7 ms·

Ask HN: Recommend a freelance job board

96 points by speric 16y ago

Can anyone recommend some good freelance job boards that are not eLance/oDesk etc.?

slater 16y ago
Craigslist? ducks
- spooneybarger 16y ago
  At least here in NYC, the % of listings on Craigslist that are freelance is rather low and in general, given the time that most people put into posting jobs in general, the overall quality seems to be low.
  - speric 16y ago
    That's been my experience. I haven't really seen a good freelance job board with high-quality postings and lack of sketchy characters since 37signals Gig Board.
- brianlash 16y ago
  Shit, I'm sorry. I meant to vote Craigslist up but instead gave your comment the fat-fingered iPad treatment.
  - bigsassy 16y ago
    Well I wasn't going to vote up or down, so consider my up vote a fix for your down vote.
    - slater 16y ago
      I downvoted both of you, so there. :P
    - bigsassy 16y ago
      Wait, seriously? Down votes for this? I don't get you sometimes, HN.
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
I've been doing contract work for three years; 95% of my work has come from Craigslist or from referrals from people who I connected with through Craigslist. You have to wade through an incredible amount of junk, but the volume on CL can't be touched anywhere else, and there is good stuff in there. I look in computer gigs and I also periodically post an abridged version of my resume in the resume section. Other places I've found stuff include Dice.com, 37signals Gigs Board, Freelance Switch, and AuthenticJobs. I get a lot of recruiters for contract jobs contacting me through Dice, my resume post on CL, and my blog. That might not be the kind of thing you're looking for, but it doesn't hurt.
- mcargian 16y ago
  I agree. More than half of my work has come from CL. The nice thing about CL is being able to win work locally if you are in a larger metro area. Even if you are not in a big CL city, many replies to job ads are from overseas or from developers with limited communication. If you can communicate well and provide a solution for exactly what the customer is asking, you can win some good (and potentially long term) work. But as Ryan says above, you need to weed through a lot of bad listings and be persistent in your search.
- garply 16y ago
  Can you give a rough percentage of people who respond to you from CL? I've only recently started hunting for gigs via CL. I've picked 3 and responded (I took time to write what I thought was a good, carefully-worded response) within 24 hours or so but no one's responded back. I know sales is all about volume, I'm just trying to get an idea of what to expect.
  - lsc 16y ago
    3 to 1 sounds about right for initial responses, assuming you pick jobs that you are obviously qualified for. this goes up and down, obviously, depending on how qualified you appear to be for the position you are responding to. Once you get the initial response, there's still a pretty good chance of the gig falling through for whatever reason. Contracting is rough this way, really no matter where you get your clients.
Grantmd 16y ago
Authentic Jobs has design/development freelance listings: http://www.authenticjobs.com http://www.authenticjobs.com
- flacon 16y ago
  +1 for Authentic Jobs. The jobs are generally high quality but it can be quite competitive to get selected since so many people are watching this job board very closely.
bearwithclaws 16y ago
I've had success with this one: http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ It works the other way around. Job listing is free; job seeker has to pay.
sahillavingia 16y ago
Sorry if this isn't helpful, but the direct approach has always worked for me (and job boards not so much). I try to contact people I'd like to work with on IRC, Skype, or just through email. I include a few links and that has worked alright for me.
poet 16y ago
Are you near a college with a decent CS department? Go there. Seriously. In no other place is there such a high concentration of talented individuals who are willing to work for bargin rates. Put up some flyers, get an announcement in the departmental newsletter, and buy candidates a cup of coffee once you get a good set of potentials. Of course, there is an upper bound on the talent/quality you are going to find. But depending on the type of work you need done it could work out great.
oomkiller 16y ago
Avoid them all, you will only find pain in that strategy, kind of like 6 pool. Focus on building your network of contacts, they will be the source of most of your work, mainly through word of mouth and referrals.
- gtdminh 16y ago
  i agree, network is really important.
pmjordan 16y ago
I got most of my contract work via networking in the local tech scene using twitter and going to a couple of events, and just generally jumping at random opportunities. Replying to local people who are urgently looking for a small job to be done is by far the easiest route to get yourself out there. Once you gain a reputation of being good at what you do, people will start referring you work. For what it's worth, I'm fairly introverted, and talking to random people isn't all that easy for me, yet I seem to have managed just fine[1]. All I did was talk to people what they were working on, what I did, and random techy banter. The idea is to make people remember you when they need stuff done, not sell yourself right there and then. This probably only works for techy customers, if you're designing web sites for random businesses you might want to use a different strategy. [1] I'm offered far more work than I could possibly accept 2 1/2 years later, rates increasing steadily, and I don't even have a website.
gefresh 16y ago
Try oDesk. I've hired a bunch of help from there. Its been hit or miss but I've found a few real gems who I now hire regularly.
hockeybias 16y ago
I kno wpeople who have had success finding work on CraigsList. I have relied on a network of contacts I have delveoped over the last decade, but keep an ear open to recruiters who strike me as intelligent and on the ball.
jefffoster 16y ago
A few years ago I used rentacoder.com (now known as vworker.com) and made about $10K in 3 months. I made the majority of the money from doing a good job on something (generally at a very low price) and then getting repeat business from outside the bidding system. Most fun project was writing some software that showed prospective patients what their teeth would look like after having their teeth bleached!
- karatchov 16y ago
  I have been using RAC sporadically for 2 years now, but didnt even manage to make the tenth of that number ! Do you have a suggestion/advice on how to boost my business ?
  - gtdminh 16y ago
    RAC is very competitive, i suggest you move to elance or odesk or guru, where you can get decent paid projects. And portfolio is a must to win the bids there. i am in odesk for 3 yrs and now work as long term contractor for a US firm in Chino, CA. All thru odesk. i dont have enough patience with elance, it is overly more competitive
- lsc 16y ago
  Yeah... I had similar experiences on E-lance... you'd do the work within e-lance or whatever, and if it was successful, there was a lot of other work you could do direct for the client. Also, the people who frequent those sites tend to be very cheap. the $10K in 3 months of work number sounds pretty realistic to me; while where I am, a reasonably good sysadmin can expect to make that much in a month of agency contracting full-time.
natgordon 16y ago
This was from an another HN thread (HN Contractors) - https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJEodCA&hl=en#gid=0 https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJE... I've been contacted for work through it.
- olalonde 16y ago
  Why was this down voted?
olalonde 16y ago
IMHO, the problem with oDesk and most freelance job boards is that they are lemon markets[1] and are therefore disadvantageous to good programmers. If we take the analogy from the used car market explained in Wikipedia and adapt it to the freelance programming market: [...] the problem of quality uncertainty. It concludes that good programmers will not offer their service on the freelance market. This is sometimes summarized as "the bad driving out the good" in the market. That being said, I would suggest you contact companies directly to offer your services or look for specialized job boards where buyers know exactly what they are looking for. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
jobmatchbox 16y ago
If you are anywhere near Washington, DC check out http://www.socialmatchbox.com http://www.socialmatchbox.com. There are not a crushing number of freelance jobs there, but there are some good ones with startups, consulting companies, and interactive agencies.
coderholic 16y ago
I created this little site that aggregates around 10 fairly decent freelance job boards: http://jobs.plasis.co.uk http://jobs.plasis.co.uk
stcorbett 16y ago
I started using this strategy yesterday: http://sivers.org/how2hire http://sivers.org/how2hire From the CD Baby guy. It's pretty straightforward and so far I'm getting decent responses.
reinhardt 16y ago
Speaking of job boards, are there any with non-trivial number of remote/telecommuting gigs or permanent positions ? The ones mentioned here have few if any such jobs.
hess 16y ago
scriptlance.com

96 points by speric 16y ago

Can anyone recommend some good freelance job boards that are not eLance/oDesk etc.?

slater 16y ago

Craigslist? ducks

spooneybarger 16y ago
At least here in NYC, the % of listings on Craigslist that are freelance is rather low and in general, given the time that most people put into posting jobs in general, the overall quality seems to be low.
- speric 16y ago
  That's been my experience. I haven't really seen a good freelance job board with high-quality postings and lack of sketchy characters since 37signals Gig Board.
brianlash 16y ago
Shit, I'm sorry. I meant to vote Craigslist up but instead gave your comment the fat-fingered iPad treatment.
- bigsassy 16y ago
  Well I wasn't going to vote up or down, so consider my up vote a fix for your down vote.
  - slater 16y ago
    I downvoted both of you, so there. :P
  - bigsassy 16y ago
    Wait, seriously? Down votes for this? I don't get you sometimes, HN.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago

I've been doing contract work for three years; 95% of my work has come from Craigslist or from referrals from people who I connected with through Craigslist. You have to wade through an incredible amount of junk, but the volume on CL can't be touched anywhere else, and there is good stuff in there. I look in computer gigs and I also periodically post an abridged version of my resume in the resume section. Other places I've found stuff include Dice.com, 37signals Gigs Board, Freelance Switch, and AuthenticJobs. I get a lot of recruiters for contract jobs contacting me through Dice, my resume post on CL, and my blog. That might not be the kind of thing you're looking for, but it doesn't hurt.

mcargian 16y ago
I agree. More than half of my work has come from CL. The nice thing about CL is being able to win work locally if you are in a larger metro area. Even if you are not in a big CL city, many replies to job ads are from overseas or from developers with limited communication. If you can communicate well and provide a solution for exactly what the customer is asking, you can win some good (and potentially long term) work. But as Ryan says above, you need to weed through a lot of bad listings and be persistent in your search.
garply 16y ago
Can you give a rough percentage of people who respond to you from CL? I've only recently started hunting for gigs via CL. I've picked 3 and responded (I took time to write what I thought was a good, carefully-worded response) within 24 hours or so but no one's responded back. I know sales is all about volume, I'm just trying to get an idea of what to expect.
- lsc 16y ago
  3 to 1 sounds about right for initial responses, assuming you pick jobs that you are obviously qualified for. this goes up and down, obviously, depending on how qualified you appear to be for the position you are responding to. Once you get the initial response, there's still a pretty good chance of the gig falling through for whatever reason. Contracting is rough this way, really no matter where you get your clients.

Grantmd 16y ago

Authentic Jobs has design/development freelance listings: http://www.authenticjobs.com http://www.authenticjobs.com

flacon 16y ago
+1 for Authentic Jobs. The jobs are generally high quality but it can be quite competitive to get selected since so many people are watching this job board very closely.

bearwithclaws 16y ago

I've had success with this one: http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/ It works the other way around. Job listing is free; job seeker has to pay.

sahillavingia 16y ago

Sorry if this isn't helpful, but the direct approach has always worked for me (and job boards not so much). I try to contact people I'd like to work with on IRC, Skype, or just through email. I include a few links and that has worked alright for me.

poet 16y ago

Are you near a college with a decent CS department? Go there. Seriously. In no other place is there such a high concentration of talented individuals who are willing to work for bargin rates. Put up some flyers, get an announcement in the departmental newsletter, and buy candidates a cup of coffee once you get a good set of potentials. Of course, there is an upper bound on the talent/quality you are going to find. But depending on the type of work you need done it could work out great.

oomkiller 16y ago

Avoid them all, you will only find pain in that strategy, kind of like 6 pool. Focus on building your network of contacts, they will be the source of most of your work, mainly through word of mouth and referrals.

gtdminh 16y ago
i agree, network is really important.

pmjordan 16y ago

I got most of my contract work via networking in the local tech scene using twitter and going to a couple of events, and just generally jumping at random opportunities. Replying to local people who are urgently looking for a small job to be done is by far the easiest route to get yourself out there. Once you gain a reputation of being good at what you do, people will start referring you work. For what it's worth, I'm fairly introverted, and talking to random people isn't all that easy for me, yet I seem to have managed just fine[1]. All I did was talk to people what they were working on, what I did, and random techy banter. The idea is to make people remember you when they need stuff done, not sell yourself right there and then. This probably only works for techy customers, if you're designing web sites for random businesses you might want to use a different strategy. [1] I'm offered far more work than I could possibly accept 2 1/2 years later, rates increasing steadily, and I don't even have a website.

gefresh 16y ago

Try oDesk. I've hired a bunch of help from there. Its been hit or miss but I've found a few real gems who I now hire regularly.

hockeybias 16y ago

I kno wpeople who have had success finding work on CraigsList. I have relied on a network of contacts I have delveoped over the last decade, but keep an ear open to recruiters who strike me as intelligent and on the ball.

jefffoster 16y ago

A few years ago I used rentacoder.com (now known as vworker.com) and made about $10K in 3 months. I made the majority of the money from doing a good job on something (generally at a very low price) and then getting repeat business from outside the bidding system. Most fun project was writing some software that showed prospective patients what their teeth would look like after having their teeth bleached!

karatchov 16y ago
I have been using RAC sporadically for 2 years now, but didnt even manage to make the tenth of that number ! Do you have a suggestion/advice on how to boost my business ?
- gtdminh 16y ago
  RAC is very competitive, i suggest you move to elance or odesk or guru, where you can get decent paid projects. And portfolio is a must to win the bids there. i am in odesk for 3 yrs and now work as long term contractor for a US firm in Chino, CA. All thru odesk. i dont have enough patience with elance, it is overly more competitive
lsc 16y ago
Yeah... I had similar experiences on E-lance... you'd do the work within e-lance or whatever, and if it was successful, there was a lot of other work you could do direct for the client. Also, the people who frequent those sites tend to be very cheap. the $10K in 3 months of work number sounds pretty realistic to me; while where I am, a reasonably good sysadmin can expect to make that much in a month of agency contracting full-time.

natgordon 16y ago

This was from an another HN thread (HN Contractors) - https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJEodCA&hl=en#gid=0 https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJE... I've been contacted for work through it.

olalonde 16y ago
Why was this down voted?

olalonde 16y ago

IMHO, the problem with oDesk and most freelance job boards is that they are lemon markets[1] and are therefore disadvantageous to good programmers. If we take the analogy from the used car market explained in Wikipedia and adapt it to the freelance programming market: [...] the problem of quality uncertainty. It concludes that good programmers will not offer their service on the freelance market. This is sometimes summarized as "the bad driving out the good" in the market. That being said, I would suggest you contact companies directly to offer your services or look for specialized job boards where buyers know exactly what they are looking for. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons

jobmatchbox 16y ago

If you are anywhere near Washington, DC check out http://www.socialmatchbox.com http://www.socialmatchbox.com. There are not a crushing number of freelance jobs there, but there are some good ones with startups, consulting companies, and interactive agencies.

coderholic 16y ago

I created this little site that aggregates around 10 fairly decent freelance job boards: http://jobs.plasis.co.uk http://jobs.plasis.co.uk

stcorbett 16y ago

I started using this strategy yesterday: http://sivers.org/how2hire http://sivers.org/how2hire From the CD Baby guy. It's pretty straightforward and so far I'm getting decent responses.

reinhardt 16y ago

Speaking of job boards, are there any with non-trivial number of remote/telecommuting gigs or permanent positions ? The ones mentioned here have few if any such jobs.

hess 16y ago

scriptlance.com