Now, while you’re most definitely the greatest thing since sliced bread–heck, sliced bread ain’t got jack on you–there are some things you don’t know how to do. One of the worst things you can do in that condition is to promise more than you can deliver in time, skills, or what have you.
Do you want to kill your reputation on oDesk and with buyers everywhere? Then go ahead and try to “figure out” that project as you go along. As soon as they figure out they’re paying to train you to do the job you said you could do, it’s a 0 rating and the gutter for your behind.
What’s your other option? Try applying for positions that you know you can do. There will always be entry-level jobs for you to take on, and some of them pay quite well. If you try to bite off more than you can chew, you’re probably going to fail to meet the requirements of the assignment. That can translate into a bad rating for you as a provider. But who can blame the buyer for giving you a bad rating? They paid you to do something, but you didn’t do it or did it incorrectly!
Now, on almost every job, there’s going to be a bit of learning involved, and the buyer knows that. You have to figure out what the buyer needs and adapt your usual working methods for that. But if someone is asking you to develop a website in PHP, you can’t learn PHP by doing the site on their dime. That’s something you need to do with your free time.
Always work to expand your skills. You do smaller, easier projects while you work on learning new skills which are more profitable. If you can work in the same field as what you’re trying to learn, so much the better! You’re hammering in those basics while you learn the more advanced parts of the skill. Go ahead and branch out to some other areas that apply to your work-theme. If you program websites, then branch out into copy-writing and graphic design. Try to be versitile, but keep your skills focused towards a common goal like: I can make you an awesome webpage–start to finish–that will get you a billion customers. You don’t want to have all of your experience in programming to be in 3d game design and then your art skills all geared for a webpage.
But I can not stress enough how much of a waste of time it is for you to apply to a job that you are not confident that you can do. You’re wasting your weekly applications, the time it takes to fill them out, and any time you spend attempting to do the project before you fall flat on your face. You may not even get paid for all of the time you flushed down the drain.
That all applies to your profile as well. You need to be as accurate as possible when displaying your abilities. If you don’t speak English very well, then don’t give yourself a five-star rating. Most employers won’t care if you speak English superbly unless it’s a writing job, and they will definitely respect that you’re honest about your abilities. There’s a million jerks with a five star rating on everything. I speak a little Spanish. A little. Mi gato es blanco. I’d give myself a 1, maybe 1.5 star rating on my butchered Spanish. If you honestly rate your abilities (and most of you native English speakers shouldn’t have a 5), then a buyer will look at you more closely. Honesty makes you rise above the slush pile of applications.
Very good point.
I’d also like to say that being honest applies not only to what you commit to but also how much. Don’t commit to so many things you can’t finish them all. You never know which one might be the one that will lead to real money.
Finally, if you do find yourself over your head– tell the buyer. Communication helps.
The part where you said: “Then go ahead and try to “figure out†that project as you go along.”
See, this is ambiguous because software developers much be able to “figure out” things as they go along, every day. Not a day goes by where I don’t practice my Google Fu to get the job done.
Later you had said: “Now, on almost every job, there’s going to be a bit of learning involved, and the buyer knows that.”
I wish this was true, but unfortunately it’s not. I’ve had clients who wanted to know the *exact amount of hours* a task is going to take.. Well, that’s nearly impossible.. If I knew that, then I’d have a way to automate it and therefore take almost no time.
I’ll clear that up real quick. I mean to say don’t go into a project without knowing the language. A lot of software dev is hacking, but there’s two types of hacking: hacking to learn and hacking to make it function (and yeah, you can learn some new things while hacking to function).
What I’m saying is–don’t take a spiked fist to a hell-demon fight and expect someone to loan you a chainsaw. Some people really do that.
For the buyer not knowing that some learning will be involved, either they do know and they’re trying to squeeze you into a corner (they want to save as much money as possible) or they have no clue what you’re going to be doing. Some buyers are just outsourcing their jobs to you for cheaper.
But you want to try to find buyers who have some clue regarding what is necessary in the job. Someone should really write an article about good buyers and bad buyers…
Thanks for the awesome comment and the article idea.