Start comparison on GetAFreelancer and oDesk
It is known from the high school physics course that the friction force is the greatest. A similar situation with freelancing: to start the movement and get the first order and the first project is the most difficult. After completing the first project, you can use its results as a point in the portfolio and customer feedback as additional evidence of its viability. In this article, I'm going to compare two freelance exchanges: GetAFreelancer (gaf) and oDesk (od). The convenience of starting work on exchanges will be compared.
In order for a potential customer to evaluate a freelancer, he needs information about this person. On how complete and beautiful this information will be will largely depend on the fate of the freelancer on the project. Therefore, below I will compare what opportunities when filling in personal information each exchange provides.
To start in the new workspace, the support service and documentation available to the newcomer are important.
It is also worth considering the comfort of working on both exchanges in terms of installing and configuring additional software. The convenience of negotiating before the assignment of a freelancer as a project performer also matters. From this convenience may depend on the result of these negotiations.
I will evaluate all these parameters on a five-point scale. Estimates are subjective, but will allow to draw a conclusion at least for himself.
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Total: gaf / od = 28.9 / 47.8
As a result, I value for myself oDesk as a more convenient service for work than GetAFreelancer. Spyware does not bother me. You can draw your own conclusions from this information.
If you think that I missed the comparison of the details important to get started on these services, please write about it in the comments.
UPD : This article was designed as an overview of specific tools that a freelancer can use on exchanges. At the request of habrachitatele I cite a small statistic on both services.
For November 23, 2008, 289 projects were created at gaf. On the same day, 142 projects / vacancies were created on od.
Currently, 86,058 users are registered for gaf (freelancers and customers together), and 108948 freelancers for od. How many od customers could not be found out.
The time taken to receive the first order on both exchanges in my case was about one month.
In order for a potential customer to evaluate a freelancer, he needs information about this person. On how complete and beautiful this information will be will largely depend on the fate of the freelancer on the project. Therefore, below I will compare what opportunities when filling in personal information each exchange provides.
To start in the new workspace, the support service and documentation available to the newcomer are important.
It is also worth considering the comfort of working on both exchanges in terms of installing and configuring additional software. The convenience of negotiating before the assignment of a freelancer as a project performer also matters. From this convenience may depend on the result of these negotiations.
I will evaluate all these parameters on a five-point scale. Estimates are subjective, but will allow to draw a conclusion at least for himself.
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- General information about freelancer
Here the exchanges are actually equal. Both gaf and od provide an opportunity to speak out and write a small story about yourself, enter basic data about your place of residence, work experience and professional accents (design, SEO, programming, etc.). The od’s only small advantage is the required field of 'free working hours per week'. I consider the availability of a freelancer to be an important enough parameter to require entering its value.
gaf / od = 4.8 / 5 - List of works performed on the stock exchange.
Both exchanges provide the ability to enter feedback about the customer and the performer after the completion of the project. The rules are about the same: reviews hide before the moment when both sides enter them or until two weeks after the end of the project.
A small advantage of gaf is that the customer is displayed as a link to its profile instead of the unclear ID of this user on od.
On the other hand, a major advantage od I consider entering a review by category. The assessment can be put not just as a single number from 1 to 10, as in gaf, but can be assessed separately by technical training, quality of work, availability in chat rooms / emails / phones, meeting development deadlines, ability to perceive product requirements, ability to interact with employees within project. Each parameter has a different importance and the total score is calculated as the sum of the scores for all parameters.
gaf / od = 4.2 / 5 - Built-in testing.
There is no testing in gaf.
In od, a third-party company engine is used to organize testing for individual areas of knowledge. The test suite is quite wide. The list includes both commonly used php (4 and 5) and mysql, as well as more rare languages like Perl, Python and Ruby (more precisely, RoR).
The test questions were compiled, by and large, correctly, but I got the impression that having once compiled these tests did not return to them despite changes in technology. As an example, I’ll give the Model.find_all answer in a test on Ruby on Rails. This answer option is a deprecated function and, without indicating which version of RoR is in question, it is difficult to evaluate this option. Separately, I want to note that the tests are still quite serious (more complicated than BrainBench) and it’s quite realistic to fail them quickly. The ability to perform the test again is given only one month after the last attempt to pass this test.
Tests are integrated into the project rate system. That is, the customer can add a technology test as a necessary condition for registering a project bid.
gaf / od = 0 / 4.8 - Extreme rates made by freelancer
On both exchanges done almost the same. At od added a field in which the rate initiator is indicated. I suspect that it is considered cool when a freelancer is invited to participate in the project.
gaf / od = 4.9 / 5 - Technical training
At gaf, you are given a textarea in which you write about what you can do. Then this story is shown in the profile.
The od description of the experience is divided according to individual technologies. For each technology, you can give yourself a rating of [0..5], the number of years of experience in this technology, when a brief description was last used.
The od variant looks more readable than the "inflection" on gaf.
gaf / od = 3.5 / 5 - Certification
On od, in difference from gaf, there is an opportunity to add data on successful certifications BrainBench and Zend. You can add certificates of other organizations through a separate form.
gaf / od = 0/5 - Portfolio
On od there is an opportunity to form your portfolio with attachments, descriptions, categorization, etc. There is no such thing on gaf.
gaf / od = 0/5 - Helpdesk and Documentation
On gaf there is a support service but it is very sluggish and inactive. There must be a force majeure so they move. From the documentation on gaf there is only a FAQ.
On od, besides the FAQ, there is full documentation with usage examples and descriptions. The support service responds fairly quickly. Problems in the scale of one user are solved within a few hours. Larger crap when I was not. Well, in general, it is felt that people in the service are trying to support.
gaf / od = 2.5 / 5 - Additional software and its configuration
To work on gaf, you only need to register on the site. Then you can create new projects from your account or make bets on them.
On od everything is more complicated. In order to work successfully, you must pass a separate test of knowledge of the fundamentals of work in the system. Tests are different for freelancers and for customers. If the tests do not pass, then you will not work normally.
In addition to tests, you will need to install spyware on your local oDesk machine. This is a separate program that ensures that you work, and do not climb on porn sites in the time paid by the customer. This control takes place simultaneously by several parameters: screenshots of the desktop, mouse and keyboard activity, etc. This spyware software is installed quite simply. I downloaded the package for my OS (Debian Linux) and connected it through dpkg. It would be optimal to see a line for sources.list there, but I already roll out my lips :) Having established, the program practically does not require any configuration. Enter your username / password. Optionally, turn off pop-up notification of taking a screenshot and you can work. Naturally, we need a constant output to the Internet. Spyware does not create a lot of traffic. As habracommentators suggest, a permanent connection to the server is not necessary. If there is no network connection, the program will collect data locally and send it as soon as possible. Maximum battery life is two hours.
In general, despite the explanability of the requirements and ease of setting od at this point loses. Compared to gaf to od harder.
gaf / od = 5/3 - Pre-project communication tools
At gaf, officially all contacts are allowed only through private messages. In my opinion, even the dog symbol (@) is tracked and filtered out. All this is quite simple, but still such spy games are straining.
On od at the slightest interest in the freelancer from the customer’s side, the customer’s email is sent to this freelancer. You can write your ICQ, Skype, MSN and Yahoo nicknames to this address. Thus given complete freedom of action. Lack of bars on the windows and escorts pleases.
gaf / od = 4/5
Total: gaf / od = 28.9 / 47.8
As a result, I value for myself oDesk as a more convenient service for work than GetAFreelancer. Spyware does not bother me. You can draw your own conclusions from this information.
If you think that I missed the comparison of the details important to get started on these services, please write about it in the comments.
UPD : This article was designed as an overview of specific tools that a freelancer can use on exchanges. At the request of habrachitatele I cite a small statistic on both services.
For November 23, 2008, 289 projects were created at gaf. On the same day, 142 projects / vacancies were created on od.
Currently, 86,058 users are registered for gaf (freelancers and customers together), and 108948 freelancers for od. How many od customers could not be found out.
The time taken to receive the first order on both exchanges in my case was about one month.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/45348/
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