Are sites like Elance and Guru worth the money?

[SamIchi]

I'm still a student and I only have minimal experience with commisions. Would it be worth it worth it to join one of these freelance bidding sites? Would they even consider me? Does anyone here use these site? Thanks for the input!

[oscuh]

I'd say your better bet is to create a portfolio pack and send it out/hand deliver to local agencies. They're more apt to use you after meeting you and seeing your work, even if it doesn't come right away. I've gotten freelance work years after meeting with someone because they kept my stuff on file.

Elance and sites like that tend to degarde into bidding wars, so you end up doing gobs of work for very little money.

I've also used creativehotlist.com to find local talent when I was swamped with work. Check them out. I believe sign-up is free.

[SamIchi]

I'd say your better bet is to create a portfolio pack and send it out/hand deliver to local agencies. They're more apt to use you after meeting you and seeing your work, even if it doesn't come right away. I've gotten freelance work years after meeting with someone because they kept my stuff on file.

Elance and sites like that tend to degarde into bidding wars, so you end up doing gobs of work for very little money.

I've also used creativehotlist.com to find local talent when I was swamped with work. Check them out. I believe sign-up is free.

Thanks for the input, I'll take a look at that site.

[daze]

I am using elance.com to get some work, but have chosen the free option. The problem with that is you can only bid on 2 or 3 jobs a month, as far as I know. I have won nothing yet, so it seems a bit of a gamble. I would much rather look elsewhere to get jobs without getting into a silly bidding war and letting elance.com get more out of it than the person trying to win a job.

Daze