Here at 3Desk, we always love feedback. Problems, issues, ideas, thoughts or constructive criticism are graciously received, because it helps us make the site even better.

To help you, here are some of the most common questions or requests:

How do I find more work?

That’s the million dollar/pound/shilling etc. question and the most common thing freelancers want to know. If we could click our fingers and solve this for you, we would.

We set up 3Desk to help connect employers and freelancers way more easily and rest assured, we’re doing all we can. This article explaining how to increase your rate is very relevant to finding more work and also the second article in the series. I’ll post some more shortly. Good luck, keep your profile as complete as possible and make sure to share it.

I’m an employer and a freelancer, or I’ve set up the wrong account

No worries, go to – www.3desk.com/account and toggle between the two. Employers don’t currently have a profile (it’s coming). By the way, if you’d prefer a bit of ecological hardwood or a desk made out of solid Incan silver (you’re only limited by your imagination) – you can choose your desk from our 3Desk choices.

I’m not getting the right or enough candidates

We’re unable to ‘control’ who shows interest, although we do try to filter spam (i.e. wholly unsuitable candidates) as best we can. You can also mark people as spam, which helps us improve our matching. We try not to prevent people applying altogether, if we can.

If you’re still not getting the right or enough people: 1) Make sure your job description is specific enough, or is it too specific? 2) Have you added the right keywords? Let us know if you need any help or to look at your profile, we’ll do what we can. 

The matching isn’t working well or I’m too busy to receive new opportunities

We introduced the matching service, matching freelancers to employers, because we wanted to try to help save you time. It does work, but getting it spot on is very, very difficult and is related to the number of jobs we have, how people input them (which we try to edit), keyword variations, location names and the way information in your profile is added.

Trust me, Raz has two mathematical Olympic medals and a PhD in Artificial Intelligence – it’s not at all easy but it’s improving all the time. The better your profile and the job information, the better the matches will be… but we do sometimes get them wrong. If you don’t want to receive notifications, you can always change these here – www.3desk.com/account – But be warned, we may then miss you if an amazing job comes in, or we have news for you.

I can’t see jobs outside of my country, or I’m in the wrong country

We’re focused on face-to-face freelancing. Which means that we generally try to limit people to their ‘area’ to prevent people from far, far away applying for local jobs.

We’re working to allow people to apply to different areas at present – hopefully this will be solved shortly.

Why wasn’t my job posted?

We have very strict criteria, ensuring the quality of the platform remains high. We don’t allow freelance opportunities that are; commission based, beneath a minimum wage, permanent or roles that sound too vague or not suite right. If you’ve spotted one you think isn’t suitable, let us know.

Why are you called 3Desk?

We are focused on freelancers that work ‘in person’. Those freelancers will likely have a number of different places of work, or multiple desks. We’d like people not to be tied to one position, we think that would make the world of work a bit better.

Anything else I should know?

Yep. We’re doing all we can to build something amazing. It takes time. It will never be absolutely flawless for everyone, but we think it’s already really cool and we receive wonderful feedback (which we love to get) every single day.

There will be little niggles. Please be patient. We’re a tiny team in comparison with companies like Airbnb, eBay, Elance etc (companies we look up to) so bear that in mind when comparing. Even they were like us, once. Plus we do some things better.

If you like what we’re doing, follow us on Twitter, and join us on LinkedIn, Facebook.

We’re loving the way people are playing with our new freelance profile. Our aim was to enable people to design the profiles the way they wanted, to showcase their skills and talents as a freelancer, as well as winning endorsements – here’s more about our reasoning for building the new profile.

More and more people spreading the love. Raz has also built some really cool features that enable you to fill your profile automatically from Twitter, your personal URL and by uploading your CV.

Here are some best examples of our fabulous freelancers from across the globe, including a couple of D-list celebrities – click on the photos to see their profiles:

1. Matthew, an illustrator from London, UK

2. Mohamed, a marketing professional from Egypt

3. Joel, an Art Director from New York, USA.

4. Samantha, an actress from Australia

5. Our own resident super-hero, Raz, France

6. Paula, a designer from LA, USA

7. Yours truly, because 7 is my lucky number – Bristol, UK

8. Helen a Jill of all (wonderful) trades from Sacramento, California

If you’ve got a profile you’d like us to see and share, or anything changes you’d like, please send us a Tweet or leave us a note in our LinkedIn group.

We’ve lots more to add, so keep your eyes peeled for the new features we’ll be rolling out over the coming weeks.

PS – why the different backgrounds? We wanted to make it ‘look’ like a desk. You can choose the desk you want to work at from your account page. You’ve got 3Desks to choose from, obviously.

The New Freelance Profile

I’m thrilled to announce that we’re launching your NEW PROFILE (coincidentally on, 3Desk’s 1st Birthday).

We built this profile using feedback from thousands of our users to help freelancers win more work and share your unique skills. Here are some of the highlights:

1) The profile is now built from ‘cards’ that can be added, deleted, moved, resized and edited. Freelancers can add projects, skills and images. Use the ‘improve your profile’ button for suggestions. The better the profile, the more likely freelancers will be found, and hired.

2) Freelancers can SHARE THEIR PROFILE and people can now find, contact and hire them directly, (as well as applying to the opportunities we have listed, like before).

3) Freelancers can ask for endorsements – the more they have, the better chance the of winning work. Perhaps more importantly, it is also a clever way of letting people know what a freelancer is up to without explicitly having to asking for work.

4) Connect a personal website, blog, CV/resume, and other profiles and we’ll auto-magically use them to populate a profile.

Voila, if you’re a user here’s your profile – make sure it looks great.

This is obviously just the beginning and there may be a few (hopefully small) issues – Raz is only human after all (although he deserves a cape, here’s his profile). We’ll be improving the profile, listening to further feedback and adding new features over the coming weeks. Please do get in touch on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook if you’ve any comments, thoughts or ideas.

I’ll also be sharing the best, so if you think your profile looks great, let us know on Twitter 

An example new profile

Over the last 5 weeks, we’ve had an amazing time trying to build the ultimate profile for freelancers. In order to understand what people wanted, we listened to over a thousand freelancers who sent us ideas. We amalgamated these opinions and thought deep on the responses.

We’re excited to say we’re almost there. Although there are many more features to add, we’re proud to offer you a chance to test-drive the new look. To see your profile, click here: www.3desk.com/profile 

Here’s a cheeky example for you, so you can see how a normal profile can look:

• www.3desk.com/rebekah

Here are some of the many features we think you’ll love:

-       Fill your profile in just a few clicks using your other profiles on the web. We auto-magically use Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and your personal website/blog to build your profile for you in seconds.

-       Your profile is split into cards, each of which is moveable, re-sizable and customizable. You don’t have to conform to the restrictions of the static layout of other sites any more! Enjoy moving them and watching them snap into place.

-       SO many people asked for endorsements. These allow you to – a) to get other people to endorse and recommend your work, adding weight to your profile and demonstrating how good you are and b) it allows you to share your work/profile with others and get hired directly through your network.

-       You can create any cards you want to, to ensure your particular services are represented. Use images, text and markup to make your profile shine.

-       Project cards enable you to showcase work you’ve done for clients.

-       Skills are a vital part of a freelancer’s offering. We enable you to link them to projects and endorse them individually.

-       A ‘profile completeness’ counter, so you don’t have to guess what to add – we’ll suggest things to do next, starting with the easiest/most important first.

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As ever, we’d love your thoughts so please let us know what you think. We’re also looking for some best example profiles, please send us yours on twitter (www.twitter.com/3desk) and we’ll share the best.

Here’s a little, slightly wordy New Years update we shared, in case you missed it:

In this update, I promised I’d explain why we think freelancing will change the world. If you’ve not read it, here is our first ever blog post, explaining our mission.

As the year ends, it’s often time for a little reflection and many of us have a bit more time to ruminate on our working lives and the contributions we make. At 3Desk, we’re reminded that what we are building is not about Raz or me, but instead a platform that gives YOU a vehicle with which to contribute – by connecting you with others and showcasing your work.

That is why we’ve spent the holidays building new features, including profile updates allowing you to highlight your skills, previous projects and achievements, as well as getting endorsements from others, both on and off the platform. We’ll be releasing these early in the new year.

…but first, so you understand where we’re hearding, here’s a bit more about 3Desk’s grand vision:

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Why Freelancing?
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Our aim is to create a liquid marketplace for temporary workers who interact face-to-face. In short, this means building a site that enables employers and freelancers to find one another and manage their relationships with the absolute minimum of fuss.

Why? Because after talking to thousands of employers and freelancers, the same problems perpetuate – for freelancers, it takes significant time, effort and determination to ensure that they have enough work coming in. A majority mentioned that the hardest thing about freelancing is marketing themselves, which is a great source of stress and anxiety as well as reducing the amount of time spent actually earning. For employers, the difficulty in finding freelancers, managing contracts and paying them means that the same people are used again and again, or work is left to full-timers, even if better freelancers could be found. It should be logical – you need something done, hire an expert in… yet it remains difficult. We want to make it easier for both parties.

A ‘liquid’ marketplace means one where the right people can be found, at the right price, at the right time, enabling the best people to get paid the most, and the appropriate skills to be utilized as and when they are needed. Building such a marketplace is a huge undertaking and one that we’ve only just begun – but over the course of this, our first year, we have started to plant the seeds.

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The Bigger Picture
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As well as making life easier for freelancers and employers, there are additional benefits to building a freelance marketplace.

For some, freelancing is the optimum choice, enabling flexibility, freedom, focus and a chance to control their own working life. For others – the unemployed, mothers with small children, or those who’ve been forced to retire early, for example – it offers a chance to do pieces of work and to break the ‘in work’ or ‘out-of-work’ deadlock that many face. With the challenges that exist in the troubled economies of the Eurozone, to the burgeoning economies of the Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, there is a huge, growing base of skilled workers who don’t have full-time roles that are looking to find ways to put their talents to use.

The world’s economy no longer solely suits people having full time work in a single location for one employer. There are millions of mini-entrepreneurs – skilled workers, each needing to find pieces of temporary work. Even in the US – by 2020 over 50% of the US workforce will have a temporary job, of some description. Imagine the good that could be achieved if these people found appropriate work and the UN, aid agencies, NGOs, governments and businesses could find the talent they need, for the best price, when they need it.

We want to build a marketplace that enables this to happen.

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Baby Steps
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So, just a tiny ambition then

Seriously though, it is this vision that propels Raz and I each day and sustains us as we work weekends and holidays. Rather than pursuing financial goals, quick exits or chase the latest or coolest fad, we want to give other people the tools to make a difference in their lives. We may only inch towards this faraway vision, but the ability to use technology to make a difference is why we can remain so passionate, each and every day.

It might not be obvious when you first use 3Desk or think of freelancing. To most, we’re just another ‘freelance marketplace’ (or even god forbid, a recruitment platform) but the more observant amongst you and those who follow us on Twitter, Linkedin or Facebook will have noticed that we’re just starting to make baby steps in this direction.

For now, bits of 3Desk might not work, or there might not be enough jobs in your area. Forgive us, we’re a two-man team doing our upmost each day to make things a little bit better. However, we’re looking forward to getting a little closer to this shared dream in 2013.

Thanks for listening and being patient (especially if you’re still reading).

Tom (and Raz)

PS – Join us on Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin

Us, slightly sweaty/disheveled, on a run in Paris. Can you guess who's who?

We’ve been running a couple of surveys on our LinkedIn group

The results are interesting.

1)

In one survey, we asked, “if you won a piece of work, would you rather it was face-to-face, remote or a hybrid of the two”. 

Obviously the results could be skewed by the title of the group (the mention of face-to-face). Nonetheless, the results were interesting:

444 people have voted. Only 15% said they’d like to work face-to-face, 34% said remotely and a whopping 50% said they would rather the work be a hybrid of the two.

Which, we think, is rather interesting. People clearly love the freedom that remote working brings, but a number of people have mentioned that working face-to-face enables people to get a clearer pitch and improves the quality of the relationship and therefore the work. We suspect that it also helps loyalty, when it comes to hiring people a second time if the employer and freelancer have spent time together.

2)

In a second survey, we wanted to find out what profile tools people would like us to build.

Of 358 votes we had 20% ask to enable them to build case studies of previous projects. 18% wanted to include images and videos to showcase work. 17% asked for detailed skills with rating/weighting. 12% asked for recommendations from LinkedIn. And finally, 31% wanted to connect with other freelancers and employers. 

A fairly mixed bag. Again, perhaps skewed by being unclear with the ‘connection’ piece, as perhaps some of those answering were wanting to be ‘connected’ to more employers, i.e. win more work. But the results are still interesting.

The good news, we’ve figured out a way to enable ALL of these things

3)

The last survey asked about things people would like us to build. 

Of the 93 votes, 52% asked for automated and guaranteed payment. Only 8% asked for a time-tracker. 13% wanted a better profile. 10% partnerships with other freelance products and 13% a referral system to earn $ when notifying others.

We’ve listened and the payment and profile updates will be arriving shortly.

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Thanks for all your thoughts and feedback. Do comment here, or on LinkedIn if you have any further thoughts.

Bristol 4/12/12 – Recently launched 3Desk - www.3desk.com - has won the European iTalent competition (http://www.hrosummits.com/hrosummiteu/index.php/european-italent-competition/) for its marketplace for face-to-face freelancers, fending off chubbier rivals. It was said other contestants missed Zapoint of the competition, or made Small Improvements.

Founded in March, 3Desk has seen  215,000 user signups in the last 4 months, started making revenue, and is closing a funding round with a group of leading technology and recruitment investors from 5 countries. While marketplaces for remote freelancers are plentiful, (Elance, Freelancer, Guru), 3Desk has a new take – hiring freelancers who work face-to-face, a market traditionally dominated by Voldemort recruitment agencies and job boards.

There was some disappointment when Mrs Savage (Chief Parental Officer), a devout luddite, was informed Apple Inc. doesn’t have a monopoly on small ‘i’s’ – “I thought my son had won the contract to supply the world’s largest firm with talent. But it’s great 3Desk has gone fungal.”

The investment will help 3Desk with their 3rd Desk, adding a product guru to build features that are specific to freelancers who work face-to-face… as well as buying the requisite rockstar & ninja uniforms to ensure recognition by the tech startup community when they visit London.

3Desk’s founders are Tom Savage, an award-winning social entrepreneur and recovering recruiter, and Razvan Dinu, silver medallist in two international math olympiads and a winner of a mere 30 national math and CS competitions – a ninja/rockstar despite not indulging in any killing, drugs or hotel room trashing – http://www.3desk.com/contact/ They started 3Desk outside of London, or San Francisco (Tom holds a green card), to avoid the distraction, expenses and talent shortages in the Silicons.

When he heard about the win Johnny Campbell from Social Talent tweeted “I think that @3Desk could KILL the contract recruitment market. Be alarmed ye agencies!!”

A recent poll conducted by 3Desk shows more than 65% of freelancers and employers prefer to work face-to-face at some point in a contract, even if remote working is an option.  However, for many jobs in sectors like healthcare, education engineering and retail, remote work isn’t possible. With over 50% of the US economy estimated to be working in temporary roles by 2020, this is a huge and growing market.

Many ‘traditional’ job boards are suffering declining revenues and aren’t built to cater for temporary jobs. Unlike most, 3Desk charges fees only IF someone is hired, incentivizing the platform to deliver fast and accurate filters and to prevent spam applications. It also enables users to build a profile with one click and keeps applicants up to date, telling people if they’ve been rejected as well as accepted, unlike many black holes job boards.

By focusing on face-to-face freelancers, 3Desk tends to attract jobs with a higher value (~£150-350/$250-560 per day), which are sorted by location. Founder, Tom Savage, says ‘remote platforms tend to be a race to the bottom, with employers choosing freelancers that offer the skills they need at the lowest price’. ‘Skilled workers, especially those in countries with high living costs, complain they can no longer compete and many are abandoning the existing marketplaces’.

3Desk has many more features to build, says Savage – ‘It’s early days for us, but we’re looking forward to making freelancing an even more desirable option for employers and freelancers – especially important during times of high unemployment and uncertainty’. ‘Our long-term vision is not just to help big companies find experienced people, but to ensure those without work to get back onto the ladder. ‘Currently people tend to slave away at 60 hour weeks or are unemployed. We think improving the temporary market will help change the world – like allowing parents to spend more time with their kids and organisations to be able to find talent as and when they need it, rather than locking people into cubicles.”

“What if your ‘cubicle’ is a bedroom in your parents house?” adds Mrs Savage, helpfully.

[The End]

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Notes to editors

- www.3desk.com – journalist freelancers abound. Try posting a role to find you writers, designers or editors to help you retire quicker.
- Tom Savage, 3Desk founder can be reached on tom at you know the rest
- http://www.3desk.com/contact/
- 3Desk is a marketplace for quality local freelancers. It’s free to to create profiles and for employers to post roles.
- No agencies were harmed in the making of this press release.

3Desk goes fungal... or Papa Smurf's 3Desks

Good news today… Raz stormed the presentation at the iTalent competition and we WON.

It’s always good to have ones assumptions about the recruitment market tested and we’re thrilled that people are starting to recognize what we’ve known all along – how important the freelance/temporary market is given the state of the global labour markets.

Time for a little 3Desk moment of appreciation before forging onwards…