I have been on both sides of these freelance sites. I freelanced through them when I was in school.
Now I occasionally outsource some of our work through these websites. Following are the tips that usually work for me:
- Freelance Outsourcing works best for smaller projects with a clear scope. Examples: web design, PSD to XHTML, WordPress / CMS themes etc. It works best in this use case because a lot of people have such requirements. Freelancers are well versed with it, and they have usually worked on at least one similar project.
- Find the designers / developers who have worked on a project similar like yours. There are freelancers who are expert at a particular stack / technology / framework. Example: Wordpress, Django, Code Igniter, iOS experts. They don't apply at every listing unlike most freelancers. Once you shortlist them, invite them to apply for your listing and review their past work.
"Freelance Outsourcing works best for smaller projects with a clear scope"
Agreed. This is exactly the kind of outsourcing my website focuses on.
You have on one end of the spectrum "project outsourcing" (odesk, elance, ...) and on the other end "microtask outsourcing" (fiverr), and in between there is http://taskarmy.com that focuses on skilled tasks.
I am looking for more quality developers on it, especially PHP. Please submit your service if you are interested.
Now I occasionally outsource some of our work through these websites. Following are the tips that usually work for me:
- Freelance Outsourcing works best for smaller projects with a clear scope. Examples: web design, PSD to XHTML, WordPress / CMS themes etc. It works best in this use case because a lot of people have such requirements. Freelancers are well versed with it, and they have usually worked on at least one similar project.
- Find the designers / developers who have worked on a project similar like yours. There are freelancers who are expert at a particular stack / technology / framework. Example: Wordpress, Django, Code Igniter, iOS experts. They don't apply at every listing unlike most freelancers. Once you shortlist them, invite them to apply for your listing and review their past work.