Suggestion: Encourage clients to use the ProZ bidding system
Thread poster: Raider2294
Raider2294
Raider2294  Identity Verified
Canada
Local time: 13:08
French to English
+ ...
May 11, 2007

I have taken a lot of time to enter my profile in ProZ, and yet it seems that more and more people want bidders to submit a seperate email. This takes a lot of time and requires additional effort when all the information is readily available. If it is a case of applying for a full-time job, I can see why an email would be preferred, but these are small contracts. Can this practice be discouraged?

 
Marcelo Silveyra
Marcelo Silveyra
United States
Local time: 10:08
Member (2007)
German to English
+ ...
I sort of agree May 11, 2007

As far as the hassle goes, I completely agree with Nathan. It takes time to complete our profiles and it took the staff at ProZ time to program the bidding system, so it only seems logical that clients/outsourcers should use it.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that many people will simply go somewhere else if they're not allowed to just ask for e-mail submissions. Employers are typically lazy in this way....they make you fill out cumbersome and poorly-planned online resume forms, answer long-w
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As far as the hassle goes, I completely agree with Nathan. It takes time to complete our profiles and it took the staff at ProZ time to program the bidding system, so it only seems logical that clients/outsourcers should use it.
Unfortunately, I'm afraid that many people will simply go somewhere else if they're not allowed to just ask for e-mail submissions. Employers are typically lazy in this way....they make you fill out cumbersome and poorly-planned online resume forms, answer long-winded questionnaires and include cover letters that they barely even read because they all look the same, etc., but if you ask them to take the time to do anything, that's too much to ask (there goes human resources....). And I was talking about formal, full-time engineering jobs in high demand and low supply. Apply it to translators, and God (or your deity of choice) knows what will happen.
To me, it's all a delicate balance between getting the employer to be less lazy and making sure he just doesn't leave in a spoiled fuss. My recommendation is to have a generic e-mail template that you only have to modify slightly and send as an "umbrella message" for most jobs. I certainly don't write a new e-mail for each job; the time spent on that adds up and, before you know it, you're losing actual work time on writing e-mails (of which a large part doesn't t even get answered). And I always send a link to my ProZ profile apart from my website link....I worked hard on the damn thing, and I want people to see it!
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Heinrich Pesch
Heinrich Pesch  Identity Verified
Finland
Local time: 19:08
Member (2003)
Finnish to German
+ ...
Personal contact? May 11, 2007

As I see it, when you use the bidding system the outsourcer can not communicate directly but has to ask seperately for you mail address. And you cannot send attachments via the bidding system.
I myself prefer to answer directly, then I can address the outsourcer personally by name. At the same time I can prove, that I am able to communicate without typos, which is not the case when you use automated systems.
The bidding system displays, how many bids have been sent already. That can
... See more
As I see it, when you use the bidding system the outsourcer can not communicate directly but has to ask seperately for you mail address. And you cannot send attachments via the bidding system.
I myself prefer to answer directly, then I can address the outsourcer personally by name. At the same time I can prove, that I am able to communicate without typos, which is not the case when you use automated systems.
The bidding system displays, how many bids have been sent already. That can be a noisance in many ways. There was this posting about a rush job, which had no bidding at the second day. So I launched my bid, raised my rates and got the job. Otherwise the outsourcer would have got my services cheaper.

That's how I see it.

Regards
Heinrich
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Suggestion: Encourage clients to use the ProZ bidding system






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