I initially went to the sites listed above, but eh...every job had hundreds of bids offering absurd rates (no, you are not going to build a Facebook clone for $200 dollars in 10 days).
Anyone have any tips on how to find clients who understand the market and are willing to pay for quality work?
* Don't try and compete on price. A lot of freelancers on the site can go lower, and you'll end up broke. Besides, if a client is more interested in saving a few dollars than paying for a decent worker, you're saving yourself a lot of future pain.
* When you apply for something, say what you'll do and give a rough idea of how you'll solve their problem. It only has to be a few paragraphs, but you'll have put more thought in than 99% of other applicants.
* Look for jobs that mention an ongoing relationship. This usually means they have a lot more work and want to try things out.
All of my work now comes from referrals which in some way originate from the first job I did on oDesk. It was discouraging when I was rejected for jobs despite putting in the effort, but the work paid off in the end. Best of luck!
Agreed, it's a game that you're not going to win. I found that even if a client said "No way, that's my limit," they'd often come back a day later asking me to work for the original amount of money I'd quoted.
I recently blogged about how I got started freelancing here:
http://tbbuck.com/winning-your-first-freelance-job-on-vworke...
One thing I would recommend is looking for potential clients that need help with blogs, especially in a non-technical field. If they're at the point where they're paying for help, they probably have a good network of friends they can refer you to if you do a good job.
2. Haven't touched oDesk since my first job there. I might use it again in the future, but to be honest I found searching for work there rather depressing with all the low rates.
We've been using Odesk for about 5 years now for overflow and large projects. From the buyer side of things, communication is key. If you can communicate well and promptly it will go a long way towards instilling confidence in the buyer.
For buyers just going to Odesk for the first time, expect to be bitten in the ass a few times. All of the knowledge in the world isn't going to save you from having a developer half a world away bail on you for no reason.
Look for freelancers that are a part of a group, as a whole they are more responsible than single freelancers.