Anyone used odesk before?

Iuse it to get graphic images, banners and article wrting. But like Alan said, you'd be easily get conned. Especially in SEO area.

Try doing a search on internet - 'website optimization'. And try promoting your site by yourself.

.

I'm both a client, the one who hires, and a contractor, the one who works, in oDesk for 3 years now.

Indeed there are good "contractors" and bad contractors. That's how they call workers in oDesk. Looking at the brighter side of life, there are thousands upon thousands of contractors who are doing this fulltime, for a living, so you'll find professionals among them.

Here are my tips to help you weed out the applicants and get the best ones:

1. When you post a job ask the applicants to add a keyword in their response. "When you apply put the word 'apple' in your application". Put this somewhere in the middle or the last part of your job post. Majority of the applicants don't read the job post. Others are automated applications. So this will tell you who is actually reading your post.

2. Verify their skills. If you're looking for experienced contractors, you have several ways to verify their experience:
a. Have a look at their oDesk profile. Experienced contractors will show a lot of login hours and a good feedback to go along with it. You can't fake experience in oDesk.
b. You can interview them. Be considerate. Some clients use the interview process to get free consultation. That's not good. Value other people's time and they will value yours. Use the interview to gauge if you like to hire this person, not to get free advice.
c. If you have funds to spend, hire a few at the start. Create a test contract, you need to pay them of course. The one you think you can work with at the end gets the job.

3. Experience means more pay. Negotiate on a price that you and the contractor can work with. If you pay them very low, you won't keep them for long.

4. Take risks. Look at it this way, to find the best contractors you as a client, also have to take risks. You can't put all the risks in the contractor's side and expect to attract the good ones. Always try to create a WIN-WIN environment and you'll find the best ones.


Last but definitely the most important, once you have hired contractors, treat them like people. Some clients think their contractors are just work machines and that's fine. But perhaps this is the best advice you can get if you'd like to do outsourcing for your business for a long time. These contractors will gain experience as they work for you, if you haven't treated them well, at the first sight of opportunity they will transfer to another client bringing all their upgraded skills with them. Thus making you go through the hiring process all over again.

Simplified you want to:
1. Hire the best ones that you like to work with and your budget can afford.
2. For retention, manage them well. Or better yet, train someone to do this for you.

I hope these tips can help you. Good luck.

It doesn't matter if it has been asked a hundred times before. You're assuming he hasn't used the search function already. Maybe he has and not found the answer in those threads.

Maybe someone who would answer today and who does not know about those other threads would have advice that is different and better than answered previously.

I don't see the point in opening a thread and answering "it's been asked before." If you have nothing to contribute, such as a helpful link to one of those threads, why write anything?