How I won a job on my first day on Rent A Coder
By phpORcaffeine
Rent A Coder Coder
Some people take a bit of time to land their first job.
Others find instant success. What's the difference between the two?
PhpORcaffeine shares the techniques that enabled him to win a job on his first
DAY on the site...and land five more during just his first week! (...at the time
of writing this article, he had won only two of the five).
I created my account on Dec. 8th 2006 and I won and completed my first job on
Dec 8th 2006. Right now I have two other bids that I have won and am
working with.
I'm not naive though, I know it isn't always that easy
but I do believe that some things I did directly contributed to my quick success
and I would like to share those methods with you (for article / knowledge base
purposes).
- Listen
and follow the
rentacoder.com rules about communicating off site DO NOT DO IT. What's
more is that if you don't act like you would, most buyers won't even ask you
to. If they do, you must resist. If they threaten action of some sort
because you won't, then report them to a facilitator immediately (do so with
professionalism though). I realize off site communication is much faster and
most of you will still do it. My rule of thumb is that if you go off site,
do not discuss details or additions/subtractions to the project. Save that
for the RAC project message thread.
- Your
first bid on a project SHOULD NOT be a monetary bid, you want the buyer to
see that you are interested in their project, not just there money. Ask
questions and make sure you get clear explanations to EVERYTHING. Make sure
everything is in the project message thread. If the buyer doesn't respond to
your first bid (comment) then I would consider pursuing a different project.
If the buyer does respond then by all means continue. Once you have a CLEAR
definition of the scope of the project, THEN make your monetary bid (it's
always easier to back out before you make a monetary bid and get accepted).
- Do not
copy/paste your bid's or use generic bid text. I wouldn't buy services from
a bot (or generic text), neither will most other people. The buyer gets the
sense that you didn't even bother to read the description and is usually
hesitant to select you. Some will just ignore you. I want a coder that will
reference things I said in my description, that way I know they read the
description that I took time to write and that I am talking to a real
person.
- DO NOT
bid on projects that you are 'iffy' about. Unless you are 100% sure that you
CAN and WILL do it, don't make a monetary bid on it. Bidding on things you
can't or don't end up doing only serves to hurt the effectiveness of the
rentacoder.com system and hurts your reputation if the project goes to
arbitration.
Above all, treat the RAC system and RAC users on the system as co-workers in an
office environment. With discipline, this can become a full time job! Treat it
as such!
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