Find freelancers at the world's most-trusted online workplace.
Elance is where businesses go to find, hire, collaborate with and pay top online freelancers from 170+ countries. A community of over 2.5 million freelancers and 500,000 businesses, on Elance it's easy to hire a top freelancer. Find a developer, freelance designers or other talented freelancers with the most-demanded skills.
But more than freelance web developers, there's a world of talented people now freelancing on Elance. This includes talented application developers, software engineers, testers, network administrators, web designers, graphic designers, copywriters, market researchers, SEO experts, data analysts, social media marketers, translators, customer service agents, moderators, administrative assistants, accountants, lawyers and business consultants.
If you're looking to Work Differently and do great work while building teams of amazing freelancers, Elance is right for you.
Elance is a company, which is a virtual marketplace of Internet for freelance agencies and freelancers to negotiate the contracts related to work. It is an online employment platform managed globally. Here, clients hire independent professionals working as freelancers. They use online tools of collaboration which are used to manage projects and remote teams. Independent contractors make portfolios and online profiles. They submit job proposals and collaborate to receive payment through this website. As far as the skills are concerned, mobile and web programming along with development account for majority of them on this employment platform is approximately 59%.
Founders of Elance felt the need for technology which is competent of supporting virtual networks. They were inspired by the business review of Harvard. The first version of the site was inaugurated in 1999. After two years Elance introduced a system of vendor management for contractors along with third party services. According to data of February 2012, it is used by 140000 businesses and 1.4 million contractors.
Official Website:
For getting comprehensive knowledge about Elance, elance.com has been developed by some of the finest web developers. What is the most important thing that readers should be excited about? Various jobs are posted like mobile developers, administrators, designers, writers and accountants. www. elance.com facilitates you in registering the candidates. Candidates can post the jobs .They also have the choice to approve the work before payment. The website has certain parameters under which it works. Some of them can be hiring the people, tracking of progress, collaboration, safe payment and elimination of paperwork. The website helps to stay in touch with contractors. Every job is assigned a workroom where you collaborate with contractors and get maximum visibility to work in progress.
People Associated with It (Inventors and the Company Who Made It):
Elance has been getting attractive investments from the leading firms like Byers and Caulfield, Klenier and Perkins. First Mark Capital as well as New Enterprise Associates along with Stripes Group are the investors. As far as the management team is concerned, Fabio has great responsibility for the operations and strategy of Elance. He has almost 20 years of experience in the sectors of service and technology. Michael Culver is the vice president of Elance. He is responsible for management of human resources, corporate development, finance and other legal.
affairs of Elance. Michael has a powerful role in corporate development along with administration and finance. Jonathan is responsible for growing adoption and performs the task of customer operations on Elance platform. He has a degree of MBA, MIS and BS in biology from Arizona University. Apart from these awesome professionals, the task of marketing, enterprise sales, Engineering, Europe and Products are also managed by specific people, who are simply the best in discharging their duties successfully. Nidhi Gupta manages the operations of engineering and technical operations at Elance. She has good experience in leading and scaling engineering organizations with help of hyper growth and technical strategies.
Pros:
Getting a good experience from Elance as a freelancer has many pros. Some of the main advantages that have increased due to freelancing experience are referrals, knowledge transfer, project invitations, employment history and referrals. Freelancers have ample amount of good experience. As an individual completes more and more projects, his experience and feedback also increases to get into new proposals. Professional Portfolio grows and many more samples are given to prospective employers. Satiated Employers pass your name to friends and other relatives. This decreases the amount of time searching for projects. Completing more projects will enhance your knowledge base. Knowledge gained on 1 project can be used for another one.
Cons:
Everything in this world has its pros and cons. Elance is no exception. Elance has a long waiting period after the bidding is closed. Taking a decision after a long period of time is torturous and unnecessary. Getting delayed replies from the buyer is another common behavior from buyers. Sometimes they disappear without finishing. Enhanced fees for the services provided is another questionable issue, which is rather objectionable. For instance it requires you to pay monthly fees. Besides this, it also gets a 6.75 to 8 percent out of every project.
Features:
Apart from giving job options to many talented people in their field of choice, Elance has come out with 2 best features. The first is MyElance Redesign for providers as well as status reports and job tracker. Interface of new MyElance is the foundation stone and contains suggested additions which are available for the last couple of months. Some of the highlights are active links for current jobs, management of workrooms for various projects and jobs. Filtering capabilities are improved in order to navigate to multiple options.
Apart from this, status reports and job tracker is another feature of Elance. Clients are always up to date with the current status of a job. It is the best practice in professional services and particularly works for the kind of remote work which is performed in Elance. Status Report of Elance facilitates buyers and providers to stay in touch and exchange information about job status. It also contains tasks performed, working hours, attachments and other journal entries. Invoicing system of Elance is often interacted with status report to make invoices with just one click. In these providers ample time is saved during process of billing. Great visibility of buyer is also provided along with complete invoice and proper documentation. Status Reports are an excellent way of keeping clients up-to- date about the status of job. These reports help contractors along with clients to stay in contact with each other, in order to exchange information about the current status. Reports also include the progress against milestones as well as attachments and plans for the next week. Every status report includes ending date of week, current status of job, progress updates in form of percentage. File attachments and Billing section are also included in the report. A contractor will be asked a question or can mark job in the report itself.
How It Works:
The process of working is very simple. You can find huge number of clients who can hire the right candidates and make the payment negotiations thereafter. It is one of the leading sites for online tasks where many businesses are keen to work with professionals. Candidates are also required to communicate the talent by showcasing the portfolio and standing out from the crowd. Profile should be such that which manages your system of elegant portfolio. One should highlight its skills as well as other credentials. Best work should be published in order to attract consultants. Skills should be tested by verifying your credentials. Clients will be able to build a great list. Many businesses are also posting new jobs on Elance daily. Services should be proposed in order to get hired. Elance also has a working room where track of everything is related to the job. Online meetings as well as sharing of files can be done. Progress of the work can even be tracked. Payments collection is never a problem in Elance. The only thing to be kept in mind is delivering high quality work to the clients and gets paid thereafter. There is always security in the working of Elance. Candidates get paid from all over the world. Mode of getting payment is really very easy and safe. Skills are tested by experts before hiring anyone.
Price:
Elance is a place where posting a project is very easy to do and it is absolutely free. Quotes for posting include all the costs. There are no additional charges from Elance. It generates revenue by charging the contractors about 6.75 to 8.75 % of billings, which is less than the fees charged by firms along with personnel agencies. They give proper assistance to run and improve the work. In case you want additional help with your project, Elance offers some fixed packages of service that are exactly suitable for you. Buying an Elance service pack is simple as price is fixed. A standard process is followed where gathering of all the requirements is in detail. It enables you to choose from many concepts from several professionals. Purchasing a package is costing more than a big project. It is a good experience and guarantees your satisfaction.
Competitors:
Elance has also got good competition from many project outsourcing companies. Some of them are oDesk, Solvate, 99Desk, BPOVIA and service Central. ODesk enables both buyers as well as providers of tech services to develop business relationships around whole world. Solvate was founded in 2007 and based in city of New York. It helps people to utilize their time to the fullest. 99Desk.com is a global outsourcing solution to make freelance jobs. A secure platform is provided for all the freelancers working from home. BPOVIA is a leading virtual assistant along with Knowledge Process outsourcing which has its head office in China. The service central is also an online marketplace which matches the job requests of consumer along with contractors to finish the assignment as early as possible.
How is it Different from the Competitors?
The working procedure of Elance is different from that of its competitors. Comparing Elance, Guru and oDesk will evaluate the actual advantages and disadvantages of the other. Anyone cannot give an absolute answer to this question. All of them have their own ways of performing the work. The site should have a policy of arbitration to make the decision. Guru and Elance have Escrow type of payment. It reduces the risk for both provider and buyer. ODesk has on the other hand has two types of projects which is fixed price assignments and hourly assignments. Fixed price assignments don’t have escrow system and are risky. Fees are other criteria for differentiation as one does not want to give a lot of money to the site. ODesk possesses a simple fee structure. No membership is required. It will take 10% fees from the pay. Elance has a more complicated fee structure. It charges a small percentage from the credit card company. Membership of Elance is highly recommended to obtain projects and is not free. Guru works in the same way as compared to Elance. After adopting membership, additional features are obtained as well as lower fees. Total fees is equivalent to 5 % of additional credit charges.
Results:
Candidates, who are in search of job and as an employer who wants to get the right candidates, will find Elance a very good option to work with. It has proved to be one of the leading jobs for job-seekers. It offers immediate access to all the qualified professionals who are working online and provides all the tools to hire and track the report of work as it progresses. Elance is committed to follow your passion. No matter you are a business person or a professional providing service, it gives you all the tools which are required to hire top talent and take interesting tasks. A new way to work is the main idea, which helps in growing the companies.
Conclusion (Whether it is Worth Buying or Not):
Elance is an online workplace where businesses get and hire people on demand to manage all the work quickly and effectively. Elance platform allows businesses to search, hire, find, pay and manage qualified professionals. Individuals as well as firms join Elance who create online profiles to be immediately connected to businesses thus checking their expertise level. Elance is one of the leading workplace for hiring and working on demand. This company is located in California near Mountain View.
Return of Investment when Buying this:
The return of investment as regards to Elance is significantly better as compared to other sites. The reason is very simple. With Elance, you can get everything at one location. You save much of your precious time as well as money to get exactly the thing you want. It is much better a option related to hiring of professionals as well as choosing the right person to work with.
Coupons or Discounts (if any):
Elance also gives you the privilege of coupons or discounts to all the people who want to work as freelancers. People often get free work at home success kit costing a few dollars after signing up hundreds of freelancing jobs. The discounts in form of coupons are given in order to attract more and more people to attract to Elance. In most of the cases, success kit is offered to hundreds of freelance jobs. These coupons are getting popular day by day.
