April 06, 2004

Curious, George: Any fellow primates freelancing in the design/programming industry? If so, does anyone have any experience with the site Elance? Are there any other similar bid-for-work sites that you prefer/have had good experiences with?
posted by planetfour 20 years ago
  • Corrected link (you need to add the http:// to the address, otherwise it shoves monkeyfilters address on to the front of it).
  • D'oh! Thanks dng.
  • Damn, I came across a very good site about a year back. I'll try to find out again.
  • I have a few comments on this. 1. Those sites are only good if you're ok with being a commodity, and traded as such. I'm not making a judgment on whether or not you should be ok with it--but that's what it is. 2. Freelancing sucks, especially if you have another full time job. I don't know why I started, but I dread having to come home from work just to work some more. 3. Depending on your qualifications/experience, headhunters are another option. I have a friend who despises them entirely, and I would only place them slightly above commodity sites like elance. Slippery bastards. 4. All my freelance work has been through networking. Forget craigslist, forget monster etc. That's how it works, that's where the good jobs are at. Meet people.
  • Try this directory
  • Well I'd love to join, if it works. I still haven't found that these things pay off yet. I post resumes, join networking groups, etc. It only seems to pay off if you have a personal relationship with folks. As my daddy said, it's who you know, not what you know. WARNING: shameless self promotion below. BTW, if any monkeys out there need video production/post production services, I am available. I produce/direct/edit industrials, promotional films, commercials and documentaries. I also edit everything from narratives to actor's reels. Write me at squidranch@comcast.net with your needs and I will provide you with a bid, resume and reel. I am also a creative director, writer and project manager in interactive products and themed entertainment and have done everything from theme parks, to zoos, to restaurants, to museums.
  • Thanks for the words so far, all others are welcome. I had been thinking about joining and trying to just pay off the actual member fee, seeing how much effort that entailed before even attempting to dive in any further. But apparently there are no success stories, or even positive experiences out there, eh?
  • I would even go so far as to say bid-for-hire, like specwork, is damaging and harmful to the industry as a whole. No one wins when the lowest bidder gets the project--not the contractor, and not the client.
  • I heartily second what Daniel says (I would expect no less from a fellow Stuyvesant graduate!) except for the "freelancing sucks" part. I agree that your time would be better spent trying to build personal relationships within your industry. Freelancing is an excellent way to do this. In my experience, if you do quality work and people enjoy working with you, they are going to think of you when that next big project rolls around. And it snowballs from there...the only hard part is getting in the door! I just don't see how the elance jobs, while they may make you some cash, do much for your career in the longer term.
  • A long time ago I signed up with this site, back when it used to be creativemoonlighter.com. I never used it get jobs though, so I don't know how go it is/was.
  • lovejones: ! Woo. How stalkerly of you. What year were you? Did you find that from the obscure link in very small text at the bottom of my website? Or should I be more afraid...? So are you on the design or programming side of this?
  • Ewww, Stuy people... Science all the way... Now on the topic at hand, I agree with Daniel, freelancing sucks, but with qualifications. I've been consulting for five years now, when you've got on solid client, you're golden and then it's like a regular job. I did that for my first three years through a group like Elance called CSI. (And yeah, the Crime Scene Investigation jokes got old really fast). I worked for one client and managed to turn a six month stint into a 42 month one. It was good, solid work and I was still ultimately my own boss. In the year and a half since then though, it's sucked as contracts dried up left and right due to cutbacks in the tech sector. So, to sum up, flush times it's great. Being treated like a commodity isn't all that bad as long as you've got the presence of mind to prepare for the vagueries of the industry.
  • See folks? Networking in action!