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Employment schemes via the net

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Has anyone heard of People per hour . com , and if so are they any good? My son will be starting a degree course in computing in September and was wondering if this site is reliable for getting experience in his course and of course pocket money of a sort.
Regards Liz

Comments

  • InsideInsurance
    InsideInsurance Posts: 22,460 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    The freelancing sites can be ok but you firstly have the same, but worse, issue that you do when starting out on eBay or anything similar in that as a newbie with no feedback that many won't trust you and so you dont win contracts. Secondly with most of them you are competing with freelancers from countries with much lower costs of living.

    Back in the days when I used these I had to do a few jobs for fairly close to free to build up a ranking and then probably did a further 5 mid sized projects.

    I never used PeopleByTheHour but certainly with the ones I did use I found that a large proportion of "projects" never turned into anything (ie weren't awarded to anyone). Then take into consideration how many jobs you have to review to find ones suitable for you, writing a pitch for each one, answer queries raised, then look at your conversion rate.... if you factored in all the time and effort to win even the mid sized contracts the hourly rate it effectively equated to didn't make it worth while for me.

    It can be a good lesson in sales, estimation and responsibility though
  • I would personally avoid websites like that because selling yourself on such a service can be very very difficult - for example, a lot of Indian suppliers sell their services on these sites and they can simply undercut any local suppliers. Furthermore, (and don't take my word for this, do some research just in case) the quality of code that a lot of foreign suppliers will sell is absolutely shocking - I regularly get emails offering me work to fix problems that have happened through the use of these websites.

    The general way this seems to occur is Company A posts a request to say "Can you implement X, Y and Z in a specific time frame?" - they award the job to the lowest bidder; who makes a bid so low that no local trader can compete. Often the foreign traders will make bids on any and every project, regardless of their technical skillset - and sometimes they can be caught out (I can think of examples where fake jobs have been posted requesting fake technologies, just to have swarms of Indian freelancers posting about their vast experience and knowledge of the technology!) but more often than not they will get the job. Deadlines are missed and excuses are made - until they finally provide the work. (IF, They provide the work...) Then the work is generally of a sub-standard quality, and requires more money to improve - or even re-implement.

    However - I'm not going to put your son off of what is an incredibly good idea. I'm going to make a few suggestions though. The first three are about forming a nice client-facing profile, with the profile sorted we can begin to explore ways of getting work.

    These suggestions are by no means right for everyone, nor are they infallible! However, they're things that should be looked at and can save a lot of time. Plus, whats the worst case scenario? He comes out of uni with a degree in a subject he (presumably) enjoys, and a 3 year old estabilished blog demonstrating his enthusiasm and knowledge - something that can immediately improve a CV - and a network of potential employers!

    1. Start a blog!
    This is going to be useful, but it's going to take discipline to keep updated. This will pay off as it will undoubtedly help him look at the course material he is studying, and post about it - thus researching it further and committing it too memory. Furthermore, it demonstrates to employers that he has a genuine interest in the subject at hand.

    Just post about technology news, areas that interest him, stuff that he is enjoying learning about and so on. It takes under an hour to get a nice looking blog - it also acts a portfolio and advert for him!

    If he picks Wordpress as a blogging platform, and gets it hosted himself - he can learn a lot of skills that can be very useful later on. It's suprising just how much people will pay for simple wordpress installations and tweaks. The fact his personal blog would be on such a platform can be an incredibly powerful peice of proof that he's competent at such work!

    2. Join a community!
    For computing, the best community out there has to be (without a doubt) "StackOverflow". Just by reading the experiences of others, understanding problems faced by others and having somewhere to go for advice - it provides a major resource. Then, by answering questions and so on - gaining reputation - he can incorporate this into his blog. Further demonstrating his knowledge and enthusiasm!

    Additionally, if he links his blog from his profile at the community - it will increase the popularity of it.

    3. Experiment!
    Experiment with new techniques and ideas, then post about these on his blog. When starting a blog it is hard, as you know no one is actually reading it. However, it takes one interesting post to get alot of readers - and a few more similar ones to get a lot of return readers.

    4. Advertise!
    Unless people know he's offering a service, they wont come. So include the services he's offering on the blog - approach local places for work, look at gumtree/craigslist*, keep an eye out everywhere..!

    *For example, One of my better jobs was found on Gumtree! It opened up this whole world to me, got me meeting some interesting people and was my first taste of working for myself.

    5. Be Realistic, Not Pessimistic!
    Be realistic when assessing the services to offer though. Don't claim to be able to do everything - unless he can. But similarly, don't let him do a discredit to himself just because he may not have done similar work before.

    Pricing can generally reflect experience, and although that experience can be hard to get - it's not impossible to overcome. As explained, by having a personal blog with the right type of posts, you can more than prove that you know what you're talking about.

    6. Network and Make Friends!
    If he's at university he will likely make friends with all kinds of people with all kinds of skills - but if he's going to work with someone, tell him not to pick a clone of himself!

    This works in two ways - personality wise, two people who have the exact same outlook on work may be too enthusiastic and overlook vital parts of a job. Alternatively, skill wise - If they can both code really well, that's good - but most jobs also require other skills.

    As an example - I consider myself a good coder, I'm not arrogant and I don't claim to be the best. If I'm doing software development then great. If I'm going web development then thats great too! However, if I need to make icons for a peice of software - or design a loading image? Anything graphical then I am severely limited; clearly I need someone with a different skillset to work with!

    Additionally, advise network with everyone he meets - and even those he doesn't. Join LinkedIn - and find people that are in the same kind of work, and befriend them - see what their upto etc!
  • mila_30
    mila_30 Posts: 21 Forumite
    I heard about People per hour . com, but to be honest I use other sites to find jobs. you can try other free lancing jobs as well, but if you find it easy for you ti apply, then may be just give it a try.
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