Outsourcing advice?

Read through the other jobs posted that are similar to yours and are already completed and see what the winning bid was. Also look at the reviews for the persons who did the work and see if there's one you can use.

Vet the bidders. Look at their reviews.

CSS & PHP are the same no matter what language you speak.

That's the same in English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. What does it matter if the person is fluent in English so long as s/he can understand the directions and deliver the results?

This I don't know the answer to, so I won't risk misleading you.

Yes. The Warriors-For-Hire section and the programming section here in the WF as well. You could probably get a great programmer from either one of those sections and never worry about Elance.

-- j

don't feel rude about the English part, clearly state that English needs to be fluent and people will understand if it's necessary for the job.

Use Odesk.com.. They are cheep but you have to do your home work before hiring anyone.. make sure they have good reviews.. 5 stars and lots of hours already worked with odesk.

I will send you a PM of someone you may want to check out. You can check out her biography, etc. I haven't personally used her yet, but I know other top-name marketers who have and have recommended her.

I used to have problems getting good VAs as well. Someone on the forum here set me straight.

Give your VAs a 'test run' before you give them any of your real work. Tell them you want X done to Y quality in Z hours/days/whatever.

If they can deliver the goods, they pass your test and you can give them more complex work to do.

Also, on any assignment, I'll have my VA summarize what I've asked them to do before I let them do it. This ensures that we understand each other, and that no work will have to be redone.

Good luck Rob

All the advice given above, plus this...

1. Skype Interview. You simply cannot know over email if someone is actually capable of communicating effectively. They may spend an hour crafting a reply message to you. It looks fine, but when you try and explain concepts or ideas, something is lost in the translation. If you can have a conversation with them, chances are they will be able to understand what you want.

2. Don't hire the bottom dollar programmer. Your goal should be to sort through for the diamonds in the rough. The bargains that are also capable. This takes time. You need to spend 3 - 6 hours on this. If it's a small project and it's not worth that to you, I can understand that. But realize that your results will vary.

3. Filter by English language, rating, and work history. This will help you weed out some of the bad applicants.

4. Deliver tasks in VERY VERY small chunks. I.e., 'please built this menu with a grey background and make it look like X example'. Asking them to 'build a site with a nice design' isn't generally going to turn out well.

5. I would probably shoot for someone in the $10.00 - $30 range for PHP and CSS. Anything less than that and they probably aren't going to be that great.

I've written about this pretty extensively on my blog --> Why Programmers Are Like Pirates: An 8 Step Process For Managing Your First Development Project | What The Dev
(shameless plug). That might help you out a lot, as I can't throw 3,000+ words up in here. Well, I could... anyway.

Good luck, with a little practice you'll get good at hiring the right programmer for the right job, at the right price.

I have hired people who were $3 and $4 per hour. One guy helped me big time and had no track record on ODesk (or VWorker) at all. I wound up working with him over a year to do a somewhat difficult project (he was Russian). My thing is to hire people starting out before they "become stars" and start to charge high amounts.

Then again, my background is in the software industry - so - I can tell who is "full of it" and who is not for the most part (at least with back-end coding). With front-end, that has been something different.

In the old days, my preference was to work with a fixed-price contract - but - since ODesk pushes hourly contracts (that way, the site gets paid more), I don't pay over $8 per hr.

Hello Robert,

Hiring someone with a CSS and PHP knowledge and fair comprehension of the English language should not bring hassle to you. Let me answer your questions and supply the best answer that I can give you.

Question 1: How do I avoid getting overcharged?
Answer: You 'cannot' avoid programmers who are more expensive than what you expected. What you 'can' do is to make a sound research on the rates of programmers here in the Warrior Forum. I have filtered the Warriors For Hire section and selected 'Programmers' for you already. Just click the word 'Programmer' above and it'll take you there. Request for a quote.

Question 2: How do I get someone who can do this in a timely manner? (In my past experiences, my outsourcers will just disappear for weeks and never answer emails)
Answer: Please be informed that any provider of programming services will always tell you that they can deliver in a timely manner. What you need to find out is how 'reliable' their claim is. You will find that through their raving customer reviews directly from Warriors if you're checking the Warriors For Hire section. If yo happen to know any of the provider's customers as can be seen on the reviews, you may ask that Warrior about his/her first-hand experience with that service provider.

Question 3: How do I get 100% fluent english speaker without being rude or discriminating in my ad?
Answer: It's really vital that you deal with someone who can comprehend your language. Nobody wants to stay on the phone for 30 minutes when it should only take 3 minutes to send across your requirements. You can just tell in your job post that you require someone with a good comprehension of English.

Question 4: Anything I need to know to protect myself? Will they need server access? Do I just send them the css/php files and they make the customizations and send back? Does this leave me open to any malicious activity?
Answer: This is something that I can't answer for you. Perhaps, what you can do is to check on the overall reputation of the service provider. If he got good reviews, transactions are happening on his/her thread on a daily basis, and has contributed a lot to this community, perhaps, those are more than enough bases for you to consider whether or not you'll provide those login credentials.

Question 5: Anything I missed?
Answer: If you happen to miss anything, feel free to ask us again.

I hope these help.