A few questions about freelance work

Hello all,
I'm new to the forum, and I wanted to ask a few questions about freelance work. I'm a college student for the next year, and am almost done with my degree. Over the next year, I've really got nowhere near the workload I had before and wanted to get into freelance work as a way to make a few extra bucks and have some fun.

I've been programming for the last 10 years, and really enjoy doing the work. But, I have absolutely no idea where to start. So, while I have only a few specific questions, if anyone has any helpful information or links please feel free to post.

My first question is about freelance portals like elance, guru.com, getafreelancer, and etc. Are these the best ways to find clients and if so, how reliable are those sites in terms of payments (and just not getting ripped off in general).

My next question is, what kind of legal precautions should I take? I'm guessing it's best to always do work under some form of contract, where would I go about getting these?

And I'm also curious if there is anything else I should watch out for. The ability to work from home really appeals to me, as I get the most work done here. Basically, I'm just trying to see if there would be a sustainable income coming from freelance work so that I might determine if I could stay in this line of work.

 

First, all of those portals are honest (the listers usually use escrow), but they are populated by cheap laborers from foreign countries, and you won't make minimum wage.

You will honestly have better luck working on PHP scripts and building sites for people in the services section. The itrader system should really help.

Finally, as to sustainability, I don't know if there will always be a demand for coding work. What I would suggest is that you become an experienced web designer through these jobs, and then you should design your own sites in order to actually get a constant income. Just my 2 cents though.

 

Beware of Guru.com. Their "ranking" system is flawed and usually favors those who charge more per hour and who have already completed quite a few jobs. Also, don't plan on getting any jobs that will pay you more than a few hundred dollars for a project.

My best advice is this: Try Craigslist for your local area...buid your name and experience through local business.

 

its better if you make something custom of your own and sell it rather then competing with 50 other bidders there in such sites.

 

Experience is important. Try every possibility and draw your own way.

I used rentacoder both as a buyer and coder. Their system may look a little bit different but once you are familiar with it, you will most probably like their system.

And if you are not experienced at least on both .NET, Web and Java side, i dont think you can earn good amount of money because there are lots of coder competing (most of them work for cheap prices) and ranking is very important. My suggestion is to get a few small projects for very low prices to obtain high rank first.

 

As a freelancer, sooner or later you will get tired of unstable conditions and some kind of intertia - and you will appreciate less, but more stable incomes. This is not good for long time distance.

 

Buddy, since you've got nothing much to lose at the moment and everything to gain, you should consider becoming an entrpreneur.

 

This gets my vote. Read these forums, see what people do, code your own tools and do it better.

 

Getafreelancer is the best

You must allways work with escrow

And about the competition are you afraid of competition ?

regards i'm a freelancer and doing this like for 2 years

 

Your enthusiasm is much appreciated. I had never really thought about going down that path. But, this place seems like a good place to learn. Any essential threads I should read?

Honestly I haven't given the competition much thought. I really do enjoy programming and solving cool problems, whether it be for myself or someone else. If I can make a few bucks doing it, all the better.

 

It is hard to get started on freelancers site, why? People don't like working with freelancers with no feedback, plus you're competing with programmers in developing countries who are willing to charge a lot less than you do.

I would recommend you try selling your service through Craigslist and Forums. It's easier to build trust there. Furthermore, it is easier to succeed to you focus on a particular segment. For example, instead of PPC management, just do PPC management for ecommerce website... and you'll do fine.

 

just a bit of advice that ive got: dont bother with a website for yourself - most likely no one will look at it (never mind find it).....all my clients come through scriptlance.com but i had to start bidding low to get some reviews at first.

start on small projects like fixing PHP/MySQL DB conncetions etc to get a good rep.

hope that helps

 

Exactly, so why compete with them? Why not let them work for you?

IT profs from developing countries scour the net for work because there is not much opportunity where they live. The opportunity is in the 1st world, that's where the market is, and you guys is right in the center of the action.

I wish I could help you with that but I'm a newbie here too, searching for information and ideas. And maybe share my 2 cents worth if anybody's interested...


Peace!

 

freelancer is a marketing job, isn't it?

 

Firstly do a few cheap jobs to get some work experience under your belt and to also get to grips with how things work (payment, timeframe, charge, communication etc).

Try looking for work in the "looking to hire" sections of forums.

Also, what kind of skills do you possess, PHP, AJAX, CGI, Javascript etc? Any coding skills, such as CSS or HTML?

Hope this is of some help.

 

I wouldn't say that there are any ESSENTIAL ones. But do skim the boards for basic SEO tips, basic business tips, basic marketing tips and so on, there's tons of those around. Once you have the basics down, start working and experimenting. Figure out how to do something that works for you and milk it for all it's worth.