tell them you have a MD/BOSS to report to and he makes the final calls. So they can't bargain or beg you to hire them.
4. Don't be too cheap.
5. Creative people doesn't exist in oDesk. Go to activeden and contact the guys directly. I got few Eastern European designers whom I hire all the time who are brilliant and amazingly creative. Also coders = Mother Russia.
6. Do not hesitate to FIRE people and give them terrible reviews ! Teaches them a lesson.
7. Report liers to oDesk get them banned.
1. Never pay upfront ever.
2. Don't fall for a nice portfolio. I hired a team in India which had the most beautiful design portfolio once which took me on a ride and left me with -$600 and a pretty awful output.
3. Get them to do mocks and samples upfront for free. Have several people do this and pick the right one. Tell them you have a MD/BOSS to report to and he makes the final calls. So they can't bargain or beg you to hire them.
4. Don't be too cheap.
5. Creative people doesn't exist in oDesk. Go to activeden and contact the guys directly. I got few Eastern European designers whom I hire all the time who are brilliant and amazingly creative. Also coders = Mother Russia.
6. Do not hesitate to FIRE people and give them terrible reviews ! Teaches them a lesson.
7. Report liers to oDesk get them banned.
The guys on here who are saying that you should treat your worker like shit and pay next to nothing are fucking idiots. I hire a lot of contractors and I always treat everyone with respect and don't hire the cheapest guy.
Most of the contract work I need done is software development.
Probably the coolest contractor I hired was a North Korean who lived illegally in China. He actually built my entire CRM that I use on my offers. It's fully featured and works with all types of websites (membership, rebill, straight sale, etc). It also has some very special features that I personally need.
The kicker is it cost me less than buying a Limelight CRM license and I own the source code and full rights to the CRM. I personally do not feel comfortable using something like Limelight.
Unfortunately the North Korean had slipped back to North Korea to help someone out (he gave me a one month notice) and we lost contact. His successor is an excellent Romanian developer I hired who's also an electrical engineer.
Most of the contract work I need done is software development.
Probably the coolest contractor I hired was a North Korean who lived illegally in China. He actually built my entire CRM that I use on my offers. It's fully featured and works with all types of websites (membership, rebill, straight sale, etc). It also has some very special features that I personally need.
The kicker is it cost me less than buying a Limelight CRM license and I own the source code and full rights to the CRM. I personally do not feel comfortable using something like Limelight.
Unfortunately the North Korean had slipped back to North Korea to help someone out (he gave me a one month notice) and we lost contact. His successor is an excellent Romanian developer I hired who's also an electrical engineer.
You get what you pay for. Especially on odesk / microworkers.
Weed out the crappy workers that are offering an hour of their time for $1.50 per hour. If they were that great they would not offer their services for that price.
Finding the right VA on sites likes odesk or microworkers is a pain in the ass, but it can be well worth. After sorting out the low-quality workers, you should be left with a handful of reasonably skilled workers. If you pay them above average and pay on time, they will be happy to work with you and worry about the quality of their work.
After finding a good worker, try to hire him fulltime. Be very specific about what you expect and about working hours - for example require him to be available Mo-Fr from 9 to 5 your time.It's all about finding the sweetspot for paying a reasonable salary / hourly rate while still keeping it affordable for you.
Weed out the crappy workers that are offering an hour of their time for $1.50 per hour. If they were that great they would not offer their services for that price.
Finding the right VA on sites likes odesk or microworkers is a pain in the ass, but it can be well worth. After sorting out the low-quality workers, you should be left with a handful of reasonably skilled workers. If you pay them above average and pay on time, they will be happy to work with you and worry about the quality of their work.
After finding a good worker, try to hire him fulltime. Be very specific about what you expect and about working hours - for example require him to be available Mo-Fr from 9 to 5 your time.It's all about finding the sweetspot for paying a reasonable salary / hourly rate while still keeping it affordable for you.
You pay for what you get for.
So true.
When you only try to get the cheapest worker, to give him / her the heaviest work charge, well, you are not that far from slavery.
Some of you tend to abuse from the system, so you get cheated, and who could blame a third world country worker, to cheat you to survive in his / her home country??
A. Don't abuse of a good system.
B. Be specific.
C. Have a proper interview.
D. Test during the 1st week.
E. Be successful.
P.S => I believed slavery was illegal in the USA... why do you try to practice it online with Third World workers? Nostalgia of the good old days...dixieland.
So true.
When you only try to get the cheapest worker, to give him / her the heaviest work charge, well, you are not that far from slavery.
Some of you tend to abuse from the system, so you get cheated, and who could blame a third world country worker, to cheat you to survive in his / her home country??
A. Don't abuse of a good system.
B. Be specific.
C. Have a proper interview.
D. Test during the 1st week.
E. Be successful.
P.S => I believed slavery was illegal in the USA... why do you try to practice it online with Third World workers? Nostalgia of the good old days...dixieland.
So true.
When you only try to get the cheapest worker, to give him / her the heaviest work charge, well, you are not that far from slavery.
Some of you tend to abuse from the system, so you get cheated, and who could blame a third world country worker, to cheat you to survive in his / her home country??
A. Don't abuse of a good system.
B. Be specific.
C. Have a proper interview.
D. Test during the 1st week.
E. Be successful.
P.S => I believed slavery was illegal in the USA... why do you try to practice it online with Third World workers? Nostalgia of the good old days...dixieland.
Yeah except it's nothing like slavery.
I have never used odesk but have been using elance since 2001 without much problems, if you get one provider that does not do the job correctly you just fire them and get another. After a while you get a list of favorites for use on future projects.
That is just stupid, the cost of living is much lower and the workers are more eager and appreciate the opportunity to earn a buck. $200 does not buy you squat here, but in some overseas countries that is good money for a day or 2's work. They are happy... I am happy... win, win.
The amount of times people say "My internet is down" or some variation of that is incredible. Thats usually the local (non offshore) remote hires that I make though, I find the pool of people offshore is too large and hungry for work to use lame excuses like that.
It seems to be the lie/excuse of choice for domestic workers, Id much rather they just say they are busy or would rather watch TV.
It seems to be the lie/excuse of choice for domestic workers, Id much rather they just say they are busy or would rather watch TV.
This reminds me of something. There were some problems with the phone company I use for my Internet connection a few months ago, and my part of the county didn't have DSL service for almost a week. I felt like a total dick bringing it up when it was going to cause me to be like 12 hours late on something because I know that's like the standard bullshit line of choice.