Archive for the "Your profile" category

When I go on oDesk I often look at other providers’ profiles. It not only helps me get a better picture of the competition, but also lets me see where my profile can be improved. One thing I can’t help but notice is that almost every provider rates their English skills at 5/5; I don’t [...]

I was reading the oDesk community forum when I came across post I didn’t agree with. According the post author, the biggest problem on oDesk is that there are too many providers. You can read his argument here, where he explains there are “too many fish in the pond.” I disagree. It doesn’t matter how [...]

I’ve heard it a thousand times, “The way to health, wealth, and happiness as a freelance writer is by finding a niche and exploiting it.” Great. Wonderful. But what it fails to mention is that some niches are worth more than others, much more. Like the difference between big dollars and nada. Here’s the no-brainer [...]

Unless you’re crazy-happy to have any sort of work at all, you’ve probably done a job that you absolutely hate. I’ve had a couple here and there. The work goes slow, and it makes it very hard to get motivated. Once you’re finally done with said project, you don’t really feel a sense of accomplishment–you [...]

So, you signed up for oDesk, got yourself a profile and now all you need is that first job. But how do you get it? What can you use to convince a buyer that you are the one best fitted for their project? Sure a good profile helps, and feedback does too– but you don’t [...]

There are many times I’ve been looking for a provider to do a specific task, but because there is special software or techniques needed, I’ll go through a hundred profiles and never find one where I’m convinced that the person knows exactly what I need. In the interest of illustrating what I’ve previously mentioned about [...]

Fernando is our first contestant on the game we call “oDesk Profile Reviews.” Take a moment to glance over his oDesk profile to get the context for the rest of this review. At the time of this writing, Fernando’s profile headline reads “Linux Administrator, PHP/Java Developer, MySQL/Networking Servers”. While it clearly sums up his many [...]

The answer is usually “no. ” You probably saw this answer coming (because what a short and depressing post this would be otherwise!), but let me tell you the two top reasons why I believe that cost is not the primary issue. From a buyer’s perspective, the ideal outcome is to get their job done [...]

Profiles are one of the two areas where new providers seem to have the most trouble (the other area is cover letters). As a buyer on oDesk, I’ve seen a huge range of profile quality, and know that while a profile doesn’t always reflect the quality of the provider, a mediocre one can seriously hurt [...]

oDesk announced a new feature called “oConomy” today, and I’ve had some fun checking it out. What’s the oConomy? It’s a collection of statistics (nicely presented in graphs and maps) that give details on how people are doing business on oDesk. Many of the graphs are fun to look at, but I encourage you to [...]