How to find and hire a freelancer

Have you ever looked for or hired a freelancer to do any work?

Share your experience below in the comments, and I will share my personal experience.

We, as a small team of guest posting and backlinks, are constantly faced with hiring remote specialists to solve non-core tasks for us, such as engineering, design, copywriting, etc.

For several years of work, we have understood something in this direction and would like to share our thoughts.

Is there anybody here?

Nowadays, the boom time of messengers and all kinds of chat bots is becoming difficult to understand who is really on the other side of the avatar, and whether a person is talking to you at all.

These are not fantastic predictions of the future, but the most that neither is our present.

In dealing with potential freelancers, things are almost the same. On freelance exchanges, many artists respond almost automatically, without even reading your task.

Also, multiple accounts are created on these exchanges to provide “greater coverage” to potential customers.

Therefore, to hire an artist. First of all, you need to identify the person with whom you are going to work.

Do not be lazy and Google information about a potential artist, go to his profiles in social networks and make sure that this person really exists and specializes in the particular field of activity you need ..

Reputation

For a freelancer is everything. Reputation is even more important than his portfolio.

It is necessary to check how much time a person works at a particular exchange, the quantity and quality of reviews about it. It is also worth checking for contacts and other sites.

An impressive reputation of a freelancer is already a necessary, but not sufficient condition to consider him as an executor of your task.

Portfolio

Only by studying the portfolio, you can understand whether this artist has sufficient qualifications. It happens that novice freelancers, in an attempt to seem better than they really are, can even post their work. But freelancers with impressive reviews, a rich portfolio and an old account are unlikely to do such things.

Studying a specialist’s portfolio also makes it possible to find out if there is experience in performing similar work. For example, if you need a website design for a dental clinic, ceteris paribus, the specialist who already has the same work in his portfolio is more suitable for you.

Correct statement of the problem

For each specialist, it is necessary to create a separate and most specific technical task (TOR). The more clear and understandable the ToR, the better the work will be completed and the less edits the project will need afterwards.

TK needs to be written in your own words – you don’t need to invent anything super complicated and use technical terminology so that there is no huge difference between what you thought and what happened in the end.

For example, when describing the type of form for sending contact information, specify which message will pop up or what color the fields will be highlighted if some of them are not completed.

Or, conversely, if the form fields are filled in correctly, will they be highlighted in green and will a message pop up saying that the data has been received, etc.

Phased work and deadlines

If you need to implement a large project, then it makes sense to split this project into several stages. This is necessary so that you can track the work of the artist.

Otherwise, you may encounter a situation where the agreed deadlines have passed, the freelancer shows the work: but it turned out to be not at all what had to be done.

Also, phased work can reduce your financial risks. And if you can agree with the contractor with the payment scheme after completing the work phase, then these risks can be reduced to zero.

Each stage of work should have a clear time frame. If you do not set hard deadlines, then there is a high probability that the project will not be delivered on time or not delivered at all.

Payment order

Now, most of the remote work services offer the so-called “safe transaction” service, when you reserve money on the exchange’s website itself, and only after successful completion of the work, you agree to write off this money. If the work is not completed or not done at all, or not done on time, then you have the right to return of blood. This is a fairly convenient and reliable payment scheme on both sides.

Some freelancers work with a 50% prepayment and direct payment, bypassing the “safe transaction” service because the commission for a transaction is sometimes quite high.

However, it is worth remembering that it is possible to transfer an advance payment only in cases when you have already worked with this artist, or if you were recommended by a specialist, or when a freelancer’s account inspires great confidence: the old registration date, regularly appearing projects, and of course as many positive reviews as possible.

Where to looking for?

There are two options in the search for artists. The first option is to look for a freelancer through recommendations. If you are already working with any freelancers, you can ask to recommend someone who will solve your problem.

As a rule, good freelancers are familiar with other good freelancers and this is a really fast and reliable way.

The second option if you want to hire freelancers from all over the world, then global remote work platforms such as UpWork.com, Freenancer.com, Fiver.com, and Guru.com are available.

Professional designers also upload their work and portfolio to sites such as Behance.com and Dribbble.com. The most popular platforms for developers and programmers are GitHub.com and StackOverflow.com.

Fiverr is also good for hiring remote workers.