How likely would you hire a freelacer who has no oDesk experience.

[vedney]

Assuming they had a fleshed-out profile, passed tests related to your postings with at least 20%, and had a well-written overview

Would you give them a shot or would you rather place safe(r) and pick a freelancer who already has good feedback.

Or is it the cover letter, regardless of oDesk experience, that sways you toward a specific freelancer?

[aseembhalla]

I think that a presentable work experience is more important than odesk experience when I hire for graphics designing work.

In case a contractor has some odesk history, feedback comments and number of rehires are more important than the stars and number of jobs.

[gd90]

number of rehires

How do you find this out? Feedback comments don't always make clear that the job is a repeat experience.

[suznee]

You would almost have to click on every job they have done to see if it is a repeat. Might be ok if they have only had a few jobs, but could be someone who does 100 or more fixed rate. So next to impossible to tell if it is repeat unless they let you know or you go through their ratings and jobs.

[prestonhunter]

I intentionally try to hire a mix of experienced people as well as newbies.

[aseembhalla]

If the job details are not private, client details are shown along with the job feedback. You can click on the job and see the client details in pop up. I mostly check for the first few jobs at least.