[nordicnomad82]

Have your own website with a blog about what you're working on, and a portfolio of what you've done in the past. And then ask people you've worked for in the past to keep you in mind when people they know ask them for a recommendation. Plus, doing cool stuff on the side even if no one is paying you will always get people's attention.

You can still be doing the freelance classified stuff when you have nothing else, but to get the better jobs and opportunities you have to create a brand out of yourself and make it possible for people to find you. But if you're good and do those things, believe me that they will find you.

The people I know who buy work through O-Desk are Noobs who personally don't know any devs (or all the devs they know told them to go jump in a lake) or are other freelancers who find the contracts themselves at $100-200 an hour and then farm them out to folks who are willing to work for $20-50 an hour.