www.odesk.com

So what it?

Well its a website that basically allows freelancers to find jobs and businesses to find freelancers, but its a lot more than just a job site or a matching service.

My review will be centred on the part of the providers i.e. the freelancers offering their services as that is my experience of the site.

The first thing you must do when starting with odesk is to build your profile and resume, this is easy to do as you simply fill it in on screen with the usual stuff you have in your cv, employment history, education, personal profile etc.

Once you have done this you need to download the smart bit of the wesite which will actaully be used to track your work. This piece of software will automatically track the work you do and generates invoices for you, its all automated so no time cards to submit. Odesk actually guarantees that you will be paid for all hourly rate jobs you do.

In order to be ready to apply for jobs you need to take an online test to ensure you are full able to use the software. There are alos many other free tests availabe to providers covering all kind of kings such as English language tests, email etiquite tests, Windows skills, some jobs will specify you need to pass these tests to apply.

So what about the jobs? Ok the bulk of the jobs do tend to be programming or web design related but there are also quite a lot of administrative roles such as email handling, data entry,and content writing.

To apply for a position you just click and send off your resume with your hourly bid for the work, odesk takes a commission on all the money you earn for example if you bid $6 per hour you will actually receive $5.40 per hour, 60c going to odesk. Job vacancies appear from all over the world.

I am still newish at this but I have found so far that unfortunatly most jobs seems to be won from providers in India with very low bids, I have seen some vacancies saying no more than $1 per hour. I am still persisting with it because I think in theory this is a great system, but the better paying jobs tend only to be within programming which is not a skill I have.

If you want guaranteed payment for freelance work this is worth checking out, it is free to join so its worth a try.

##STOP PRESS##

Straight after writing this I logged into odesk to check the jobs today and I found a perfect example of what I am talking about...shamefully this is a UK job offering 50 c per hour... I have copied and pasted it below.

This is simplest Data Entry Job, no brain required.

Hourly rate offered is $0.50 (FIFTY CENTS per Hour) . Don't apply or pull out if you dream more in such time of recession.

Following are requirements

1) This is full time job, part timers are not welcome. You must be available for at least 8 hours per day.

2) You must be online all the time on YM.

3) You must know how to create accounts on any website amd should be able to do it by reading the instructions provided to you.

4) Time is flexible, you can work anytime.

5) The job is a combination of various small tasks for which full instructions will be provided.

6) Once you get used to it it would become much easier.

This is ongoing and never ending job.