I've been doing contract work for three years; 95% of my work has come from Craigslist or from referrals from people who I connected with through Craigslist. You have to wade through an incredible amount of junk, but the volume on CL can't be touched anywhere else, and there <i>is</i> good stuff in there. I look in computer gigs and I also periodically post an abridged version of my resume in the resume section.<p>Other places I've found stuff include Dice.com, 37signals Gigs Board, Freelance Switch, and AuthenticJobs.<p>I get a lot of recruiters for contract jobs contacting me through Dice, my resume post on CL, and my blog. That might not be the kind of thing you're looking for, but it doesn't hurt.
This was from an another HN thread (HN Contractors) - <a href="https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJEodCA&hl=en#gid=0" rel="nofollow">https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?key=tk7rUIb-2aPdk_5gFJE...</a><p>I've been contacted for work through it.
I got most of my contract work via networking in the local tech scene using twitter and going to a couple of events, and just generally jumping at random opportunities. Replying to local people who are urgently looking for a small job to be done is by far the easiest route to get yourself out there. Once you gain a reputation of being good at what you do, people will start referring you work.<p>For what it's worth, I'm fairly introverted, and talking to random people isn't all that easy for me, yet I seem to have managed just fine[1]. All I did was talk to people what they were working on, what I did, and random techy banter. The idea is to make people remember you when they need stuff done, not sell yourself right there and then. This probably only works for techy customers, if you're designing web sites for random businesses you might want to use a different strategy.<p>[1] I'm offered far more work than I could possibly accept 2 1/2 years later, rates increasing steadily, and I don't even have a website.
IMHO, the problem with oDesk and most freelance job boards is that they are lemon markets[1] and are therefore disadvantageous to good programmers. If we take the analogy from the used car market explained in Wikipedia and adapt it to the freelance programming market:<p>[...] the problem of quality uncertainty. It concludes that <i>good programmers</i> will not <i>offer</i> their <i>service</i> on the <i>freelance</i> market. This is sometimes summarized as "the bad driving out the good" in the market.<p>That being said, I would suggest you contact companies directly to offer your services or look for <i>specialized</i> job boards where buyers know exactly what they are looking for.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons</a>
Are you near a college with a decent CS department? Go there. Seriously. In no other place is there such a high concentration of talented individuals who are willing to work for bargin rates. Put up some flyers, get an announcement in the departmental newsletter, and buy candidates a cup of coffee once you get a good set of potentials. Of course, there is an upper bound on the talent/quality you are going to find. But depending on the type of work you need done it could work out great.
A few years ago I used rentacoder.com (now known as vworker.com) and made about $10K in 3 months. I made the majority of the money from doing a good job on something (generally at a very low price) and then getting repeat business from outside the bidding system.<p>Most fun project was writing some software that showed prospective patients what their teeth would look like after having their teeth bleached!
I created this little site that aggregates around 10 fairly decent freelance job boards: <a href="http://jobs.plasis.co.uk" rel="nofollow">http://jobs.plasis.co.uk</a>
Avoid them all, you will only find pain in that strategy, kind of like 6 pool. Focus on building your network of contacts, they will be the source of most of your work, mainly through word of mouth and referrals.
Sorry if this isn't helpful, but the direct approach has always worked for me (and job boards not so much). I try to contact people I'd like to work with on IRC, Skype, or just through email.<p>I include a few links and that has worked alright for me.
If you are anywhere near Washington, DC check out <a href="http://www.socialmatchbox.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.socialmatchbox.com</a>. There are not a crushing number of freelance jobs there, but there are some good ones with startups, consulting companies, and interactive agencies.
I started using this strategy yesterday: <a href="http://sivers.org/how2hire" rel="nofollow">http://sivers.org/how2hire</a><p>From the CD Baby guy. It's pretty straightforward and so far I'm getting decent responses.
I've had success with this one: <a href="http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/" rel="nofollow">http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/</a><p>It works the other way around. Job listing is free; job seeker has to pay.
Speaking of job boards, are there any with non-trivial number of remote/telecommuting gigs or permanent positions ? The ones mentioned here have few if any such jobs.