Experience finding a job on the stock exchange Elance
Good day! I will share with you the experience of finding a job on the international exchange Elance. I will say right away that this is not a success story and in this post you will not find the secrets of being and recommendations on how to become a successful freelancer. This is my experience, observation and thought.
For those who do not know or who need clear instructions on what to do - “How to start working on Elance.com” , plus one text for studios and teams “The Way of the Freelancer” .
I learned about international exchanges in the fall of 2014, when suddenly the ruble was twice as cheap as the dollar. The idea suggested itself: to earn in dollars. A plus to this was the sharp withdrawal of current and potential customers from Russia in anabiosis.
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In this experiment, I acted as a manager for a mobile application development studio. A couple of programmers, a couple of designers, experience and portfolio available.
I registered at the stock exchange and was surprised at the abundance of potential work. I studied articles with recommendations of "experienced". Pumped profile: added contacts, pictures. Translated portfolio into English and posted in profile. Created the original description of our "company". It turned out fine. 4-5 projects of varying complexity: from games on Android to the “analog of the Dilevery Club”. Everything is fine, except for the rating. Rating itself can not be drawn - you need to earn.
It was curious to see who took orders, where I was not lucky. It was also interesting to see the level of performance or some assessment.
Surprisingly, 20% of all applications ended in nothing. Those. orders were chosen normal, sane and real. However, customers with little experience may well create orders and “rethink”. Beginners do so much more often.
Almost all the simple work was taken by the Indians with a huge portfolio and rating.
Still, over time, I noticed that in fact there are not so many orders. When you monitor every day, you start to notice: something repeats, something obviously dead, but something is simply unreal. Those. the strategy of sending out requests indiscriminately to everyone “at random” is doubtful. And theses about “work by the shaft” are not informative and relative. Thus, the competition for really good work is extremely high and in 2015 it is not easy for a newcomer to get through.
My experience is unfortunate, but it is not indicative. International freelancing is a great place to look for remote work. Open market Huge and ruthless. To build a career or business in this market, you need to invest time, effort. It may take months to earn a rait and search for the optimal model. You will have to communicate a lot and be able to sell yourself. Without this in any way. It should also be said that on average, freelancers do not get a huge income. 1-2 thousand dollars is rather good. Work is made up of finding a customer, communicating with him, coordinating, and the work itself.
Yes, for sweetness : sometimes there were very interesting offers with hourly pay from Europe for middle programmers. At that time it turned out like this: work is given for 3-6 months, 6-8 hours a day. In rubles, the monthly salary is 100-150 thousand per month. It seemed to me a good suggestion for those who like to work from home, prefer a fixed payment and a measured schedule. No cost to you: sit down and drink yourself little by little.
Definitely, I can only say that without excellent English it will be difficult.
I wish you all good luck on this difficult path!
For those who do not know or who need clear instructions on what to do - “How to start working on Elance.com” , plus one text for studios and teams “The Way of the Freelancer” .
My way. Start
I learned about international exchanges in the fall of 2014, when suddenly the ruble was twice as cheap as the dollar. The idea suggested itself: to earn in dollars. A plus to this was the sharp withdrawal of current and potential customers from Russia in anabiosis.
')
In this experiment, I acted as a manager for a mobile application development studio. A couple of programmers, a couple of designers, experience and portfolio available.
I registered at the stock exchange and was surprised at the abundance of potential work. I studied articles with recommendations of "experienced". Pumped profile: added contacts, pictures. Translated portfolio into English and posted in profile. Created the original description of our "company". It turned out fine. 4-5 projects of varying complexity: from games on Android to the “analog of the Dilevery Club”. Everything is fine, except for the rating. Rating itself can not be drawn - you need to earn.
Observations in the first stage
- When registering a free account, you have the opportunity to choose a specialization and 20 points that I spend on submitting "job applications". 20 points were over in a week, and the chosen specialization “mobile development” did not allow us to take orders for designers. The solution is a paid account, or submitting a request to change specialization, which is possible once or twice a month. In my case, it was necessary to wait 16 days.
- Having a little penetrated into the system, I noticed that “many orders” are an illusion. Many fantastic dreamers who place an order and disappear. Or they want some miracles. In general, this is normal among customers: want something, I do not know what. It is important that the proportion of such fiction great.
- Orders are placed by people from different countries. Often the description is free and it’s not possible to get to the point right away. You read the whole sheet, and at the end of the line - only for the Italians, because we both want and we have everything in Italian.
- Any more or less decent order in a matter of minutes collects dozens of offers from freelancers from around the world. Without a rating and a new user, the chances are almost nil.
Having placed a couple of dozens of applications for carefully selected offers during the first week, I made sure: I need a rating.
To recruit, I decided to take a simple (fast, not expensive) job at any price. He wrote to Russians in the hope of mutual understanding, but alas.
Errors
- It was a mistake to hope to quickly find a job, and even more so for the whole team.
- I am very optimistic about the estimated amount of communication with foreigners in their language. For good work, communication is simply necessary and the better the mutual understanding and the opportunity to discuss, the greater the chance of success. I admit that there are a lot of freelance programmers with a narrow specialization, who do not need much language and they do it with basic technical ... In my case, there is little basic language for discussing a mobile application project.
- An attempt to apply a search strategy for newbies who, due to inexperience, can choose me, also turned out to be a failure. Some new customers reached the project discussion stage and disappeared. One customer with an extremely strange task (to fasten one paid module to the CMS) I did the work, but he disappeared and abandoned his project.
- One day, I very quickly responded to a new job from an experienced customer in Australia. I clearly defined his needs and immediately described what, how, when and for how much I am ready to do. The answer was quick, and immediately invited to Skype. In Skype, I was waiting for a failure - the level of my language instantly cut off the continuation of cooperation. The error personally in my assessment of my abilities, the dialogue suggested a lively discussion of the project right here and now. An attempt to unsubscribe a little later, led to failure.
Observations after a couple of months
It was curious to see who took orders, where I was not lucky. It was also interesting to see the level of performance or some assessment.
Surprisingly, 20% of all applications ended in nothing. Those. orders were chosen normal, sane and real. However, customers with little experience may well create orders and “rethink”. Beginners do so much more often.
Almost all the simple work was taken by the Indians with a huge portfolio and rating.
Still, over time, I noticed that in fact there are not so many orders. When you monitor every day, you start to notice: something repeats, something obviously dead, but something is simply unreal. Those. the strategy of sending out requests indiscriminately to everyone “at random” is doubtful. And theses about “work by the shaft” are not informative and relative. Thus, the competition for really good work is extremely high and in 2015 it is not easy for a newcomer to get through.
findings
My experience is unfortunate, but it is not indicative. International freelancing is a great place to look for remote work. Open market Huge and ruthless. To build a career or business in this market, you need to invest time, effort. It may take months to earn a rait and search for the optimal model. You will have to communicate a lot and be able to sell yourself. Without this in any way. It should also be said that on average, freelancers do not get a huge income. 1-2 thousand dollars is rather good. Work is made up of finding a customer, communicating with him, coordinating, and the work itself.
Yes, for sweetness : sometimes there were very interesting offers with hourly pay from Europe for middle programmers. At that time it turned out like this: work is given for 3-6 months, 6-8 hours a day. In rubles, the monthly salary is 100-150 thousand per month. It seemed to me a good suggestion for those who like to work from home, prefer a fixed payment and a measured schedule. No cost to you: sit down and drink yourself little by little.
Definitely, I can only say that without excellent English it will be difficult.
I wish you all good luck on this difficult path!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/286858/
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