Freelancers then bid on the projects and clients contact them or award them the work based on those bids. Guru operates a little differently. Registered freelancers respond to job postings in a plethora of categories by creating a brief proposal. The proposal is sent to the client, then he or she has the option of contacting the freelancer for more information. It sounds easy, but it's not.
Competition is fierce.
For one proofreading project on Elance, the client received more than 130 bids. Standing out in the crowd requires experience, marketing and luck. Even worse for freelancers is that a large amount of projects never go anywhere. Jurik uses sites like Guru and Ants to find projects, but he isn't satisfied with their service. Less than half the projects posted at sites like Ants and Elance actually are awarded to freelance bidders.