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danieltillett
As an irregular employer of 'talent' on freelancing websites I have come to the opinion that they are all terrible. You find amazing people who can solve incredibly hard problems, but there is no consistent way of doing this. No matter what the job, the pay, the communication, etc it is a total crap shoot if you get a faker who will waste your time or someone competent. I now just hire two or three people at the same time and hope one works out.
seanwilson
> As an irregular employer of 'talent' on freelancing websites I have come to the opinion that they are all terrible. You find amazing people who can solve incredibly hard problems, but there is no consistent way of doing this. No matter what the job, the pay, the communication, etc it is a total crap shoot if you get a faker who will waste your time or someone competent. I now just hire two or three people at the same time and hope one works out.

Can you not tell from e.g. their portfolio or a short interview?

danieltillett
Unfortunately not. I do hire for unusual and difficult projects (i.e. skills I don’t have in house) so this is not unexpected. I have worked with some amazing people over the years so it is not all bad, just very frustrating how hit-and-miss the whole process is.

Any freelancing site that can figure out how to solve the ‘faker’ problem will be a massive success.

inputcoffee
One of the tells that I have found:

1. If they ask a lot of detailed questions, they are likely to be good. (What platform? Who is the customer? Anything working at present and so on)

2. If they tell you not to worry, and that all your problems will be solved, run.

danieltillett
I agree with you on 2, but 1 is a bit more problematic. The worst offenders seem to be people who are fronts for hidden “teams”. The front person is good, but the backend people are very often terrible.
inputcoffee
That is a good point. That has happened too. And I hate getting on the phone frequently to make sure I am even talking to the same person.
kintamanimatt
These are generally the bottom of the barrel freelancing sites. I'm not sure why they seem to be presented as the crème de la crème.
Matachines
Because people who make "awesome X" and "curated" lists do it for the GitHub stars and just accept any suggestions/PRs without checking if they're good or not.