My first try to hire freelancer. What should I ask?

12 years ago

One way I make sure I get my money's worth, on oDesk, is to only post fixed-price jobs, that way i ONLY pay after the worker has done what I want.

For marketing, that might be more difficult because of the time required to test the results, but might still be possible to make an arrangement where by you only pay once you've checked results from their work. You might even be able to split test and give the work to the best worker . . . you are allowed to test them before hiring, so be honest, set a small test of their work which will let you see if their work gets results, and say that you'll pay them for the test if it reaches certain results, or is the best, or whatever. That way you can really be sure. For even more security, break down the whole task into many sub-tasks, then you can test the workers for each sub-task, and only be paying for work after it really gets results.

Chris

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Chris-

One way I make sure I get my money's worth, on oDesk, is to only post fixed-price jobs, that way i ONLY pay after the worker has done what I want.

For marketing, that might be more difficult because of the time required to test the results, but might still be possible to make an arrangement where by you only pay once you've checked results from their work. You might even be able to split test and give the work to the best worker . . . you are allowed to test them before hiring, so be honest, set a small test of their work which will let you see if their work gets results, and say that you'll pay them for the test if it reaches certain results, or is the best, or whatever. That way you can really be sure. For even more security, break down the whole task into many sub-tasks, then you can test the workers for each sub-task, and only be paying for work after it really gets results.

Chris

Thank you very much, Chris. I'll certainly use your advise. Although it will take an effort to break down the the job to many sub tasks I'll try to do it.

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cashp0wer 12 years ago

It would be much easier to break these tasks down. Later, if you find someone that you know is good you can give that one person all of the work but not until you know they are good and that you can trust them.
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Kay King

12 years ago

You are trying to do everything at once - hiring one person. You have a site with little content and little to recommend it - no one can create magic numbers for you.

I'd consider doing this in steps - hiring a good writer to create content to expand the website - then hiring someone to market/promote. There's not enough there to work with at this point.

I've looked at the site and I don't see how anyone could guarantee the numbers you are asking for - unless they are willing take over the site development.

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Kay King

You are trying to do everything at once - hiring one person. You have a site with little content and little to recommend it - no one can create magic numbers for you.

I'd consider doing this in steps - hiring a good writer to create content to expand the website - then hiring someone to market/promote. There's not enough there to work with at this point.

I disagree. If you visited the site you must know that it is a very small site. All the content, written by myself is less than 400 words. How I can hire somebody to write a content not knowing how to market it. If the site was big I probably should have hired the marketer first, in order to create a strategy and then only give the instructions to a content writer to create a content according the plan. But now it seems reasonable to hire only one person to do the job.

Originally Posted by Kay King

I've looked at the site and I don't see how anyone could guarantee the numbers you are asking for - unless they are willing take over the site development.

That is the point. To hire somebody who will believe in website and can guarantee the results. So I want to find a person who will show (and convince me) how to redesign the site. After that I'll decide either to hire somebody or I'll do the job myself.

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wizzard1222

12 years ago

Copy sample or give them a topic and return a sample copy....???

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aaalexan 12 years ago

Originally Posted by wizzard1222

Copy sample or give them a topic and return a sample copy....???

Sorry, I can't understand what are you talking about. Could you please expand your answer with more details.
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WPBounce

12 years ago

Perhaps your tasks are too generic: Design a marketing strategy.. You have to come with the strategy yourself and then execute it by outsourcing it by tasks.
Finding good workers could be tough. I hired a programmer from Philippines who was working on a small task for 3 weeks and never completed it. It takes a lot of patience and time to explain the job, im'ing back and forth.
Good luck with your plan.

Thanks
3 replies

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abbs

12 years ago

I agree completely with WPBounce.

When I first read your description, I felt it was too vague, specially for someone hiring a worker with whom they have no previous relation.

I think you need to hire out for specific tasks, after deciding what you need done. Since you are new to outsourcing, you should know that most workers will not be able to do such a wide variety of tasks.

Make sure you don't fall for fake samples since a lot of people on Odesk seem to use them to get jobs. They fail to deliver later on.

Make sure you ask rigorous and engaging questions so that you can be assured that the people applying actually know what they are doing.

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by abbs

I agree completely with WPBounce.

When I first read your description, I felt it was too vague, specially for someone hiring a worker with whom they have no previous relation.

I think you need to hire out for specific tasks, after deciding what you need done. Since you are new to outsourcing, you should know that most workers will not be able to do such a wide variety of tasks.

Make sure you don't fall for fake samples since a lot of people on Odesk seem to use them to get jobs. They fail to deliver later on.

Make sure you ask rigorous and engaging questions so that you can be assured that the people applying actually know what they are doing.

Thanks for the great info. You might want to read the answer to WPBounce because you agree with him.
About specific tasks. I understand your point, but tell me please how you can detail "Marketing Strategy". I want somebody to look at the website from the different angle. This is what I need, the other things better or worse I can do by myself.

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by WPBounce

Perhaps your tasks are too generic: Design a marketing strategy.. You have to come with the strategy yourself and then execute it by outsourcing it by tasks.

Practically you are saying that there is not such a profession as a pure marketer. I have designed a strategy already which doesn't work. Actually this is the most important part which I can't do by myself.

Originally Posted by WPBounce

Finding good workers could be tough. I hired a programmer from Philippines who was working on a small task for 3 weeks and never completed it. It takes a lot of patience and time to explain the job, im'ing back and forth.
Good luck with your plan.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

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Des Lau

12 years ago

Originally Posted by WPBounce

Perhaps your tasks are too generic: Design a marketing strategy.. You have to come with the strategy yourself and then execute it by outsourcing it by tasks.
Finding good workers could be tough. I hired a programmer from Philippines who was working on a small task for 3 weeks and never completed it. It takes a lot of patience and time to explain the job, im'ing back and forth.
Good luck with your plan.

lol, nice sig O.o

One of the best ways to cull the 'passer bys', especially in the copywriting skillset is to put a line near the bottom of your description and say 'please quote this phrase at the beginning of your reply: **whatever you want to put**'

I often just use the ones who quote it as obviously the others didnt bother reading till the end, often it's the little things that count!

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Des Lau

lol, nice sig O.o

One of the best ways to cull the 'passer bys', especially in the copywriting skillset is to put a line near the bottom of your description and say 'please quote this phrase at the beginning of your reply: **whatever you want to put**'

I often just use the ones who quote it as obviously the others didnt bother reading till the end, often it's the little things that count!

Very good point, thanks. I did already something like that intuitively. I have checked if one of my perspective freelancers even visited my website. According to the Google Analytics nobody from that location did

I realize that this is not a 100% reliable data, but it was still interesting.

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serialink

12 years ago

I don't hire anyone from oDesk. There are numerous professionals who have had their identities stolen by individuals working through oDesk. In many cases, the scammer duplicates a freelancer's information and portfolio. Even when a freelance discovers the problem, it's nearly impossible to have the fake profile removed by oDesk. Additionally, most of these scammers can't read and follow instructions because they don't understand English.

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abbs

12 years ago

Originally Posted by serialink

I don't hire anyone from oDesk. There are numerous professionals who have had their identities stolen by individuals working through oDesk. In many cases, the scammer duplicates a freelancer's information and portfolio. Even when a freelance discovers the problem, it's nearly impossible to have the fake profile removed by oDesk. Additionally, most of these scammers can't read and follow instructions because they don't understand English.

+1. Vworker has a much better pool of workers, in my opinion. If you want to stick to outsourcing marketplaces, you should probably avoid Odesk. The scammers/liars to actual workers ratio is ridiculously high on that website.

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cardine

12 years ago

Originally Posted by serialink

I don't hire anyone from oDesk. There are numerous professionals who have had their identities stolen by individuals working through oDesk. In many cases, the scammer duplicates a freelancer's information and portfolio. Even when a freelance discovers the problem, it's nearly impossible to have the fake profile removed by oDesk. Additionally, most of these scammers can't read and follow instructions because they don't understand English.

That's why you give oDesk workers a 1-2 "test job" first to see how competent they are.

Whenever I want to hire someone on oDesk I'll do the following:

1. Post a job description (usually gets 10-15 responses). Have certain requirements depending on the job (whether that is location or hours). That will automatically get rid of at least 3-4 applicants.
2. Ask 4-5 questions designed to gauge competency, stuff that seems obvious to you but might not be obvious to a subpar employee. That will get rid of another 3-4 applicants.
3. I'll provide a 2 hour 'mini-project' for all remaining workers. At that point maybe 4-5 people will be left. From those people usually 1-2 show themselves to not be competent, 1-2 take a very long time to do the project (meaning I'd have to pay them a lot of money since I'm paying them by hour) which leaves 1-2 people left who are fit for the job.

I have no problem hiring people to long term hourly contracts this way because I am doing my own due diligence. Usually the people who get screwed over by oDesk are the ones who don't do all of their homework properly.

vWorker is good too, but I prefer them for short coding assignments, not long term workers that I pay hourly.

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by cardine

That's why you give oDesk workers a 1-2 "test job" first to see how competent they are.

Whenever I want to hire someone on oDesk I'll do the following:

1. Post a job description (usually gets 10-15 responses). Have certain requirements depending on the job (whether that is location or hours). That will automatically get rid of at least 3-4 applicants.
2. Ask 4-5 questions designed to gauge competency, stuff that seems obvious to you but might not be obvious to a subpar employee. That will get rid of another 3-4 applicants.
3. I'll provide a 2 hour 'mini-project' for all remaining workers. At that point maybe 4-5 people will be left. From those people usually 1-2 show themselves to not be competent, 1-2 take a very long time to do the project (meaning I'd have to pay them a lot of money since I'm paying them by hour) which leaves 1-2 people left who are fit for the job.

I have no problem hiring people to long term hourly contracts this way because I am doing my own due diligence. Usually the people who get screwed over by oDesk are the ones who don't do all of their homework properly.

vWorker is good too, but I prefer them for short coding assignments, not long term workers that I pay hourly.

Thanks for sharing and the detailed instructions. I have one further question. My oDesk job is fixed priced - 50$. Is it already too small to give additional test tasks or I still can do it? How you pay for test tasks? Are there any refund or feedback options on oDesk?

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by serialink

I don't hire anyone from oDesk. There are numerous professionals who have had their identities stolen by individuals working through oDesk. In many cases, the scammer duplicates a freelancer's information and portfolio. Even when a freelance discovers the problem, it's nearly impossible to have the fake profile removed by oDesk. Additionally, most of these scammers can't read and follow instructions because they don't understand English.

Thanks for the warning. Is this a fresh information or it happened years ago?

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Ettienne

12 years ago

Ask whatever you need to ask to make sure you've got the right candidate.

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ToddRestrepo

12 years ago

Whenever I hire anyone for almost any type of work (other than piece work) I connect with them via Skype and I will spend at least a week chatting with them.

I do this for a few reasons, first I want to get a accurate assessment of their communication skills and how well they speak english. I also like to measure their response time because that can tell you a lot about how efficient they are and if they are slow to respond it's a good sign that they are Googling for answers.

You want to be very specific with the details of the task or tasks because it is easy to scare off a potentially good worker. Outsourcing to the Philippines has always served me well but I have learned over the years that their pride sometimes gets in the way of their success. If they cannot figure out how to complete a task in many cases they will disappear so this is an issue you want to get out in the open right from the start.

Don't make the mistake of just hiring someone, give them a list of tasks and a deadline because that is the quickest route to failure. Plan on spending sometime with them for at least the first week or so as this will be beneficial for the both of you.

Outsourcing can be as big of a headache as YOU cause it to be. Spending more time in the beginning will pay off in the long run.

Take Care!
Todd

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laurencewins

12 years ago

It seems to me that you decided to design a site with no forward planning and now you are trying to fix the problems that you seem to have created. As a freelancer myself, I would not want to touch something like that because you don't have clear knowledge of what you want and can't get it across.

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Originally Posted by laurencewins

It seems to me that you decided to design a site with no forward planning and now you are trying to fix the problems that you seem to have created. As a freelancer myself, I would not want to touch something like that because you don't have clear knowledge of what you want and can't get it across.

Thanks.
I had a vision of this website, what should it do and what the business model should be about 5 months ago. I didn't know then how it will look like, but I wanted it clean and simple. I was thinking that the information it provides is so valuable that even with simple design people will accept and use it. So I developed it. Now it is ready and I'm testing it about 2.5 months. Unfortunately it is far from becoming popular and it has obvious problems with Bounce Rate and Returning Visitors.
Now I have 2 choices, live this website alone and move on or hire somebody experienced in marketing to point out the problem areas and try to fix it, to look at the website from different perspective.

And I'm doing this because I like the website and I believe in it.

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aaalexan

12 years ago

Here is the summary of this thread. Thanks to everyone who participated

-Only post fixed-price jobs
-hire people to long term hourly contracts after doing your own due diligence
-Only pay after the worker has done what you want

-Test worker before hiring, give small task to different workers
-Ask 4-5 questions designed to gauge competency
-Chat with a worker via Skype to test their skills (e.g. English)
-hire for specific tasks
-be aware of fake samples
-be specific with the details of the task because it is easy to scare off a potentially good worker
-Don't just hire someone, give them a list of tasks and a deadline because that is the quickest route to failure. Plan on spending sometime with them.

-don't hire anyone from oDesk
-you can hire from oDesk for hourly jobs
-Vworker has a much better pool of workers

-"Designing a marketing strategy" -is an impossible task for freelancers

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juggerna623

12 years ago

try freelancer or scriptlance for this type of project.

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My first try to hire freelancer. What should I ask?

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