Lately, people have been including things like "will only pay $120 for this project" or "pay rate is $0.10 per word." This would be great if the employers were honest. The problem is that I have found many of these projects to be a bait and switch scheme. You see, the prices they are offering are decent. Now, some freelancers (especially ones who are newer or not as good) will accept any pay rate. They will bid on any job. You may end up with a poorly written, poorly researched manuscript that will need tons of excess money to fix, but you save a buck up front.
Then there are the middling freelancers like me, who charge a moderate rate, but struggle to get people on freelancing websites to pay more than that. We care about our work, but live hand to mouth. Every bid we submit takes time, so we try our best to submit bids that are for projects with a good fit.
Then you have the people who make big bucks. These people choose only the jobs where they can get top dollar, they are professionals at not only writing but also marketing themselves. They have no problems asking every employer for positive feedback, testimony, and referrals from others in their business.
None of the big bucks guys would bid on one of these people offering moderate pay. But those in the middle do, and usually bid for exactly what they stated they were willing to pay. The problem is that these people really do not want to pay that amount. I have bid for it, and then the employer contacts me and asks me if I am willing to accept something "more reasonable" as pay. What? Um, I asked for something reasonable and if you didn't want to pay it, you shouldn't have put it in your post.
Ironically, most of these employers seem to have forgotten that they were offering that much. Did they simply cut and paste someone else's post? I have no clue, but it is getting to the point where I am going to begin ignoring posts that contain a specific dollar amount.
These employers are wasting my time and theirs. My time filling out a bid and responding to their demand to come down. In most cases, the decent pay seals the decision to bid. But they are also wasting their time. They have to read my bid, and then try to finagle me down.
So let's give these employers the benefit of the doubt: what if I bid and another good freelancer bid and both of us used the same final amount. The employer decides that whomever he can get the project from for the lower amount will have the project. The problem is that trying to haggle two equal freelancers lower is not going to help your project. Some freelancers will work for lower just to have work, but the problem is that when you are being underpaid it is very difficult to do your best. There are many other things that should help you decide which one to choose--check their samples and see who has ones that are closest to the project. Or, choose the one with work you personally like best. It would even be better to flip a coin.
But the fact of the matter is that these employers are not hiring anyone. They probably lost their best prospects by trying to haggle them down. Do if you are posting a job and you want to add how much you are going to pay (something that is fine to do as long as you will really pay it), then just remember how much you said you would pay and don't argue with a freelancer who says they will work for that much.
P.S. This seems to just be a newer fad. I have had people hire me in the past for what they posted in the project listing.
Saturday, December 28, 2019
Saturday, December 14, 2019
The "Small Editing Test" Trap
I don't know why I do it. The job post states that a "small editing test" will be required, and I apply anyway. This is the second time I have done this, and I know I am a complete idiot.
I am not an idiot because I am a bad editor. I have already taken Guru's editing tests and done well on them. I am an idiot because I wasted my bid. The people who demand an "editing test" have no clue what they are doing. The test is not written by a person with a terminal degree in English. The test is written by a high school graduate who may have taken one college level English class in college.
These tests cannot be passed by anyone with actual knowledge of the English language. For one, everyone knows that some things are hard grammar and some are soft grammar. Scratch that--everyone who has something more than a basic high school education in grammar knows it. Hard grammar is the stuff like subject-verb agreement. Soft grammar is the stuff like serial commas.
Every single real publishing house in the world has a style guide. Period. The problem is that as a freelancer, no real publishing house is going to ask you to take their "simple test." They simply look at your editing skills in your samples and can tell right there if you know what you are doing, or they look at your score on the Guru tests.
Guru has a rule that you cannot ask for free samples, but some of these people get through. If they issued fair tests, it wouldn't be a problem, but NONE of them have clean tests that only look at hard grammar. The one I just took included a legitimate (but awkward) spelling: "eying." That word would be marked wrong by most spell checkers, but it is an alternate spelling given in the dictionary. So what in the world am I supposed to do? Well, if I had a style guide, I would know. Style guides spell out which dictionary and which spelling to use. ALWAYS. But I don't have a style guide and the "publishing company" giving me the test probably doesn't have a style guide and probably hasn't ever read even one of the pre-existing guides.
Then, to make matters worse, I am working my way through the "spelling" section after leaving a note on the alternate spelling of eyeing, and notice it is filled with PUNCTUATION errors. Am I supposed to correct or ignore those? Who am I kidding? As a real editor, I CAN'T ignore those! They are blatant ERRORS. So, I begin punctuating (again with comments).
It is at this point I realize: I am going to fail this test as I have failed every other "editing" test I have taken on Guru from people who think they are smart. These people wrote a sentence with a dangling modifier in the "Fix these punctuation errors." I can bet they have never even heard of a dangling modifier and when I correct theirs (because I CAN'T ignore it as a REAL editor), they are going to react in one of two ways. (1) They have never heard of a dangling modifier, so I must be crazy and making things up. (2) They have never heard of a dangling modifier, so they Google it. They discover I am correct, but they think I am being a smart aleck, and they instantly hate me. Neither of these are positive in light of my chance of getting hired.
Why did I do it? Well, it apparently has been too long since I have applied for a job demanding a test. Once I opened that test up, it all came rushing back to me. As a freelancer, just follow the rules. Don't take a test. It's not worth the stress. Even if I did get the job, I would be working with people who don't know a period from an ellipsis. This doesn't bother me when I am working with actual people and not fly-by-night companies, because I can teach an actual person one-on-one. With a company, I will simply be pushing out editing that may or may not be accepted based on the whims of the person over me.
Update: I was contacted shortly after posting this and to my amazement I was told I passed the "test" with flying colors and that I would soon hear from them about the job. One month on and I still haven't heard from them. No big surprise there. They probably made the changes I listed and are now using the test and my answers (which they got for free) as their new "test" for other unwitting freelancers.
I am not an idiot because I am a bad editor. I have already taken Guru's editing tests and done well on them. I am an idiot because I wasted my bid. The people who demand an "editing test" have no clue what they are doing. The test is not written by a person with a terminal degree in English. The test is written by a high school graduate who may have taken one college level English class in college.
These tests cannot be passed by anyone with actual knowledge of the English language. For one, everyone knows that some things are hard grammar and some are soft grammar. Scratch that--everyone who has something more than a basic high school education in grammar knows it. Hard grammar is the stuff like subject-verb agreement. Soft grammar is the stuff like serial commas.
Every single real publishing house in the world has a style guide. Period. The problem is that as a freelancer, no real publishing house is going to ask you to take their "simple test." They simply look at your editing skills in your samples and can tell right there if you know what you are doing, or they look at your score on the Guru tests.
Guru has a rule that you cannot ask for free samples, but some of these people get through. If they issued fair tests, it wouldn't be a problem, but NONE of them have clean tests that only look at hard grammar. The one I just took included a legitimate (but awkward) spelling: "eying." That word would be marked wrong by most spell checkers, but it is an alternate spelling given in the dictionary. So what in the world am I supposed to do? Well, if I had a style guide, I would know. Style guides spell out which dictionary and which spelling to use. ALWAYS. But I don't have a style guide and the "publishing company" giving me the test probably doesn't have a style guide and probably hasn't ever read even one of the pre-existing guides.
Then, to make matters worse, I am working my way through the "spelling" section after leaving a note on the alternate spelling of eyeing, and notice it is filled with PUNCTUATION errors. Am I supposed to correct or ignore those? Who am I kidding? As a real editor, I CAN'T ignore those! They are blatant ERRORS. So, I begin punctuating (again with comments).
It is at this point I realize: I am going to fail this test as I have failed every other "editing" test I have taken on Guru from people who think they are smart. These people wrote a sentence with a dangling modifier in the "Fix these punctuation errors." I can bet they have never even heard of a dangling modifier and when I correct theirs (because I CAN'T ignore it as a REAL editor), they are going to react in one of two ways. (1) They have never heard of a dangling modifier, so I must be crazy and making things up. (2) They have never heard of a dangling modifier, so they Google it. They discover I am correct, but they think I am being a smart aleck, and they instantly hate me. Neither of these are positive in light of my chance of getting hired.
Why did I do it? Well, it apparently has been too long since I have applied for a job demanding a test. Once I opened that test up, it all came rushing back to me. As a freelancer, just follow the rules. Don't take a test. It's not worth the stress. Even if I did get the job, I would be working with people who don't know a period from an ellipsis. This doesn't bother me when I am working with actual people and not fly-by-night companies, because I can teach an actual person one-on-one. With a company, I will simply be pushing out editing that may or may not be accepted based on the whims of the person over me.
Update: I was contacted shortly after posting this and to my amazement I was told I passed the "test" with flying colors and that I would soon hear from them about the job. One month on and I still haven't heard from them. No big surprise there. They probably made the changes I listed and are now using the test and my answers (which they got for free) as their new "test" for other unwitting freelancers.
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