PeoplePerHour have now introduced the below changes with the aim of making the budget and the bidding process for jobs clearer and more precise. Some of the terminology has also been updated in order to eliminate any possible confusion.
- Budget range: We have abolished the budget drop-down in the posting form and replaced it with exact numerical fields so that the client will have to manually enter the lower and upper limits of their budget. In this way, the budget range is as specific as possible.
- New budget widget: We have also launched a budget help widget aimed at guiding clients on their choice of budget by educating them about the going rates for similar jobs that were awarded on PPH – both for fixed and hourly jobs.
- Minimum bid amount: After various complaints about unrealistically low bids, we have also introduced minimum bid restrictions. Freelancers will no longer be allowed to place a bid that is lower than 80% of the lower range budget value specified by the client. For example, if the client has entered a budget range of £100-£150, the minimum bid amount permitted is £80.
Dear PPH – may I say that I welcome these changes. We all work in a competitive environment but certainly, on the basis that this site is internationally viewed for new business – I do feel that many in the UK cant compete with indian and far eastern pricing structures. Its often been the case that clients really do want it all and some don’t even realise that we have to pay you guys as well – which often results in clients posting jobs which it would pretty much cost us, the suppliers, to do.
Competition is no bad thing and your site is fantastic but these changes seem to me to be overdue and very welcome.
Sincerely
Matthew
Im glad to see these changes being introduced. Having gone back through jobs that have expired (clients dont bother to inform bidders if they have been successful or not), i find that 99% of jobs have been won by bidders who enter under the budget range. Sometimes these bids mean people are working for less than minimum wage which makes me wonder if this work is also notified to HMRC and whether they do in fact have relevent insurance in place professionally.
We will have to see how these changes actually affect the future but unless something is done soon that effectively implements change, then all i can see poeple per hour becoming is a sweat shop of underpaid, under insured and below quality work resource.
Hi,
Great to hear that you are doing something about the unrealistic bids. However, I also think that you should stop people entering bids that are actually below the minimum wage. Recently a job quoted as 18 hours had a winning bid of less than £100. Even if you take £100 (which the person wont get due to the websites commission) this equates to £5.55 per hour – below the minimum wage for people aged 22+ which is currently £5.80.
The people mainly benefitting in this case are the website and the client.
Very well, that sounds fine and I hope it will establish a standard of quality. I couldn’t stand all those projects where the client doesn’t specify the exact budget.
PPH,
All the new changes are good and allow to freelancers and clients to work with in reasonable parameters. I hope that PPH will continue to improve these parameters in future also.
Regards,
Suhail,
Exact Systems
Hi Andy,
I’d like to point out to you that it’s in fact not the case that 99% of jobs have been won by bidders under the budget range, but it is in fact quite the opposite. If you look at our stats on http://www.peopleperhour.com/pph_economy you will find that only 93% of jobs are not awarded to the lowest bidders.
Moreover – please note that the minimum wage is rather irrelevant to the case as it only applies to full time employees and not to contractors and freelancers.
Thank you for you comments
Stefani
Hi Frances
Thank you for your comment. I would just like to point out to you that the minimum wage is rather irrelevant to the case as it only applies to full-time employees and not self-employed people like freelancers or contractors. However, we are glad to see that projects on PPH are not in fact awarded to the lowest bidders. If you have a look at http://www.peopleperhour.com/pph_economy, you will see real time data from our site showing that 93% of jobs are not awarded to the lowest bidders as people are increasingly taking the quality factor more into account instead of the price factor.
As a client only, I am most reluctant to consider an unrealistic bid. What does it tell you? The Freelancer is a) desperate b)only interested in using a crazy price as a hook to get the job c)probably hasnt got the software to support the job – well probably only has access to some pirate stuff d) Doesent know what they are doing.
Low bids = low quality
I would go even further and take out the ‘not sure’ option as far as budget’s concerned, I’m a videographer and my rate is £250 per day and I have a figure that I will work for less, however there is no point in me bidding for a job that is going to take a week and they have a £300 budget, so by putting not sure, when they know for a fact they’ve only got a certain amount of money to spend is wasting my time and theirs.
The budget widget is a good idea, but I think that the freelancers on this site should also take responsibility, if someone posts a job way under the going rate, then ignore it, that way they don’t get any bidders and they’ll realise the only way to get decent people bidding on their job is to put a realistic budget.
Or another way to combat this is to do what I do when I see an unrealistic budget range, for example somebody wanted a cameraman to go all over the country and film interviews, by the sounds of this this could have taken weeks and they were only prepared to pay £250, so I bid but I put that that was my daily rate, if everyone does that then the client thinks, ‘oh well, I’m not going to be able to rip anyone on this site off.’
A change I think is needed to the way clients post projects is that they must be forced to enter a budget range, as this would then help freelancers to decide whether or not to bid for a project. I don’t know how many projects I have bid for recently, which turned out to be a waste of time because the budget was as follows:
Budget Range : Not Specified
As well as wasting my free bids, this also wastes purchased bids, which is very annoying.
Another problem is that some clients post the same project more than once, as well as not closing a project if they find a freelancer somewhere else. To get round this problem, a nominal charge (say £1) per job posting could be applied, with the charge refunded when they cancel/close/award the job. This would maybe dicourage some clients from posting jobs which they have no intention of following up.
Dear PPH
It’s a shame that what your newsletter promised as ‘fairer pay’ for us freelancers, you have instead turned into ‘Nanny state website’ by removing freelancers’ comments when budgets are set too low.
Most disappointing. You need clients, agreed, but you also need freelancers and the way things are going on PPH, we soon won’t actually be able to afford being on PPH!
David I agree with some of the comments you have made. It does appear that the majority of projects posted are not followed through – no one is appointed and the job disappears. It could be however, that they have come to an arrangement outside of PPH which is not allowed.
I tend to look at the number of previous jobs posted by the client and followed through before I bid. If the client is new then it’s acceptable to have no jobs actually offered but if they have been with PPH a while and it shows number of jobs offered ‘zero’ that’s a dead give away.
Some of the less scrupulous clients will ask you to provide a more detailed bid so that they can get your ideas free of charge. I have learned the hard way and I am definitely a lot more cautious now.
I know that something was supposed to be being done about the many many projects,144 in my case, that remain in limbo ie. not awarded nor withdrawn. There seems to be no change in this annoying and frustrating situation, hours and hours of bid writing wasted, and never hearing anything further.
Remind me, what is being done to address this problem?
I have been signed up with PPH for about a year or so, and most of the email alerts which I had followed up have had ridiculously low budgets, and just haven’t been worth bothering with. I just noticed a PPH advert on an unrelated website today, clearly aimed at clients, and the prices offered for freelance labour say it all – £10 per hour for translators, £15 per hour for developers and so on. Clients will go to PPH site with this budget in mind – and then in most cases try and haggle down. A few months ago I received some kind of communication from PPH telling freelancers not to worry – it’s not only the cheap bids which win, and many clients know that they have to pay sensible rates to get the right results. And yet here we are, PPH are now even more openly pricing freelance labour at rates which are a small fraction of what most qualified and experienced professionals working in the UK would want to work at.
I notice that one of the posts above says that the fact that some of the rates quoted being less than the minimum wage is irrelevant, due to this not applying to freelance labour. No, of course legally, providing the labour is genuinely freelance, and not an unscrupulous employer simply trying to get round the law, the minimum wage does not legally apply. But seriously, how many freelancers give up the benefits of full-time work to work in this way were planning to work for these rates? All it serves to do is to undercut the value of all skilled peoples’ labour, and reduce salary expectations, including those of permanent employees, which doesn’t help any of us.
Of course, non of this is illegal, or indeed morally wrong, as why should freelancers have special rights? We’re just money grabbing mercenary swines, no sense of company loyalty or patience for climbing the corporate ladder, simply out for ourselves for all we can get. But it does appear that in its haste for potential clients PPH has engaged in a race to the bottom. As far as I can see, there appear to be very few opportunities for freelancers at the higher end of the scale to obtain well-paid and rewarding work, with clients who would be willing to make a serious investment in quality, and so we’ll continue to see the requests for enterprise complexity projects for £50 – £150, to be completed over 1 or 2 days. Hopefully we’ll start to see different sites with a different profile aiming for more experienced people, genuinely catering for clients who understand the need to pay more to get higher quality work. But regardless of PPH’s commercial success, I doubt very much that in time PPH will become a site which experienced and highly skilled freelance people actively seek work with – rather a bargain basement for newbies wanting to get experience and those who already have full time jobs and just want to dabble, probably not, as one person pointed out, having taken out insurance, or paid any tax from their PPH earnings.
I still find that jobs are posted with unrealistic hourly rates for the work required, or do not understand the work required.
The clients for the property section to which I work in as an architect or CAD designer seem have have little conprehension of what they are requiring when opening a job such as requiring about an extension to a home. Clients leave little or no feedback or response from sensible and professional querries from fellow freelancers about the nature of the job described. Clients never seem to re-visit the PPH website to see these comments or award anyone the job or give feedback as to why they did not award anyone the job. It is often a pointless waste of time for everyone concerned.
“For example, if the client has entered a budget range of £100-£150, the minimum bid amount permitted is £80.”
I’m betting for £80 it would still end up resulting in a day’s work. How does PPH implementing ‘a minimum bid amount’ solve the issue of freelancers being paid below the average rate. Surely a bid should not even be allowed to be priced under the min budget?
In the interest in pointing out what experienced freelance designers are worth, the rate is £175 – £200 per day. This is possible to achieve outside the realms of PPH.
I agree with Mark. Overall figures for PPH may be giving a misleading picture so far as particular job sectors are concerned. In architecture/CAD/3D almost every job that is posted has an unrealistic budget attached. It is not unusual for the hourly rate to work out at something in the £4 to £6 rate. They still get silly numbers of bids. I have never won a job yet, despite cutting my basic rate to the bone. When the client bothers to respond with the reason for not awarding me the bid it has always been that the price was too high.
I shudder to think what kind of service these people are getting for the prices that they are prepared to pay!
Sorry to all above but I have been active on this site for a few days now and it seems that PPH have no idea of what creative professionals should be paid for their time, and they are not acting in a professional manner – allowing potential clients to post incomplete briefs, very poor and quite ridiculous budgets.
PPH want us, the creative professionals to act professional, but they just have to get their act together, and soon regarding the ‘so called clients’.
OK, some briefs are submitted by good, respectable people who understand what they are asking for, but trust me, it won’t last long! Too many briefs are being advertised from obviously ‘dubious’ clients who must be using the younger, less able creatives as almost slave labour.
Come on PPH, do what you advertise and be professional!
Or loose!!!
Bottom line…
PPH need to sort their clients briefs and budgets out…and fast!
Act professional PPH, as you expect us to do!
by the way…
Well said client Keith! Sorry only just seen your comment.
Sorry all…
But Stefani above…go check out UK law about income!
If you are one of the employees of PPH you need to be sacked right away.
PPH admin, bosses, whoever. if this person works for you you need to get rid quick!
Im glad to see this happening. The site is a great tool but I will NEVER place a bid until some clients come into the real world. I saw one women asking for absolutely everything she could think of for a budget range of… wait for it… £50 – £130 fixed fee. I MEAN SERIOUSLY… Now take a look at your list of projects to bid on and 90% of them are like that. No wonder there are no bids.
This really does have to change and you need to screen the clients too. If they have a budget of £500 or less then send them somewhere else…
I agree with most everyone above. I literally joined a few days ago but I doubt much will come from it. It is getting more and more frustrating coming across unrealistic offers by buyers which equate to less then minimum wage expecting the world plus more in skills and end result, yet the freelancer has to pay for materials, software, time, insurance etc to complete one pesky job.
Allot of the unanswered or incomplete awards are due to the buyers finding even cheaper avenues. Allot of you think PPH is not so savoury, there are rival freelance websites freelancer.com based out of Australia making huge international waves in the white western world, that has absolutely no restrictions and if you check the top 50 freelancers they are all from India and Asia (no offence in anyway). Freelancers in the Orient/East Asia will illustrate a whole picture book of 30+pages for 50US dollars flat fee no royalties. A freelancer from the western world requires for a self-published proposal at least $2500+++US + royalties if distributed for a job like that. Logos for example are being bought for as low as $15-20 etc. Websites designed for $200. I am not kidding.
Our living standards are higher and it costs more to put bread on the table, pay taxes and breathe but companies and organizations don’t care when hiring someone, they really don’t care as long as they get what they want even if just mediocre they are happy with paying $50 for 30 pages of illustrations then a few thousand. $15 for a logo than $300+. They want to make as much profit with less expense and really do not care if you struggle to make a living.
We are in a digital global community with shorter attention spans so quality is not always going to win because people flick through things now, spend half a second glancing at a logo if lucky, or reading a paragraph of an intellectual article if for a spare moment they are not texting! These head honchos know this trend, so quality will not always be a priority therefore the bottom dollar always looks more tempting. It is very saddening to tell you the truth.
For all you Writers, Translators, anyone in Communication: We also have to realize that since everyone is connected online and almost everyone is proclaims themselves to be a “writer” since blogging has become a regular thing that we will see the “in-experienced” bid for jobs that used to require University degrees such as Literature, Creative Writing, Journalism, Communication etc, etc. Unfortunately we are not competing against peers or graduates in the same fields but with every Tom, Dick, Harry and Jane that can coin a sentence.
In general I agree with all comments about putting restrictions on buyers regarding fee structure and implement more stringent avenues to check if the buyer is legitimate and will follow through with a request. Implementing a job-posting fee that will be credited back once it is followed through may deter the drifters. They should remove the 80% buffer, it is absolutely unnecessary. Bids should be rejected if they are below the fee listed. Fee structure should look something like this I.E. $300-$350 so there is no real room to lowball and a small increment like $50 will not make a big difference when you get good quality work, and everyone that bids will have to prove on merit/portfolio rather then on price. This is the way it should be, even playing field.
When you get listings like this for instance $50-$350 we can all guess the $50 bidder will win the bid. This should be outlawed.
Anyway sorry if I am repeating myself at times.
Either we all have to embrace the new bottom dollar world or have to find other creative and intellectual ways to show the world quality should remain at the top. And not be afraid to voice an opinion, it’s important to make a stance when things are clearly unsavoury.
Best of Luck to Everyone.
I beg all my fellow colleagues (graphic designers + web designers + conceptual designers, etc) to restrain from selling our profession as cheap as some of you do.
Creative practitioners have been highly trained to do their jobs (well, most of us), at University level, leaving behind huge student loan’ debts and having spent 3 to 4 years of our lives studying…so why oh why would some of my colleagues bow down to preposterous budgets such as £50 to £200 to design a website + logo, as I have seen posted here?
I understand that many potential clients have no freaking idea what creating a logo concept entails, as they probably think very little of our profession…but are we going to agree with them by accepting their offensive budgets? – (and even worse, bidding lower)
If really strapped for cash, I’d rather roll up my sleeves and go work in a supermarket at night than prostitute my skills and waste my time designing a logo for 50 dollars.
A proper logo concept takes up to one to three weeks to cook up and it should cost at least £450 to £1,600
PLEASE, STOP ACCEPTING THESE OFFENSIVE BUDGETS
PLEASE STOP RUINING THE MARKET FOR US ALL!
I beg all my fellow colleagues (graphic designers + web designers + conceptual designers, etc) to restrain from selling our profession as cheap as some of you do.
Creative practitioners have been highly trained to do their jobs (well, most of us), at University level, leaving behind huge student loan’ debts and having spent 3 to 4 years of our lives studying…so why oh why would some of my colleagues bow down to preposterous budgets such as £50 to £200 to design a website + logo, as I have seen posted here?
I understand that many potential clients have no freaking idea what creating a logo concept entails, as they probably think very little of our profession…but are we going to agree with them by accepting their offensive budgets? – (and even worse, bidding lower)
If really strapped for cash, I’d rather roll up my sleeves and go work in a supermarket at night than prostitute my skills and waste my time designing a logo for 50 dollars.
A proper logo concept takes up to one to three weeks to cook up and it should cost at least £450 to £1,600
PLEASE, STOP ACCEPTING THESE OFFENSIVE BUDGETS!
PLEASE STOP RUINING THE MARKET FOR US ALL!
Hey Helder,
We hear you on this, here’s what we’ve been looking into on this issue: http://blog.peopleperhour.com/blogroll/freelancers-first/
– Martin, PeoplePerHour.com
i just received a message saying you have to buy more bids? Is this some of kind of April fool?
I think taking a percentage of the earnings more than enough.
99% of the companies never return your bids and you don’t even know if they’ve been read.
I think you should only charge if they are excepted
@Helder Dias well said!
this site is in danger of doing what TFP has done to the photography industry. I’ve seen companies post for designer wanted, for FREE, could lead to more work.
THESE KIND OF POSTS HAVE TO STOP NOW
Helder Dias is right, designers are highly skilled. We have years of experience, we don’t just press a few buttons and a magic design appears, YOU PAY FOR OUR CREATIVITY!!! That’s why you hire us.
hello admin PPH. why don’t i add skill and my photo??
thnx
Dear Saweka,
If you’re registered as a Freelancer with PeoplePerHour, to add a photo and skill just log in to PPH and in the top left hand corner click Complete your Profile (edit).
Hope this helps,
Martin, PeoplePerHour.com
I have to say that I am quite shocked about the comment from PPH regarding the minimum wage being irrelevant. It is morally wrong to allow jobs to be posted whereby the hourly rate is less than £3.50 which has happened. This is for jobs posted requiring professional skills where a freelance would normally charge around £20 upwards per hour. I think it is discraceful that clients are permitted to accept these bids.
I welcome the changes you are putting in place and look forward to seeing further changes that benefit both clients and freelancers. Overall I find there are very few jobs for which I am happy to bid on due to the low fees being offered.
I appreciate that many clients do not know what standard rates are, but perhaps there could be a section which gives very general guidelines for clients. I know that there are many many variables but I am absolutely sure that many freelancers would be happy to assist in this process due to the fact they are simply not getting any work on this site which certainly not due to their lack of skills or experience.
PPH – thank you for listening – much appreciated.
As a freelancer in the Architectural / construction field i have to agree wholeheartedly with the majority comments.
I applaud PPH for at acknowledging there is a problem but i dont think PPH have done enough.
I would say that 90% of the budgets in my field are unrealistic yet we are still allowing people to bid BELOW what the client is willing to pay!
We have a sector of people as mentioned above that its obvious dont have any professional standards or insurance as they are bidding on jobs with very little information. eg a typical bid that often appears in my area
“someone to design me a house” budget £100 – £150. Thats it. That is literally all the brief we get, yet although the clarication board is full of professionals askingf or more info and querying the budget, the job will already have 10 bids on it with the client repsonding “i already have bids s it cant be that difficult”.
Jobs like that make me question the value of PPH and as other have said the involvement of actual professionals.
Ive already dropped my gold membership down to the free level as i dont want to be paying to bid for jobs that earn me £2.50 an hour. I would rather be unemployed and do voluntary work for a charity.
I only just read about this, I agree with many of the sentiments posted above relating to freelance web jobs things seem to be no different spring 2011. I think one the other real problems is no job specs or briefs for what the client wants. If PPH could request a clients fills out a job spec or project brief then it would be easier to estimate how much to charge and how long it would take.
Hi all,
I’m from Sydney Australia and just can’t compete with such low budgets. I don’t think any designer would work for such a low hourly or fixed rate as many jobs posted on here.
Unless prices change dramatically, it’s not even worth bidding.
It is sad our industry is heading this way.
Also many people want to see a sample of the job before even assigning the work. That’s like asking a mechanic to work on your car and then deciding if you will pay them.
If the prices/rules don’t change, I’m sure many designers will leave.
Enough is enough. I have been outraged too many times now by being outbid by such ridiculously low bid’s that fall well below the minimum wage… the last one the client was willing pay less than £3.75 an hour. All I can say PPH is that if I was in India or the Phillipines I would be a very rich lady.
One fed up soon to be ex-PPH member.
I agree with the majority opinion.
I’ve been on PPH for two+ years as a writer, and I stopped bothering to bid on jobs as it was obvious that they were either jokers who had no idea how to put up a brief – things like “25 articles 7 per day, completely original, flat fee X”, or far below my lowest possible rate.
WIth no indication of subject matter or length it is impossible to know how to bid, and writers, unlike some of my colleagues above, do not have the overheads of needing specialist software but still need a realistic fee.
I have calculated my overheads and time taken to complete assignments, including downtime doing admin, etc. PPH clients consistently fall below these minimal levels.
The only reason I am still registered is it is too much bother to delete it. It would be more honest if this site was called “Race to the Bottom” or perhaps “We don’t believe in the minimum wage, suckers”
Stefani is correct. The minimum wage does not apply if you are freelance etc.
Most jobs I’ve subscribed to on PPH are a joke money wise. I have stopped bidding and no doubt should really delete myself from PPH!
Helder, thanks for saying what I feel. In a way I don’t blame employers for offering as little as they think they can get away with. My particular gripe is supposed freelancers (in reality hobbyists) who undercut professionals.
When I first went freelance almost twenty years ago the minimum rate for a writing job was around £90 per 1,000 words. I know the internet and other media has made writing easier now, but to see jobs advertised at £10 is bad enough – to know someone will do it for around £30 is even worse. It might be a few extra pounds to them; to us it’s our living. I don’t think they’d be very happy if I turned up where they work and offered to do their job for a quarter of their pay.
PPH – it’s up to you. Either insist on fair rates or lose all your decent freelancers.
I was asked to bid yesterday on a proof-reading and editing job. The project was 14,000 words that needed reading and editing with a very tight turnaround. The fee offered? £45 – £50. I bid for it, at what I feel is a reasonable rate to do this job and, surprise, surprise, didn’t get it. This is between eight and 10 hours work. Yes, I need work to survive, and I don’t want to completely price myself out of the market, but we must find a way of making sure our skills – which take years to hone – are valued properly.
I strongly feel PPH freelancers need to rid themselves of this concept of ‘minimum wage’, which IS entirely irrelevant to a global market of freelancers and clients – who set their own prices.
Instead we need to start thinking in terms of ‘realistic budget range’ (which is what PPH is now encouraging). I think PPH needs to push this point more.
Of course no-one should work for less than they feel they deserve, but NO-ONE is being forced by PPH, or the clients, to work at a rate they do not approve of.
Freelancers need to take responsibility as well, and instead look to the fact that a) clients CAN pay less sometimes for work of equal quality, b) in a global market you have to have to give good reason for your worth which is about speed, quality and experience, c) PPH is not the employer, so what we need to do jointly, is teach inexperienced clients WHY they should consider raising their budgets.
Telling people they are wrong, often does not change their mind. And thankfully PPH recognises this.
The new ‘is this a realistic budget’ feature is really good. And I feel PPH can take this a step further, and actually begin to encourage more appropriate budgets with real incentive, not just reasons and opinion.
As a client we get a red and green thumbs down and up respectively on our job budget as people rate it (There is also a comparison made between what we set our budget to be, and what freelancers have suggested it should be, and so a guide price is set by the community).
If this was shown on the job (the thumbs, not the pricing), then it would encourage freelancers to ‘click to rate’ more (like when quoting comment up and down on comments boards).
If not only this, but that the result of this voting somehow fed into the job system itself, so that freelancers could sort jobs by ‘how realstic the budget is’ according to our community, and awarding jobs that are in the near 100% margin some sort of FREE publicity you do many things:
One you reward the clients for choosing a good budget – which you can inform them of when they create the job, to encourage them to do just that.
Two you allow freelancers to sort through jobs and skip bad budgets, or actively see which clients deserve thumbs up and down and rate them, further increasing the effectiveness of the system.
Three you potentially raise income all round, especially due to the new ‘no bid below 80% of the minimum rule – which is just awesome). All good, and the exact opposite to other competing freelancer sites.
What I see so very often on PPH is freelancers bemoaning these things: not winning jobs, low budgets, cost of bidding credits and jobs which have become inactive. And I do understand.
A site like PPH is nothing without two things: quality freelancers and great clients.
Unfortunately in today’s world there is an abundance of freelancers, and a relative lack of clients. This makes competition high, and in the clients favour.
Thus, to draw in more clients is to offer them a service which is almost completely free. This is a no-brainer. What comes with this however is a percentage of clients and jobs that post and do not revisit; that find workers outside of the community and do not cancel the jobs; and a load of inexperienced clients starting out in business.
As freelancers we need to recognise the above. You WILL bid for jobs that go nowhere. No-one is obligated to award the work. Nor should they be.
And similarly there is a flooding of freelancers into the market. The sorting out of freelancers is somewhat easier, in that big budgets do not get awarded to freelancers with no experience or portfolio to show. However this doesn’t stop spam pitching.
Limiting bidding tokens is one way to dissuade complete spammers from taking over (though as we know this is a constant battle).
To sort the serious freelancers from those having a go is hard, not least because there is an submarket of inexperienced/young businesses wanting to employ them at cheap rates.
My advice, as a serious freelancer: Spot these jobs and IGNORE them.
As a community, we need to recognise we ourselves can help and educate, and improve this service, by offerring ideas.
PPH is in my opinion quite outstanding recently in terms of listening and improving (which always takes time). But we have to see PPH as a two-way street. PPH does not just work for us the freelancers, they work too for our clients, who are not the enemy.
We can tell PPH what is wrong and needs improving, but we have to offer insightful methods too, and remember that for every person saying budgets are too low, there are people prepared to work for that rate, and that is not PPHs fault – this is just where we’re at, and yes, we do have to accept that I’m afraid.
Clients have to sort out the best from a long list of freelancers (trust me), and so so too do the freelancers when applying for jobs.
Our work landscape is changing. We all need to adapt with it.
Sofia
I am also of the opinion that this is a great improvement. It is frustrating to see a ridiculously low budget, especially when you look at the Clarification board to see queries from people who can barely speak English and worse, these are soft bids. If you’re a top quality freelancer, you may well get disillusioned after bidding for job after job without any feedback, but eventually you will get your foot in the door and can then prove your worth.
Firstly, could I say that these posts should run the other way around. Whats the point of having the most recent at the bottom?
And with regards to PPH’s point regarding poor bids, I think it should come down to an education from the site itself – have a ‘rough price guide’ at the top of the site. Teach prospective clients that designers are not hobbyists with a Mac. and the site really should make it more difficult for the obviously non-qualified to place ludicrous bids for some pocket money.
If this is to be taken seriously as a legitimate provider, it has to spend time weeding out the dross.
I would rather like to have the option of simply filtering out the low bids that are a waste of time. Personally I don’t have the patience to “Educate Clients on these matters”.
Well, as a freelance writer from Eastern Europe, I want to offer a different view on this thing.
I see that a majority of UK-based freelancers are talking about some astronomic rates and brazenly insult clients who post anything that doesn’t satisfy their greed. Not only that, freelancers often (including on this blog) talk trash about people who work for lower fare. Guess what – there are some real pros outside UK who can write (or perform other jobs) just as well as you can and who are ready to take away your jobs by offering better prices. Isn’t that what free market is all about?
Besides, clients are not fools – I have to provide samples of previous every time and if I were no good, I wouldn’t have 10 jobs in 4 months and a five star rating with pretty good comments.
So even though I agree to all the measures aimed at protecting the competitive balance, I also would like to appeal on my colleagues to stop slandering people from other countries who are able to beat them for jobs fair and square. It’s not my fault life costs so much in the UK.
Admiring the hard work you put into your blog and in depth information you provide. It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same outdated rehashed information. Fantastic read! I’ve saved your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.