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Welcome to Advice from an Elancer – a place to ask your Elance questions (through Elance’s LinkedIn page) and get them answered as thoroughly and personally as possible. My name is Dorothy D. and I have worked with Elance as a freelancer since April 2009. I have always tried to help other Elancers understand how things work and how to accomplish more. In Advice From An Elancer I will address as many questions as I can each week. In some cases, questions have been edited for clarity.
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Question #1: Proposal declined for incorrect reason
A potential Client said they would send me a few pages of copy for a translation project that I had bid on. When I told them I only do test translations of 500 words, they declined my bid with the reason “the contractor does not have the required expertise.” How do I deal with situations like this?
Advice from an Elancer:
The reason was not incorrect. The Client was, however, in violation of Elance’s Terms of Service by asking you for “a few pages of copy” for you to test your skill. You should not provide ANY samples for a Client other than work you have done that is not protected by agreement by a client. In other words, if you agreed that you would not take credit for it and it is allowable in a portfolio or as an example. Elance’s Site Usage Policy states that Clients may not “Post any Jobs that require free services.” The request for a sample is a free service.
Clients are given a few pre-written choices for declining a Freelancer. This one chose “does not have the required expertise”. This doesn’t reflect on you at all. It does not affect your rating.
As for how to deal with such posters, let them know that it is against Elance policy to provide samples. You may report the Client via the posting. Click the Report Violation link located just below the job description. The Report Violation Window will pop up and you can enter that the Client violated Elance Terms by asking for a sample and explain it.
Never give anything away for free! Imagine if every bidder completed this Clients sample request. He could get his entire job done for free!
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Question #2: Communication Problems (A Client Question)
I recently hired my first Elance Freelancer. I asked for her contact information right away, sent to my email address, but she sent it on the Workroom message board. This really angers me that she didn’t follow my instructions and I plan to take it off of her star rating. Why wouldn’t a Freelancer follow a simple request like that?
Advice from an Elancer:
I can only guess. Freelancers are told to keep a record of all communication in the Workroom. While they may communicate in other ways, the important elements of the discussion are to be transcribed in the Workroom to keep a record of the contact. I don’t know why the Freelancer chose to reply via the message board rather than email, but she may have felt that she needed to keep a record that she was providing the information to you. Honestly, I hope that she does a great job and that this was a misunderstanding. I hope you rate her on her work, rather than a small bump in the road in the beginning of the job.
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Question #3: When managing various contractors, how do you review their Work View? (A Client Question)
How do you Work Views? For example, having two full-time contractors makes it impractical to look at 80 screenshots.
Advice from an Elancer:
Do a scan. For the first few reports, look at the Work View screenshots and become familiar with the Freelancer’s usual desktop. After that, you can scan through the thumbnails and click to check if you see something unusual, like a Facebook or Twitter or Hootsuite logo or window peeking out. These become pretty obvious after a while.
If the amount or quality of the Freelancer’s work seems to be suffering, you may have to check more often to see if they are doing something else on your dime. Once you get to know their work, a red flag may go up and you have a way to check what they are doing.
Work View is protection for you and the Freelancer. Everyone uses it a little differently.
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That’s enough for today. If you have questions or want to follow the conversation of other Elancers, visit the Discussion page of our LinkedIn page.