I’ve been talking to a lot of freelance writers over the last few months as I work on some information products I plan to launch in the near future. One of the most hotly contested topics that has been brought up during these discussions are the advantages and disadvantages of job boards. There seems to be an even split of those who absolutely love sites such as oDesk and Freelancer to source new writing gigs while others avoid them like the plague.
The advantages of these services are easily recognizable; a large number of potential clients and projects to bid on, most handle escrow payments, a feedback system to rate both freelancers and clients, etc. What might not be as apparent to newcomers are the disadvantages to using job boards to attract new clients. I wanted to outline a few of the items that I found to be rather discouraging for those that may be looking at using them in the near future to secure some online writing jobs.