Don't use elance, you have to pay to bid and usually you never get hire for a gig. Instead you might want to try oDesk, I go on there when I have nothing to do and I usually get gigs within hours.
Where you really pay is that elance takes something like 5-10% of whatever you earn for the job.
That said, I created an account and scored relatively highly on a few of the tests a while back. I've gotten invited to submit proposals for jobs on a regular basis ever since. (For example, I received 7 invitations last month.)
I usually turn down the invitations, as I have plenty of work, but one of my favorite clients found me through elance.