I'm a bit of an Odesk mega-user, I'm on all the time. And while Odesk is my favorite of the freelancer sites, there are a few things that in my mind would improve the experience significantly.
1) Being able to search by more specific ratings:
Personally, I rarely hire freelancers with ratings of lower than 4.9. Yet, the search function only allows me to choose 4.5 to 5, 4 to 4.5, etc. With these categories, it takes me far too long to search for top freelancers. I'd prefer if you used a movable bar to set the range, as you do with dollar amount. Does anyone ever click the 1 to 1.9 category anyway?
Also, I'd like to be able to sort candidates by how many review they have. If they have a 5.0 based on one review, that tells me very little. I'd like it if I could click, as I can on Elance, that they need at least 5 review, 10 reviews, etc.
2) Clicking on Links
It is very common for freelancers to provide links to websites they've created. Yet, each time I click on a link, it takes me to a "You are now leaving Odesk" page. I must have spent at least an hour of my life on that page. It's unnecessary, we all know what a link is.
3) Inviting freelancers to bid
If I search for freelancers and want to invite them to bid, it takes a long time and it takes me away from my search results. When I hit contact it then takes me to a different screen, I fill in this form, submit it, and only then does it take me back to the results page, but with a lightbox over the search results. What I have begun to do is to right click on contact for each person I want to invite, then open them in a new tab so that I can keep searching for new people, then I go from tab to tab to invite them all at once. By the time I've invited the last person, the first one has finished loading, and I can close all the tabs. It would be much better if the default process didn't disrupt the flow of checking out other freelancers.
4) Locations
Freelancers in the US are listed with their town and country only, without the State. So if their town is Springfield, I have no way of knowing if it's Springfield, Massachusets or Springfield, Illinois, or one of the several other Springfields throughout the US. And with small towns, I've mostly never heard of them, so I have no idea what region or time zone they're in. It's a simple fix, put in the State.
5) Exclusions
There are certain jobs that I post for which I'm willing to consider someone from the Phillipines, Bangladesh, etc., and there are certain jobs that I post when I'm not. For instance, if I put down a job for a social media manager, I'm guaranteed to get around 50 Bangladeshi's applying (they must teach social media in high school there) and yet for all of those applicants, I've never seen one with a full grasp of English grammar. For certain jobs, I just X out candidates based on location without even looking at their applications. It would be great, if for the jobs when I knew that I didn't want applicants from certain countries or regions, if I could just exclude them and they wouldn't even see the job posting. It certainly does them no benefit to be applying for jobs they have no chance for, and just sucks up my time going through and eliminating them.
6) Private Notes
I like the Elance feature of being able to write notes to myself about various candidates and being able to give them a rating. It helps me keep everyone straight in my mind.
Thanks so much. I welcome any response to the feedback.
Dave
