Fixed Price Jobs Vs Hourly jobs || Which profile is more appealing to clients?

Which profile is more appealing to clients? A profile with more than hundreds of hours worked but only few jobs?
Or a profile with only a few hours billed but has several jobs in the work history?
Suppose I have 22 jobs in my work history but only 93 hours billed because most of the jobs I got hired to were fixed-price projects. I have seen some contractors with only around 2 or 3 jobs but already accumulated more than 500 hours of work.

Contractors who don't have any jobs with decent hours for positions that have potential to be long term... hmmm makes a guy wonder why that may be. Maybe the contractor is a dine n' dash type. Talks the hype lands a gig, then is off with the money before the client knows he's been screwed or taken advantage of. oDesk is littered with that problem.

On the other hand, if I'm hiring for quick tasks I look for a similar pattern in the contractors profile.

If there are a lot of jobs with short hours, its probably because they are applying to one-time fixed-price projects. Just like me, I had more than 20 jobs and billed 110 hours in 2 months. I would be back to school very soon and would be unable to work on long-term projects. Maybe it depends on the clients' needs.

Most of the newbies are desperate to getting job even for minutes only (because of fixed price). It is very important to think about the accumulated hours to work on. It's a very important issue for getting hired. Typically when the contractor has a ton of hours with just 1-2 jobs, they are more of a full-time worker than a freelancer. Unless a client is expecting a long-term commitment & work full-time, there is no extra advantage in those profiles. Their variety of work and feedback might not give the true picture. On the other extreme, there might be people might have had 100 contracts with probably 1000 dollars billed in total. Not good as that indicates extreme diversion, less repeat-customers & very less average contract size ($10). Most good freelancers lie somewhere in-between.

The category is also important. In programming, customer support & data entry, there is a possibility of longer contracts while in writing & translation you will see a lot of comparatively smaller contracts. I have found that many of the good writing contracts tend to be in the range of $200-$500/contract while typical good programming contracts start at $1000/contract.

Anyway, more than the hours & contracts, I think total money earned is very important (roughly indicated by looking at the work history) as that indicates whether the contractor is running a successful business or not and would be the same for hourly & fixed contracts.

Freelancer Help Tips || Questions from newbie and my answer

I've been with oDesk for almost two weeks now, luckily I was invited for around 6 INTERVIEWS already, problem is I COULDN'T pass through interviews..either buyers do not log back in to oDesk anymore or they don't respond to my email or projects are given to other providers. I checked some of those jobs where I was interviewed and I saw that the Buyer paid higher compared to my bid. Also, I try to respond to buyers' emails as polite and as quickly as I could. So, I'm thinking, what else could be the problem? I know I'm getting there, but if you have more "secrets to success" or tips for new freelancer that you want to share, feel free to do so. 

Also HOW do you decide on your BID? On my profile, I placed there $2.22 (I think its good enough for a starter like me?), but when I apply for a specific job I check first the average bid from other providers and see if I can still lower my bid or stick to the average bid. In some situations where I bid higher than $2.22, will that have a negative effect to the buyer (seeing that I bid higher to what's written in my Profile)? 

My Answer:

Really, it depends on the other providers. Remember that buyer will never be bothered about the average. If buyer can find one, just one provider who is more experienced than you and has a better cover letter with the same or lower price than what you offer, in all probability, prefer the other person. It might make sense to go through the individual profiles to see how you can make your bid+cover letter more competitive.

Since you are just beginning out, it is unlikely that buyers will search for your profile through the search of oDesk. In such a case, I would personally suggest having a higher rate on your profile but bidding lower or equal accordingly, rather than having a lower rate on the profile and bidding higher. Just my personal opinion.