odesk frustrations and my simple solution
I noticed most providers don't bother reading the job descriptions any more, when you post any job, hordes of people apply for completely irrelevant stuff. I posted some keyword research projects (not the actual strategy work but the grunt work of it like sorting data into excel) and I got loads of applicants offering irrelevant backlink/ SEO services. Many of them write very poor English and copy paste cover letters provided by their agency.
Luckily I practice what I preach in my blog and I hid a password in the job description to make sure they actually read it. I got 25 applicants for one project and sadly, only 2 of them bothered to read the job description and answered with the password.
I ended up hiring a guy a warrior friend of mine suggested, invited him to the project and he was the 3rd applicant who actually read the job description and answered with the hidden password.
I am no longer able to find good, reliable providers anywhere, despite my pre-screening measures, so I go by word of mouth and take recommendations from fellow marketers. Word of mouth works much better.
The feedback scores are not too accurate on odesk either, most of the people who didn't even bother to read my job description all had excellent feedback history. It appears that the people who hire them are clueless and give positive feedbacks no matter what. Odesk's pre-screening criteria is an epic fail: I set pretty high standards for test passing scores, feedback, English proficiency (the people who do not match the criteria are prevented from applying to the project) yet the vast majority of the candidates I got were far below the standards. I had 5-7 hour quotes for a project that should barely take an hour. One guy passed all of my screening, yet he delivered completely useless stuff and padded 3 hous for copy-pasting something from Market Samurai which should take 5 seconds tops.
Odesk is a downward spiral, if you are going to hire from there ask around fellow Warriors and get some suggestions rather than posting your stuff for droves of random hour padders to flood.
Luckily I practice what I preach in my blog and I hid a password in the job description to make sure they actually read it. I got 25 applicants for one project and sadly, only 2 of them bothered to read the job description and answered with the password.
I ended up hiring a guy a warrior friend of mine suggested, invited him to the project and he was the 3rd applicant who actually read the job description and answered with the hidden password.
I am no longer able to find good, reliable providers anywhere, despite my pre-screening measures, so I go by word of mouth and take recommendations from fellow marketers. Word of mouth works much better.
The feedback scores are not too accurate on odesk either, most of the people who didn't even bother to read my job description all had excellent feedback history. It appears that the people who hire them are clueless and give positive feedbacks no matter what. Odesk's pre-screening criteria is an epic fail: I set pretty high standards for test passing scores, feedback, English proficiency (the people who do not match the criteria are prevented from applying to the project) yet the vast majority of the candidates I got were far below the standards. I had 5-7 hour quotes for a project that should barely take an hour. One guy passed all of my screening, yet he delivered completely useless stuff and padded 3 hous for copy-pasting something from Market Samurai which should take 5 seconds tops.
Odesk is a downward spiral, if you are going to hire from there ask around fellow Warriors and get some suggestions rather than posting your stuff for droves of random hour padders to flood.
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