Elance Review: Stop Complaining Tips

By +Chris Benedict Valencia

If you have been asking yourself: “where can I get a job?” why not try Elance?

Elance is one of the longest running “find me a job” sites that serve as a middle man between people looking for a job and employers looking for the best worth of their money. Most of the jobs available in Elance are those that can be easily outsourced to other countries. Some examples of these jobs are website creation jobs, content writing jobs and SEO related jobs. 

Freelancers in Elance vary in their educational backgrounds but in the 2011 survey of freelance contractors stated that 69% of the freelancers had a bachelor’s degree.

Just like in other “find me a job” websites, there are some freelancers and clients that are completely satisfied with the companies services and there are other that are less impressed. Here are some of the general complaints about Elance:

• Freelancers from less developed countries get more jobs because they charge less per hour.

This can’t be helped because employers need to lower the cost of their operations and this is the reason why they go to Elance for work in the first place.

Greedy Tips: If you are having trouble competing with the low charging contractors but you still want to work in ELance, there are the so called “rebound employers.”

They are employers that gave the job to lower charging contractors but are not satisfied with the job. Some of these rebound employers may contact other freelancers that made a bid on their job opening that have better credentials.

• Some employers don’t pay.

This problem is not limited to Elance because other “find mea job” sites also get this problem. Elance however have their way of assuring freelancers that they will get paid trough their guaranteed payment or escrow payment. Even with this system however, there are still some people who don’t get paid.

Greedy Tips: Screen the employers before bidding for a job. If you are not experienced with the online freelancing industry, try to stick to employers that have verified payments. Long time members are also safer bets than those that became a member on the same month the job is posted.

• Below average customer service

If you look around the internet, you will notice that there are a number rants about Elance’s customer service but these comments don’t represent all the people who use Elance. Most of the satisfied customers don’t really go to the internet and rant do they. Internet customer service in general isn’t the best in the world and so is Elance’s. The number of people complaining to them about system problems and failed proposals can be a lot every day so don’t be surprised if you get a generic email as a response to your complain.

Greedy tips: Expect the customer service to be less than satisfactory. If you have any complains, you must assess by yourself if your problem can be solved by their customer service or not. There are some problems that Elance can do little about.