Freelancers who are new to Elance may be wondering why they haven’t been awarded a job. They searched the postings and bid on jobs with no luck. Some get discouraged and stop using Elance altogether. New freelancers need to know how to search postings before bidding on jobs.
Knowing that there are people from all around the world bidding is one key to knowing what to look for when searching for jobs. Learning to read more than what is written is key to bidding on the right job.
What to Look for when Searching
The initial search screen has options for refining the job search based on sub-categories, hourly or fixed fee and other basic search options. The center of the screen is where the meat of the material is located.
The postings are set up much like a spreadsheet. Each row is divided into columns and the data is sortable by the columns just like in a spreadsheet. Valuable information is in these columns. This may or may not be evident at first glance.
Name: This is the name of the job, with the subtopic underneath it. It is usually a quick description of the posting. For instance, “Editing an E-Market Book” is name of the job; Editing & Proofreading is the subcategory. There may or may not be a green “E’ in the cell. If there is, the employer is using an escrow account at Elance for payment. Beside it there will either be an open or a closed lock. This signifies sealed or open bidding. Also located in that column is a “Details” button. Clicking this will cause a brief job description to open up.
Budget: This column has three pieces of information, two of which are very important to the provider. The top portion of the cell shows the budget the employer has placed on the project, not a deal breaker or maker. Underneath the budget will be an icon showing their level of payment verification. If there is a checkmark on the square icon that shows you that the provider has a high level of payment verification, they have allowed Elance to verify their credit card or PayPal account.
The third piece of information in the budget cell is the most important piece of the job detail. This is the name of the employer with a link to their profile. If the provider has used Elance before there may be feedback listed from other providers. I
If they have no feedback you can still see listing of previous jobs and what they paid for them. This helps in making a bidding decision; if they are accustomed to paying very low, it might not be worthwhile to bid.
Hovering the mouse over the member name will also yield some information, such as the percentage of jobs they have awarded compared to percentage posted and how much they have spent on Elance. A member who has a very low ratio of jobs posted to jobs awarded may not be serious enough about the job they posted, or they may be fishing for cost estimates.
Posted and Time Left: These two columns are just what their name implies, basically just sortable columns of when the job posted and when it is ending.
Bids: At first glance this may look like it is not much information. In its raw form, it is the number of people who have bid. However, hover the mouse over this number and the high bid, the low bid and the average bid that has been posted is shown, important information to know when placing your bid.
Knowing how to read job postings goes a long way in choosing the right jobs on which to bid. Check the employers profile and stats and their payment options then look at the average bids on the job. Using this information to narrow down the jobs that are good prospects will increase the odds of being awarded the job. New Elancers should read Elance for Beginners to get started.
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