New system aimed primarily at matching newer sellers with buyers
So now it seems I have to wait two hours before I can bid for a job. This is extremely unfair. Not only do experienced creatives/designers have to compete with an unfair playing field, ie people offered to do a job for £10 when it is clearly worth £100, we are now not allowed to bid for jobs as soon as they appear on PPH. What kind of system is this?!
Awful. Unfair. Unprofessional. Discriminatory.
Regards
C. Howe
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Sellers from Pakistan and India have pleaded for a very long time that PPH use skrill. Why would they do that if it doesn't affect how much money they get to keep?
Buyers are indeed degrading, but would they be so brazen with job values if offshore teams weren't making low-cost proposals?
We have some awful buyers. No spec. Awful English (including people from the UK). Awful budget. Clueless.
It would be fair enough if the supplied services were broadly equivalent at the reduced cost, but time and time again we hear of people being let down and I frequently see sellers on the clarification boards unable to string an English sentence together and unable to properly understand the requirement. I've had anecdote after anecdote about issues with Indian, Pakistani and Russian developers. You might see this as a racist comment, but I've also worked in software development with people from these countries and they have been brilliant. The people I've worked with aren't the same ones that are touting their skills for £2 an hour. Nor would I touch with a bargepole any UK national offering skills at that price-point or anywhere near it.
Lets suppose I am a 'quality buyer' ( I know my business, have a spec and money to spend ), I've heard about PPH and take a look at sellers and also at jobs on offer.
It looks like I'm in the six-poundland of suppliers. Given what I see, is this really where I can find quality people?
I really wonder how many quality clients walk when they see the clarification questions, project specs and budgets for the first time?
I will continue to believe that overseas suppliers are driving down project values and the reputation of PPH and I suspect the bargain basement uk-providers are either desperate to get their first job on PPH, or really fronting overseas operations via the UK.
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We've seen the awful budgets put forward by some buyers. With all this talk of the influence of overseas sellers, this afternoon I've come across a job posted in good English by an Indian buyer - rate $20 an hour. It puts to shame some of our UK buyers and would no doubt be a top-notch rate for anyone in India.
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Well this is certainly my most interesting "skill of the day" for a while " "Purpose Built Raspberry Pi or equal water quality monitoring system" because of your skills in Prepress *. A step up from Russian translation and jewellery designer. I would love to know what algorithms these jokers are using, my inbox is so clogged with bilge such as this I'm missing the good stuff in between :(
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Hi Malcolm,
I do that to the best of my ability but this morning for example I logged on to 27 emails that all started with People Per Hour. In amongst the 'you have been selected' crap there was a 'you have been invited' one. I wouldn't mind if the selected ones hit my skills in any way, am not a techie but surely it can't be that hard to send out skill appropriate alerts?
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Deb,
I have to admit I've only just recently become an approved seller (although I've been registered on the site for a while), so as of yet, I am not receiving the level of emails that some users of this site seem to be, however I think I've had one of those 'you have been invited' ones, which wasn't for me so I think I just hit the DEL key. Watch this space I guess.....
I don't know what email client/program you use, but you should be able to create a subfolder in your inbox (or wherever you want to put it), and just move the emails to that, to get rid of them, or just delete them all. However I understand that they must be annoying. I have my own theories (which might have already been mentioned), as to what is happening with the skill keywords and alerts, which might take a fair while to explain.
One thing I would say though, is that I've worked in IT support, and one thing (in the majority of cases) you NEVER DO is DEPLOY something WITHOUT HAVING TESTED IT FIRST, simply because you've got the potential to cause mass chaos. I would have probably been FIRED if I'd done what PPH seem to have done. Lack of communication also seems to be a problem with them for some reason. Anyway, there's my current thoughts to add to the mix.
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one thing (in the majority of cases) you NEVER DO is DEPLOY something WITHOUT HAVING TESTED IT FIRST, simply because you've got the potential to cause mass chaos.
Absolutely.
I would have probably been FIRED if I'd done what PPH seem to have done.
You have more problems firing the people at the top that sanctioned this system and agreed it could go live.
It's all quite normal for PPH. Crazy idea? let's go with it - see what happens ( at least that's how it seems ).
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Paul,
'surely it can't be that hard to send out skill appropriate alerts?
That's the whole point. It is that hard. Impossible for PPH to do reliably.'
I'm not sure that it's that difficult at all.
In a nutshell, where I reckon part of the problem could be, is the key skills themselves, and how they link to each other, and PPH's understanding of how they link, if that makes any sense?
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I'm not sure that it's that difficult at all.
LOL, that could probably have been pulled from the initial discussion at PPH!
part of the problem could be, is the key skills themselves, and how they link to each other, and PPH's understanding of how they link,
Yes, that makes sense and that's why it's incredibly hard for PPH to do this.
PPH have to identify the skills required by the job itself. The buyer themselves may not be able to articulate the required skills at all, may mis-identify them or may specify them vaguely. PPH identifies the required skills through keywords associated with and in the job description.
Imagine someone wants a designer for a website.
They could say they want a Designer ( totally vague "I need a designer for my website" ) or someone good at design ("I need my flipping website built, you need to be good at design"), or maybe as bad as "website needs to be built".
In all those cases, the buyer wants more or less the same thing. The might mis-categorize the actual job so it doesn't look like website design at all, but even with my three examples, understandable to the human reader, identifying what kind of designer is required, let alone that a designer is actually wanted, is darn difficult.
So the system may well identify that a designer is required, but is it the right kind of designer and how do you match that with sellers? If design is mentioned, will any kind of designer do?
We are seeing in this thread messages of the kind "Because of your skills in XXX you are perfectly suited to.." coming from PPH. I've had them myself. I can say that PPH are quite good with my recommendations, but my area of expertise is easier to bracket than many and I'm interested in quite a broad spectrum of jobs.
It seems to me that PPH is always going to mess up the recommendations. The whole thing is just too subtle to do at all reliably.
Worse still, I understand they are using the same idea to decide who will be allowed to make a proposal for a given job. That is scary.
I once made a proposal for a pure design job - to design a user interface. I told the buyer that they really needed more and that I'd make the software as well.
The proposal was accepted. In this brave new world I could have just as well have been excluded from making a proposal.
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Paul,
LOL, thank you for writing all that. Why? Because I probably couldn't have put it better myself, and you've saved me the job of writing all that :)
This really sums it up though:
'PPH have to identify the skills required by the job itself. The buyer themselves may not be able to articulate the required skills at all, may mis-identify them or may specify them vaguely. PPH identifies the required skills through keywords associated with and in the job description.'
Spot on. And I've seen plenty of evidence of this on the job boards.
In a lot of cases, even when the buyer has written a fairly good description, there is usually a need to ask further questions though.
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I get what you are saying but I am a writer and all my listed skills are writing related so while I understand why I was sent this one "Need an Article to be written in Spanish (translated to english) (2000 words approx)" because of your skills in Blog writing " **where on earth does the association come from for these two "Looking for a freelance cufflinks designer to design some aviation related cufflinks" because of your skills in Jewellery design "** and "Purpose Built Raspberry Pi or equal water quality monitoring system" because of your skills in Prepress". The highlighted skills are about as far removed from my skill set as you can get and I actually had to Google 'Prepress'. .As always it's seems to be a case of put up and shut up cos they ain't going to stop...
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Deb,
I don't know whether that comment was directed at me or not, but if you read carefully what Paul has put (not saying you haven't), and apply that reasoning to your case, you may begin to understand why you're having the problems your having? (not meaning to sound rude there btw)
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In fairness, I should have articulated that while I highlighted the problem with identifying skills for a job, I should also have said that the same problem applies in identifying sellers with the right skills.
When you put the two problems together, you can see why it goes wildly wrong, as identified by Deb.
I understand completely why people not working in IT have difficulty understanding why this problem exists.
I don't understand why PPH ever thought this was easy and didn't test this system properly beforehand.
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Off - topic
@Cornucopia law My jaw dropped when I saw this and somone actually applied to do it:
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,'May I advise unfortunately the sample quality level is not satisfactory to proceed forward while I would like to be sincere and explain why start to finish by taking some time. I would like to reflect on my decision, hoping it may help you by taking just one sentence and reasoning why it is very poorly written - We can create space and light with clever yet subtle changes that makes the best use of the space afforded giving families and friends ample room to run around in.
a) after 'afforded' must be a comma, otherwise the long sentences are a mingled mess without them;
b) some spots do not sound commercially viable in any way - 'room to run around in';
c) it is obviously grammatical incorrect if 'around' is followed by 'in';d) Generally the purposeful elaboration was poorly boasting the subject, the construction company and some sentences sounded rather clumsy for the semiadvert writing.
If not for some obvious erros, a)-c), I would honour my promise of asking for the trial shot to be paid for, but it is too much of the discrepance from the anticipated, in the light of your profile, against the final result, I would rate 3-4 out of 10. No doubt it may be good for bot reading, but not for human, unless you misunderstood the purpose.
Many thanks,
JonasCan someone please read the above and tell me their thoughts? This guy's just rejected my invoice for £20 and on grounds of grammar, but his own grammar is appalling, I think he's trying to fleece me, I've lodged a dispute, but just wanted to see what everyone else thought. I'm shaking I'm so angry.
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@Gillian, I am so sorry this has happened to you too hun, in one of my earlier posts I said the same thing had happened to me and your experience is just more proof of what I have been saying on here about the massive difference between being able to speak English to be understood and being able to read and write it. This is happening far too often now and it won't just be you and me. I sincerely hope PPH have the balls to make sure you get paid as this is diabolical and its no wonder we are all getting so sick. x
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He's agreed to pay and he's rejected the invoice and he's now threatening me by suggesting he'll leave poor feedback if I continue with a dispute. His own grammar and spelling is appalling - and I just can't believe he can get away with this. How can you criticise another person's grammar when you don't speak or write the language well enough yourself? I'm not suggesting I'm perfect, but my work is nowhere near as bad as he's suggesting. Some of the nitpicking is ridiculous!
I'm not even sure if PPH will do anything.
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Don't let it drop Gillian, remember you get the chance to leave feedback for him as well and you can respond to his feedback as well. One bad one will not make much difference at all to your overall standing. If he is a foreign buyer however your negative feedback will affect his standing as a buyer more than his will affect yours. Nasty little creep, you should name and shame him on here so we all know to steer clear!!
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Yes, don't back down because of threats, that's outrageous. The worst he can do is to give you a bad rating, and as Deb says, it won't have a big impact on your overall rating. Have you emailed support directly? I think it's support@peopleperhour.com. I would do that, and mention the threats, as well as the fact he's refusing to pay for what he agreed.
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Oh Gillian I'm so sorry. What a ghastly thing to happen. He agreed to pay for a sample, he damn well pays for a sample, and the others are right: malicious feedback will not be allowed by PPH. He's used the threat of bad feedback to shut you up - in effect, an attempt to blackmail you - and I'm glad you're taking your complaint all the way.
I can well understand you shaking with rage - but I hope you feel reassured by us here. I have a large pillow I bash at times like this. :-)
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