Communicating with Employers

Direct contact between a Freelancer and an Employer is a fast and convenient way to discuss project work. If you choose to reveal your contact information on your profile, signed in Employers will be able to contact you even before you express an interest in their projects.

Your contact information is automatically revealed to an Employer when you submit a proposal for his or her project.

Be aware!  

• In showing your contact information publicly on your profile you assume all risk for how that information is used. Showing this information may expose you to unwanted spam or unsolicited requests.
• All registered users, regardless of how contact is made, are bound by the Guru.com Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy.
• Conversations that take place outside of Guru.com message boards are not maintained as part of your account or project records and may not be admissible material in the event of a dispute case.

Project Messages are private messages between you and Employers sent through Guru.com. They can be used to discuss the details of a project before or after it has been posted to Guru.com. Project Messages will be listed in your Guru.com inbox. Messages for projects already posted will be listed with the project’s title. Messages for projects not yet posted will be labeled as “New Project.”

Initiating Project Messages

Whether you are eligible to initiate a conversation using the Project Messages tool depends on two factors.

1. Membership level
   Guru and Guru Vendor members can initiate a conversation upon submitting a proposal.
2. Employer interest
   Any member (Basic, Guru, or Guru Vendor) that receives a Project Invitation or Project Award can initiate a conversation.

To initiate a conversation with an Employer,

1. On the top navigation bar, click “Proposals.”
2. Click the project’s title.
3. Click “Project Messages.” The link will only display if you are eligible to initiate a conversation.
4. Enter your message and click the “Send” button.

We will post your message to the Employer’s Guru.com inbox immediately and notify him or her of your message by email within 12 hours of it being posted.

Responding to a Project Message

Messages from Employers regarding a project that has already been posted to the Guru.com marketplace are posted to your Guru.com inbox and emailed to you immediately.

Messages and questions regarding projects that have not yet been posted to the Guru.com marketplace are reviewed by our quality assurance team before being sent to you. This is done to ensure the message is not spam. Once the message has been approved, it will be emailed to you and posted to your Guru.com inbox.

You can respond by posting a message through your Guru.com inbox or you can simply reply through your email client.

To respond online,

1. On the top navigation bar, click the “View Messages” icon and click “Inbox.”
2. Click the message.
3. Enter your response and click “Send.”

You can respond directly from your email client by hitting reply, composing and sending your response. When responding via your email client:

• Do not modify the subject line or your message may not be delivered to the appropriate party.
• Limit your message to 5,000 characters.
• Do not use HTML or special formatting as it will be stripped and could cause your email to be illegible.
• Limit total attachments to 10 MB.
• Limit attachments to the following file types:  gif, jpg, jpeg, pdf, ppt, txt, doc, swf, html, htm, wav, mov, avj, mpeg, mpg, xls, mp3, psd, tif, tiff, eps, png, mdb, mde, zip, bmp, qxd, docx, pptx, wmv, xlsx.

Regardless of how you respond, your response will be immediately posted to Guru.com and sent to the Employer via email.

Project Messages Terms of Use

Please help maintain the quality of Guru.com services by following these Terms of Use. Abuse of communication tools includes posting any derogatory, harassing, obscene, indecent, or defamatory statements.

Abuse warnings and penalties:

Guru.com reserves the right to bypass warnings and disable access at any time.

1. First offense — Message content blocked. Warning issued.
2. Second offense — Message content blocked. Use of message board disabled for 15 days.
3. Third offense — Message content blocked. Use of message board disabled for 30 days.
4. Additional offenses — Message content blocked. Use of message board disabled for 30 days.

Note: Warning messages are displayed on the message board. They are not sent via email.

Project Q&A is public conversation about a project. Freelancers can post inquiries to Project Q&A to learn more about a project before submitting a proposal. While not all Freelancers are able to post questions, all Freelancers are able to view the questions and answers posted by others.

Because this is a public forum, contact information, proposals, etc. are not permitted.

Posting to Project Q&A

The following Freelancers can post questions to Project Q&A:

• All Guru and Guru Vendor Freelancers
• Invited Basic Freelancers – An Invited Basic Freelancer is a Freelancer with a Basic profile who is invited by the Employer to submit a proposal for a project. Freelancers who are invited to submit a proposal will receive a Project Invitation email from us.

To view or post to Project Q&A,

1. Find a project listing. (You will find projects in search results, Project Matches and Project Invitations lists, in your Watch List, or your Proposals page.)
2. Click the project’s title.
3. The Project Q&A section will display at the bottom of the page
4. Enter your question and click “Ask Question.”

Inquiries posted to Project Q&A will be immediately posted to the Employer’s Guru.com inbox for review. The Employer will also be notified of new questions every 12 hours via email.

Note: Project Q&A is not a substitute for submitting a proposal. Per the Terms of Use, self-promotional content cannot be posted.

Checking for Answers

The Employer who posted the project is the only party that can answer Freelancers’ questions.

To view the Employer’s answers, click the Message icon on the top right of the page. Project Q&A items are denoted with a question mark icon.

Project Q&A Terms of Use

In order to maintain the quality of service on Guru.com, postings to message boards are reviewed by our quality assurance team. Employers and Freelancers who abuse communication tools are in violation of its Terms of Use and will be penalized.

Questions and answers that include the following are considered abusive

• Derogatory or sarcastic statements
• Self-promotional content (resumes, proposals, professional background, an indication of your willingness or ability to do the job, mock-ups or samples)
• Questions that ask if the Employer will accept applications outside of the project scope or location.

Message board abuse warnings and penalties

Guru.com reserves the right to bypass warnings and disable access at any time.

1. First offense — Message content blocked. Warning issued.
2. Second offense — Message content blocked. Use of Project Q&A tool disabled for 15 days.
3. Third offense — Message content blocked. Use of Project Q&A tool disabled for 30 days.
4. Additional offenses — Message content blocked. Use of Project Q&A tool disabled for 30 days.

Note: Warning messages are displayed on the Project Q&A window. They are not sent via email.

Examples of acceptable questions:

• What is the deadline for  your project?
• In what file formats would you like to receive your logo?
• What is your desired word count for your article or book?

Examples of unacceptable questions:

• Will you work with me if I’m not in  your preferred location?
• Why is your budget so low for this project?

Project Announcements are simply bulletin board-like messages posted by the Employer to broadcast information about the project. Freelancers cannot respond to these messages.

Project Announcements are immediately posted to your Guru.com Inbox. In addition, you are emailed once every 24 hours when you have received, but not viewed, one or more project announcements from Employers. Project Announcements are also listed in your Guru.com Inbox and are denoted with a megaphone icon.

To view Project Announcements, click the Message icon on the top right of the page. Unread messages are bolded. Project Announcements are denoted with a megaphone icon.

You cannot respond to an Employer using the Project Announcement board. However, you may be able to send a Project Message.

Once you’ve made a connection with an Employer, the first thing you’ll want to do is get his or her contact information, including email address and phone number(s). If you have both a phone number and an email address for an Employer and he or she stops responding to emails, you have the option to call. However, it is recommended that you give the Employer sufficient time (at least one or two business days) to respond before following up.

If you’ve called and emailed to no avail, you may want to send the Employer a Project Message. If he or she continues to be unresponsive, send one last message to let the Employer know that you will have to move on to another project if he or she doesn’t respond by a specified deadline. If a SafePay request has been paid and the Employer has stopped responding to you, please contact us.

If the Employer did not make an up-front SafePay payment and you’ve already turned over the work, you’ll want to create a Guru Invoice for the amount owed to you. While there’s no guarantee that the Employer will pay it, the outstanding invoice will act as a warning to other Freelancers.