eLance vs. Freelancer?

Hi guys. I did not know whether or not this was discussed, so I just opened a new thread.

I'm a new member to this forum, and I would have to say that I'm at least interested in the idea of being able to do freelance work. I am a college student who is doing 15 credit hours, working a part time internship, and some other activities that I would not like to go into right now. The only problem is that my internship is unpaid, and I need to find a way to earn some cash.

While looking at the countless online opportunities out there, I learned about eLance and Freelancer. It seemed like a lot of the projects on there were IT stuff, and although I have little to no formal education in Computer Sciences, I am pretty handy with computers. A lot of them sounded like things to do with JPGs or Excel, and maybe I might be able to do some light web design. I would not mind devoting 2-3 hours a day on some of these projects if they can prove to be profitable. I don't mind being hired as an independent contractor, but I would like the tax crap to be easy to take care of if I get hired, and I would like the legal stuff to be pretty easy to deal with. I would like to not pay anything to start working, but if I have to, I need to know all of the costs since I am pretty limited to what I can spend as it is.

I guess what I want to know are:

1) From my description, does it sound like I could benefit from freelance work?

2) Which is better for me? eLance or Freelancer.com?

3) Since I have no formal education, are there some tests or evaluations I can take and use for resumes and my profile that will give potential employers a good idea of what my proficiency in certain programs are? I can pick up almost any program pretty easily, but I think it would make a difference if I can have something to put on paper.

Thanks to anyone who replies back with some helpful advice. It will take me awhile to decide for myself if this is for me, but I will consider everything that is said on this forum.

-Timster

First off all you will ever get is an independent contractor position so you're going to have to figure your taxes out. It isnt that hard.

As for your skills description, you haven't named any marketable skills. Being handy with computers is a fairly vague description. What type of work do you have in mind?

As for the sites, who told you that you had to be exclusive to one of them? You could just go on both. They both suck because people who go there are looking to pay peanuts so I'd say that its even. Just remember that on those sites you are competing with offshore companies who are happy to get paid near nothing for a poor quality product.

Hey there. Thanks for replying.

I guess if I had to describe some of my skills, I am proficient with Microsoft Office (Who isn't?), so I would not mind doing some work that involved filling out data on Excel spreadsheets. I have also done some work on the side as an IT assistant for some of the people in town who have computer problems, so I've helped them by removing malicious add-ons to Internet Explorer and also by updating all of their virus definitions, but that doesn't seem like something I can do on a freelance website. I have done a little bit of website editing as a gig, but if I'm going to do that, I need to get better at it and use a non-freeware program as well, right?

Thanks for replying about the websites though. I may just stick with one site for now because I have so many different online activities right now that I'm starting to lose track of some of them.

Sorry, I don't know if my skills description helps, but that is all I can think of in terms of marketable skills right now.

I don't see much money in any of those, not as a freelancer. If I recall both those sites are free to join so why not take a look and see what there is? You dont really have anything to lose by doing so.

I use elance and freelancer and get quite a bit of work from them, you don't have to be exclusive to just one. There are many other freelance sites out there so don't limit yourself.

As VG said you really didn't list your expertise, may I ask what your internship is for?

never used elance... but for me.. i think freelancer is the best

Their are many other sites like scriptlance & odesk try them they are also good..

Scriptlance is a pretty solid choice...I used them for a while as a buyer. And don't worry about being the lowest bid, an intelligent individual rarely chooses the lowest bid.

Provide quality work whatever you choose to do and you will get more business.

Also Elance have strict joining and using for beginners, like first time address confirmation etc.