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Comment by mtrimpe | Hacker News Reader

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mtrimpe

I don't know if it's universal (Dutch freelance IT); but I would loooove to have a tool that would:

* broadcast my availability to a group of approved (company) recruiters

* let recruiters propose companies to me (and have me list companies I already have contacts at or was introduced at.)

* let me set up job interviews with the interesting opportunities

* and, most importantly, let the recruiters/companies place bids on me negotiate.

I've found that every time I'm on the market I'm essentially running this auction myself and it's a lot of work.

Given the massive impact it has on my earnings I'd love some tooling that would let me focus on the important parts of this process rather than the administrative minutiae.

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That is an interesting idea to have some kind of broker platform where you trade skills against rates. I have been exploring a small job platform idea too, and maybe anyone out there wants to chat more?

During my latest round of searching for a new gig, I realized I could use an application to at least track the opportunities I had. If you juggle a bit of interviews at once it becomes a little difficult to keep things sane if you aren't careful. Having something to help me refine my crappy interviews or take adequate notes to realize the pros and cons for future endeavors would've been a godsend. I hadn't really done a lot of interviews for development shops around here so I had no clue what I was missing until I saw it first hand. I kept somewhat adequate notes in OneNote (yes, windows phone and yes I know I'm one of 3 users). I even made an Excel spreadsheet to keep most of the information together but nothing beats charts, graphs, or adequate reminders like "Hey, you should likely prepare for the interview you're about to have buddy" because the ones I weren't prepared for sucked hardcore and they were totally my fault.

I had the idea that it could be beneficial to freelancers/contractors as they do the same thing but usually in much more limited time scales to the x months I took. I'm one to share ideas because if someone makes it, I'll stop building it. As someone that wants to be a freelancer at some point, I don't look forward to the oDesks of the world (no offense to people that do great there) but having just something to keep all of these plates spinning more freely would help a lot of people I think.

Interesting, so you say it is also a problem to track the jobs that company offers? I totally agree that ODesks, elance, etc. are very poor to find a good match between project and interest and rate. These platforms are really about "out-"sourcing, often not about developing solutions to your unique problems.

Well, the main problem is that companies often don't know what skills they really need, and employees don't get a sense for the work culture from vague job descriptions.

Last, from what I heard was that most freelance jobs go via the personal network anyhow.

Just curious if there are others interested in discussing a better project platform for freelancers, and the way to meaningful work? Have a look at http://voki.me for a rough prototype.

I'm currently working on something like that. Still looking for a cofounder: www.innerloop.io

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