Since I’ve been using elance.com for the past few months, I’ve noticed a pattern in the descriptions of jobs posted. Since there are clients and providers on elance, I’ll break this down into two major categories.
Clients
- The job description generally reads something like “I want an exact functioning equivalent of the entire eBay website built within 24 hours. My budget is $50. There will be absolutely no errors in coding if the provider expects to be paid.” Yeeeaaaahhhh, good luck on getting that work done.
- The job description generally reads something like “I need a website put together for <insert company here>. It will consist of several pages and some technical interactivity.” The budget is always less than $500 and there is no clue to what is actually required. Good luck on getting a response if you send a pre-bid message and use a bid credit.
- The job description generally reads something like “I need technical assistance tomorrow from the hours of 8am Eastern time to 9pm Pacific time and you must use <insert obscure communication and/or project management tool> to communicate project progress as well as be available 24/7 for me to call you. Additionally you will be expected to be an expert in <insert obscure technology> and able to produce solutions to our mega-corporation technology problems immediately. The pay rate is $10 per hour.” Ha! This fool has written a check his ass can’t cash and this is his last ditch effort to save his job.
- The job description generally reads something like “I need a website built using SQL server, .net, javascript, AJAX, XHTML, CSS, MySQL, C-Span, Terminator, Foxy and WordPress. This should only take an expert about 2 hours to do.” Read: I’ve heard a bunch of technical terms but have no clue what they do or how long it will take — I just want service providers to think I know what is going on so they don’t rip me off.
- The job description generally reads something like “I need a website, a logo and a brochure for my new company. I will need e-commerce capability since I will be selling <insert cheap chinese plastic crap> and you should be an SEO expert since I want to be very highly ranked on Google. The website should be completely editable in Dreamweaver. I don’t have much money so keep your bids low in order to get the work.” Read: Client wants to get rich quick selling cheap chinese electronics (as seen on TV and other crap) purchased from an importer who will drop ship in a plain box. The client has no clue about real e-commerce and doesn’t really want to get their hands dirty in business or spend any money on advertising. They also have no clue what keywords they want to target on Google, except for the obvious words that big-budget businesses pay for. They just want the easy money to flow in with no real cash outlay or work.
Service Providers
- Indians (in India), Pakistanis, Egyptians, Russians, et al. Basically, these 3rd-worlders spam-bid every possible job they can that says “website”, “logo” or “graphic design”. They have a pre-written script they post into the bid along with some low-ball dollar amount hoping to snag some fool into accepting their cruddy work. They don’t speak, or write, English well (if at all) and produce websites that are basically unmaintainable. When the client asks for a logo, buttons or any other graphic design element, they just send stock stuff they stole off the internet.
- Types 2, 3, 4 and 5 in this category are roughly 10 Americans trying to make themselves seen through the trash-spam from Indians so they can hope to get some work.