Website to pick up civil engineering work? 1

[beautifulhills]

Other than freelancer.com, or better upwork.com, does anybody know other websites where one can pick up engineering projects? I realize that this way is not every engineer's 'thing' by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, suggestions welcome. I haven't found a good one yet. It seems it's quite a new thing for the civil/professional engineering profession.

Designer, Specifier (I don't regulate anything despite what my profile says)

 

[swazimatt]

devex and developmentaid websites advertise work, sometimes it is home based

 

[phamENG]

I checked some of those out when I started my "side business" a few years ago. I never got a single decent lead. 90% of the people on there are looking to pay you $50 to rubber stamp their plans. The other 10% don't have a clue what professional services should cost or how licensing works.

So I wouldn't say they're not my thing... I'd say they're not worth the effort. Best to find clients by more reliable means.

 

[swazimatt]

I have no idea how experienced you are, but it is an unfortunate part of the business that you need to have experience to freelance, and once you start i imagine it becomes difficult to change field or develop in other areas. I have seen graduates freelance as CAD designers, but in my opinion it will become difficult for them to develop past that without mentorship

 

[MotorCity]

I am not a solo practitioner so take my advice with a grain of salt, but I think the best way to drum up business in the long run is to start small, build a good reputation, let your reputation spread, and watch it take off. The type of sites you mention above seem like a race to the bottom won by the lowest bidder.....an Ebay of engineering services.

 

[phamENG]

MotorCity - remove the first clause of your post. You nailed it.

Going to these sites was part of a larger mistake I made when going out "on my own." That was: get as many jobs as quick as possible regardless of size. There are no shortage of people who will give you work if you set your price low and go looking. The problem is, you'll end up with too much work and not enough pay and your product will eventually suffer.
So then you have to choose to be the guy with the questionable reputation who is cheap so you sustain yourself with a revolving door of questionable clients or the guy who takes it slow, doesn't try to shoot the moon the first year, builds that reputation and then works from the fruit of that investment for decades by working for a handful of great clients.

I wound up in the first camp pretty quickly, and I didn't like it. Changing to the latter is pretty hard, but I'm slowly getting there.

 

[1503-44]

As I always say, The hardest lesson to learn is how to select your clients. They are not all good.
Better to go broke drinking beer.

Einstein gave the same test to students every year. When asked why he would do something like that, "Because the answers had changed."

 

[zzzcivil]

Just find a few businesses who don't have whatever you do on staff and offer your services. For example, in related to civil plans, most architectural companies don't have a civil on staff, so their plans look terrible and they get rejected by the city a lot. Another example related to civil is most geotech firms don't have a civil on staff either. Whatever service you do I'm sure there are many firms without someone like you on staff. They already have customers, so problem solved no need to drum up anyone.