Forums
March 28, 2024, 08:48 AM

Author Topic: Freelancing  (Read 1426 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline MrTPenguin

Freelancing
« on: March 16, 2018, 09:09 AM »
Does anyone here use the site freelancer.com, either as a freelancer or a client? I've joined it recently, and would be interested to hear other people's experiences. (Other sites offering similar services are upwork, guru, and fiverr, but the phuckers at upwork blocked my application.)

Offline Sensei

Re: Freelancing
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2018, 02:22 PM »
2 ppl from my clan used to deal with freelancing. Dunno if they still do it, but i'll try to get them to come in the thread.

Offline MrTPenguin

Re: Freelancing
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2018, 09:25 AM »
Thanks. You're one of the most obliging wormers here!

Offline Sensei

Re: Freelancing
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2018, 02:57 PM »
Haha, it's nothing really, but thx, appreciate it. I contacted them, let's hope they bounce in here.

Offline Marko

  • What is custom title lol
  • Jr. Member
  • **

  • Croatia Croatia
  • HCP HCP clan

  • Posts: 84
  • Heart wants what the heart wants
    • View Profile
    • GitHub Profile
Re: Freelancing
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2018, 06:52 AM »
Hey :) Im on phone so sorry for future mistakes. Freelancer is decent if you're a graphic designer, you have a bunch of contests where you can submit work you do and have a chance to be picked as a winner. There you make final adjustments and send photoshop or illustrator files to the contest holder and he pays you. It all sound great, but here's the thing. People expect you to lift their company from deep shit to market force for 30$ and they manage to be extra rude while doing it. Sometimes they always have another thing to add to their logo,sometimes they get back at u after half a year, some of these are nice people who understand its polite to pay for extra work,while the others think you're theirs now. You can protect yourself by reading terms of service carefully, learn what you have and don't have to do. Remember that as a freelancer you are their resource, not a customer and they will always prefer customer's well being,so in case of any dispute between you too, if you don't have a solid ground you are banana'd.

Now part for the jobs. Competition is huge, indians tend to do everything for less than 30$ and then learn while doing it. People fall for this easily because it sometimes works and these people have a couple of reviews so they think their work is high quality. In my experience, after a lot of begging I managed to land a translating job cheaply and get some cash. As electrical engineer, all I've done on freelancer was translating and drawing logos and made some money off both. None of my expertise. Also I've had one incident where i was accused of money laundering (again customer-resource related) and they tried to take 10k$ from me (nice try, even I can't do that lol).

Try to withdraw larger sums of money as freelancer takes percebtage of what you takw or 5$ if percentage is smaller. Use paypal, DON'T use payoneer as its going to cost you a lot in the end and you have to waot for them to send you a card.

As someone who enjoys using a computer, I really enjoyed working at usertesting.net (recheck address,not 100% sure its correct, green logo anyway). There you test new games and apps for 5-10$/test on all platforms, if something goes wrong (app is bad or something) you get an apology and a payment. Sometimes tests are region specific so this makes it hard for people like me who live in the middle of nowhere. Anyway gotta go take a lecture so gonna have to end it here, good luck :).
Every time I come back to TUS, I realize my last signature was cringe

Offline MrTPenguin

Re: Freelancing
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2018, 09:11 AM »
Thanks for the long reply, Marko. You've reinforced three bad things I'd already read about: the company generally sides with clients in disputes, not freelancers; people from the Indian subcontinent are overabundant there, undercutting; and there are problems withdrawing money (but luckily I'm using paypal).

I'm offering proofreading and rewriting services for now. I'm finding that every job gets bid on by dozens of people and the people with ratings/reviews get almost all of them. Getting the first few ratings/reviews seems to be key.

The site is probably "good" overall but I suspect only the top 1% of freelancers and/or the ones who work full-time hours, will earn salary levels of money.

I'll check out that site you mention.

Offline m0nk

Re: Freelancing
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2018, 11:18 AM »
Hey :) Im on phone so sorry for future mistakes. Freelancer is decent if you're a graphic designer, you have a bunch of contests where you can submit work you do and have a chance to be picked as a winner. There you make final adjustments and send photoshop or illustrator files to the contest holder and he pays you. It all sound great, but here's the thing. People expect you to lift their company from deep shit to market force for 30$ and they manage to be extra rude while doing it. Sometimes they always have another thing to add to their logo,sometimes they get back at u after half a year, some of these are nice people who understand its polite to pay for extra work,while the others think you're theirs now. You can protect yourself by reading terms of service carefully, learn what you have and don't have to do. Remember that as a freelancer you are their resource, not a customer and they will always prefer customer's well being,so in case of any dispute between you too, if you don't have a solid ground you are banana'd.

Now part for the jobs. Competition is huge, indians tend to do everything for less than 30$ and then learn while doing it. People fall for this easily because it sometimes works and these people have a couple of reviews so they think their work is high quality. In my experience, after a lot of begging I managed to land a translating job cheaply and get some cash. As electrical engineer, all I've done on freelancer was translating and drawing logos and made some money off both. None of my expertise. Also I've had one incident where i was accused of money laundering (again customer-resource related) and they tried to take 10k$ from me (nice try, even I can't do that lol).

Try to withdraw larger sums of money as freelancer takes percebtage of what you takw or 5$ if percentage is smaller. Use paypal, DON'T use payoneer as its going to cost you a lot in the end and you have to waot for them to send you a card.

As someone who enjoys using a computer, I really enjoyed working at usertesting.net (recheck address,not 100% sure its correct, green logo anyway). There you test new games and apps for 5-10$/test on all platforms, if something goes wrong (app is bad or something) you get an apology and a payment. Sometimes tests are region specific so this makes it hard for people like me who live in the middle of nowhere. Anyway gotta go take a lecture so gonna have to end it here, good luck :).

This is not true. You are describing 99designs not freelancer.com. On Freelancer a client uploads a brief and people submit their cost for it. You do not submit design work or work on the brief unless you are awarded the brief usually based on past job reviews and cost. As mentioned, unless you live in India I would not use this site as a designer, only a client.

99designs is a contest when clients upload a brief and designers (usually students looking for live briefs) upload designs for free where only one winner is picked. This is usually designed by someone with little experience where a logo will be designed based on aesthetics or industry trends rather than business objectives or thought-led creative. It is however good experience for designers needing practice working on real briefs and breaking into the creative industry. This is good for a client with very little budget.