Wednesday, September 19, 2012

What your picture says about you

If you are an intensive user of the freelance networks - as I am - you will easily notice a lot of choices regarding the profile pictures. Some will prefer to hide their identity and post a picture with an avatar, somehow related to their work recommendations. The most used are a computer for the IT specialists and a pen for a freelance writer. 

There are also some that did not make a difference between their hobbies and their tailored profiles and thus they selected as professional recommendations images with favorite pets and various spots visited during their vacations. If the last choice could be a decent option after all, in the case of the pets pictures, I will think more than twice before hiring someone that considered that his representative picture should be a cat or a monkey. 

Last but not least, some decided to upload pictures with their children - could impress the audience when you realize that you will help the person to feed his/her family, but probably it doesn't work for all - or with their lovely spouses. Not few of them are fake and use other people's pictures randomly stolen from the social media networks or from Google. 

What I honestly prefer is a decent picture, when you can say something about yourself, with a professional look that will inspire the potential employer to work with you and not with anyone else. 

Friday, September 7, 2012

Less spam on Freelancer

After quite a long time when at least once the month I was somehow affected by a spam employer on Freelancer.com, I was more than happy to notice the introduction of a new option: the 'verified account'. Thus, before you bid to a project, you will be able to check the accountability of the company or person that you are supposed to work with. 

The checking involves the financial situation, as well as the identity of the employer. Another interesting feature that helps the bidders and employers is the option of checking the dashboards for evaluations, new messages for projects you applied as well as other details of your submissions. 

Good news for me and for other current users of Freelancer.com