That being said, it has been a long time since I "looked" for work. But when I did I actively marketed for them and did not hit the freelance boards, So for me, I would most certainly post a "I am available please take a look at my skills if you are interested" here in HN.
I would throw some money into a LinkedIn, AdSense and Facebook advertising campaign and generally actively market myself. Reason being, when you are applying for gigs you are competing in a deep pool with a lot of variables, while the gig is real and you have less false leads, the chances of getting selected over someone just as qualified is lower.
With active marketing, you get more breadth or "surface area" if you will, you chase more false leads, but in the end you have more exposure and are competing in a smaller pool. They have contacted you and generally have only you or a few candidates in mind for a gig. The breadth also does not leave you heavily invested if you don't get the gig, because you have other coming in all the time.
Finally, I like active marketing because you generally enter the project in earlier phases than applying for a posted gig. When I did market, I entered most projects at the planing phase, which I like a lot more than at the build phase, as it gives me an opportunity to address items at that point instead of telling the client at the point that they are ready to build, that they need to go back and redesign stuff.
Now days, Euro and IBM take up all of my and my teams time, so we have not marketed for work in years, any specifics I would give would be rusty. Some of the marketing guru's on HN could probably give you specifics on where and how to maximize your return with a marketing campaign.
http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/
That being said, it has been a long time since I "looked" for work. But when I did I actively marketed for them and did not hit the freelance boards, So for me, I would most certainly post a "I am available please take a look at my skills if you are interested" here in HN.
I would throw some money into a LinkedIn, AdSense and Facebook advertising campaign and generally actively market myself. Reason being, when you are applying for gigs you are competing in a deep pool with a lot of variables, while the gig is real and you have less false leads, the chances of getting selected over someone just as qualified is lower.
With active marketing, you get more breadth or "surface area" if you will, you chase more false leads, but in the end you have more exposure and are competing in a smaller pool. They have contacted you and generally have only you or a few candidates in mind for a gig. The breadth also does not leave you heavily invested if you don't get the gig, because you have other coming in all the time.
Finally, I like active marketing because you generally enter the project in earlier phases than applying for a posted gig. When I did market, I entered most projects at the planing phase, which I like a lot more than at the build phase, as it gives me an opportunity to address items at that point instead of telling the client at the point that they are ready to build, that they need to go back and redesign stuff.
Now days, Euro and IBM take up all of my and my teams time, so we have not marketed for work in years, any specifics I would give would be rusty. Some of the marketing guru's on HN could probably give you specifics on where and how to maximize your return with a marketing campaign.