If you are a new oDesk contractor, then my suggestion would be to give various oDesk skill tests that you are expert of and try to bid regularly after that.  It will increase your potential to be get hired.  Giving the skill tests also mean that you can bid on more projects than without giving any tests at all. If you have a basic new account you will only have 2 bids quota per week. Skill tests can increase it to upto 20!

Before you give any test just read the questions again and again befoe you select the answer. Its because one question might have several different answers and you have to select all of them correctly. At anytime the questions can be changed so keep time in mind also. To increase the expertise of any freelancer and show it off to the clients there are many different skills tests according to work types. In most cases, the expertise of a freelancer is measured by the result of oDesk skill test. Suppose, you are putting your bid on a  Graphic Designing or Data entry project. If you haven’t given any related skill test then how the employer going to know that you can work on that project. Nowadays, Employers are very cunning and open eyed to find out good contractor. So for your own sake, you have to give skill test to be hired by your desired employer.

You already know that you can put bid on maximum 20 projects per week . You have to give at least 3-4 tests for that. What you can do is , you can give oDesk readiness test . There are 2-3 of them. Then after passing these you can give at least 2 tests from your skill set. I think that should be enough to be able to get 20 bids per week. But if you want to get hired more and more then give as many tests as possible.

This tests are actually very simple. You have to answer MCQ (Multiple choice questions). Questions may vary in numbers from 20-60 and time also. You may have 40-60 minutes to answer these questions. If you are skilled then it won’t be an issue at all. Just passing the tests will be enough to be able to get more job and get the chance to be hired.

So give tests and have more job. Happy Bidding.