During the last several weeks I have found myself fervently trying to find some freelance work to fill in the gaps when my regular schedule dropped to part time. Here are some of the resources I used and some information about each one of them.

1. ScriptLance (www.scriptlance.com) – at first glance I figured this was a winner. There was a lot of activity, it was FREE, and it was stuff I knew how to do. At second glance reality began to sink in. Think of this site as the internet version of a brothel. PHP developers sit around waiting to be used at the cheapest possible price. Not only are the quotes ridiculously cheap, but the people looking to hire a developer are equally as desperate. I do not want to get paid pennies on the dollar of what I’m worth, and I wouldn’t even want to waste my time copying another site. Development should be about creating a relationship with a company and producing something that they need and is useful. It shouldn’t only be about what the customer thinks they want. ScriptLance, I give you an F.
2. PHP Freelancers (http://www.php-freelancers.com/) – Hey, let’s do the same thing that ScriptLance does, only not as attractive. I give you an F-.
3. ContractedWork (http://www.contractedwork.com/) – They doing the same thing and they are charging for it. Also an F-.
4. CraigsList (http://www.craigslist.org) – Ok, here I thought I was going to be able to find something worth while. Since I wasn’t willing to whore myself out to someone who doesn’t care what they are getting, I thought I would have better luck here. I started to search the job boards and noticed a problem right away. You can only search job boards per regional city. Since development can be done remotely, this meant I would have to manually search each cities job boards. Yikes! However, I found a lot of quality job postings, but this revealed another problem. No matter how many replies I sent to job postings (close to 20-30 in the past couple of weeks) I didn’t hear back from a single one of them. I give you a D.
5. Face-to-Face Networking – I went to several tech meetings here in Boulder last week, and while they were fun, they were a big challenge. You have to be able to impress people immediately, and when you have a bunch of techie-geeks you can imagine the hilarity that ensues. I made several good contacts, but no real leads. I give you a C.
6. Friends and Family – While the jobs do exist they are very rarely followed through. Plus you also have the problem of having to provide your skills at a discount. I give you a C.

Conclusion:

I was unable to find any good sources for freelance work that were acceptable to me. As a developer with 5 years of professional experience I am worth the money that I charge. When it comes to the type of companies that are looking for freelance work, they are very rarely an established business needing legitimate work. Freelance work in general, I give you a D.