A step-by-step guide to hire freelancers for your business project

Do you need to get a job done quickly, are investigating in alternate ways to do business or you just require a certain skill for one of your projects? Hiring a freelancer might be the answer. This article outlines all necessary steps to consider.

Outline the project

Every project should start with a clear definition of what you are trying to achieve. Outline the problem, limitations, prospected timelines, the scope, the budget and desired outcomes. Needless to say that the more details and effort you put into creating this document, the better the overall results. It will furthermore help you choosing the right candidate and keep everyone on the same page regarding your and their expectations.

Where to look

Check your networks

A first step in finding the right candidate should be to reach out within your network. Ask colleagues, friends, business partners if they know anyone. Getting first hand recommendations from a person you know and trust will save you a lot of time researching, verifying accreditations and skills, or trying to find out if the candidate is the right fit.

Online research

Online research is always as time consuming as you want it to be. There are endless amounts of online platforms, forums, personal websites, blog posts, all claiming they are the best solution for your business needs. You will definitely end up on one of these freelance hubs, unless your research methods are rather unorthodox.

• Elance

• Odesk

• Gun.io

• Upwork

• Toptal

• Peopleperhour

• Freelancer

• craigslist

All these websites serve as hub for freelancers and those looking for them. Let you browser do the job for you deciding which platform to choose by defining your search criteria by the type project and desired skill you are looking for. There are literally millions of freelancers out there from all over the world, offering an array of skills at very varying wages. And although it is tempting hiring seemingly experienced freelancers from developing countries at almost no cost, a lot of people learn the hard way that not all that glitters is necessarily gold. Having people working remotely in far away regions can create communication hurdles, making it hard to provide proper feedback due to cultural differences, time-zones or language barriers. Even easy data entry projects can turn into a micromanaging nightmares.

Choosing local freelancers helps to minimize these risks and gives you the chance to meet your contractor in person to go over project details. Another advantage staying local is finding a potential future employee, should the service you are seeking be required permanently at some point. A lot of freelancers step back and forth of being employed and working freelance.

Other websites like indeed.com and linkedin.com will provide different results. You can browse resumes and reach out directly to see if a person is available to work for you. This approach often leads to different, higher quality peers, but can be more time consuming.

Ask the right questions

Once you have found some potential candidates it is time to narrow down your choices. Check their portfolios, references, testimonials and types of projects. Compare the skills and experiences of each candidate with your project outline. Unless you have already found a clear favorite, try to pick not more than three candidates.

Sample their work

If you are still uncertain about your choice, create a little sample project to find out, how you guys work together and to see if the results meet your expectations. Please do not ask for free work samples, you would not go to restaurant and ask for free food either.

Cost/ Rates

As mentioned before rates for hiring a freelancer can be all over the place. Depending on the industry and scope of the project and experience of your freelancer it can range from a couple of dollars to a couple of hundred dollars per hour. Despite rare exceptions if you only pay peanuts, you will get monkeys. So rather than simply filtering your choices by the lowest cost, maybe considers another approach to find the rates.

One way could be a value based- approach. What is the expected outcome of this project, how much time do you estimate is needed or how much money will it save you?

Another way is the DIY- approach: What is my hourly cost, how long would it take me to do it myself? Despite the scenario you might simply not have the skill this is an easy way to estimate the cost for a hiring a freelancer.

A commission based- approach you base your compensation on expected impact of your project. The compensation is based on the results rather than its creation process. For example data entry projects create better results when paying people per entry or line.

For larger scaled projects, it makes sense to agree on lump sums rather than hourly wages. You do not want to constantly track times or try to justify a $300 dollar phone call.

Although overall rates are often exceeding the hourly wages of your employees by 100% and more, contractors generally only charge for the actual time spend for the project, do not take up office space, will not ask for any technical equipment, a company car or demand paid vacation and extended health coverage to do their job. All these cost are included in the higher rates and give you the freedom to access and pay for certain skills only when needed.

Paperwork

Almost there! Your favorite candidate is available and excited to start working on the project. Please make sure to go over the project outline together, clearly define goals and deliverables, the required time and budgets for the project. Discuss the consequences of not meeting the agreed upon results and how compensation is handled. Set up milestones to check on the progress of the project. Formalizing the terms of an agreement will help both parties to stay on track in times of doubt or controversy.

Conclusion

As with many things in life: Do your homework when it comes to hiring a freelancer. It can be an effective tool to boost your business performance on every project outside your daily routines, be it web development, tax accounting, IT projects, business operations or marketing.

Please feel free to reach out for more information or questions you may have.

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