If you are seeking “virtual” support from an independent contractor (i.e. not an employee you’ve hired to work in your physical office) you may have already checked out popular sites such as www.Elance.com and www.Guru.com. These are examples of online job marketplaces where “buyers” meet up with “providers”. You, as the buyer, are seeking affordable help and they, as the provider, are seeking freelance work opportunities.
Sounds simple, right? All you need to do is post an ad and wait for the flood of responses to come in. But do you have the time to weed through them all before you find the perfect match for your needs?
1) Vague Ads Are More Likely to Receive Vague Responses
Without a doubt, you know what you need, but it can be more difficult to explain that to someone else.
If your ad says, “I am a busy person who needs a personal assistant to answer my phone calls and emails and manage my calendar,” you will likely receive an overwhelming number of responses.
If you further refine your ad to say, “I need this person to be available between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm EST Monday to Friday,” you may receive a fewer number of responses.
Then if you say, “As my business deals with selling/providing XYZ, I need someone who is willing to learn all about that,” you may find that some folks just aren’t interested.
2) Offer Fair and Realistic Compensation
The number of people who respond to your ads will naturally diminish as your rate of compensation lowers. Then again, you could probably post an ad for a top-notch web designer and SEO expert at the rate of $5 per hour and still get some responses.
While there will always be people hoping to get their foot in the door by offering their services practically for free, you also may get responses from people who have grossly undervalued their own services or may truly lack the level of expertise that your business requires. The old adage “you get what you pay for” often does come in to play.
3) Many Professional Freelancers Frequent These Sites
Believe it or not, there are many professionals who frequent these online job sites. Copywriters, speechwriters, editors, proofreaders, freelance writers, web designers, graphic designers, executive assistants—the list goes on and on.
Why are they here? In some cases, it’s because their corporate jobs were eliminated and they decided that this was a pivotal time to make that big leap toward what they loved to do. Others may have always known what they wanted to do (and what they were best at) and decided to use Elance and Guru as a launching point to gain some experience and exposure as a freelancer.
I think it’s worthwhile to keep this in mind because you will receive many responses both from novices and seasoned professionals, which leads to the next question…
4) How Do I Determine the Best Person For the Job?
This is a tough one. You may receive dozens of responses and after a while, they may all begin to blur into one big composite profile. (I can’t help but think of General Mills’ Betty Crocker who never was a real person, but an image derived from about 75 real-life women.)
Once you have made your preliminary elimination of candidates based on essential factors such as time zone, language and basic skill sets, you may still be left with quite a few applications to review.
As a starting point, you could assign a score value to each of your requirements on a scale of 1-5 and rate each applicant accordingly. For example, if prior customer service experience is extremely important to you, you could assign this a value of “5”. If the candidate’s knowledge of a certain software program is something that you are willing to teach, you may assign that a value of “1”.
In a way, it would be like a teacher grading a student’s paper. You could then sort all of your applicants in a descending order based on your standard criteria.
Having said that, what will likely overrule everything else will be their actual response to you. For example, if you are looking for a transcriptionist or proofreader and they use the words “their” and “there” incorrectly, it’s pretty obvious that an attention to detail isn’t there. Similarly, if you are looking for a customer service professional and one’s application is less than extremely warm and friendly, you probably won’t want them responding to your own customers.
Also, beware of one-size-fits-all generic responses such as, “Our company has been in business for X years. We provide excellent services such as blah, blah, blah…” That is not a response to your ad. That is a form of ‘blasting’ buyers, hoping they will bite.
These are just a few of my thoughts with regard to finding the best help through online job sites. If your post is specific and not vague, if you offer fair compensation, if you keep in mind that there are a wealth of seasoned professionals out there, and if you can assign a value system to your requirements, as well as recognize certain subtle clues, I believe that you can find the best person to support your business within less time (and with a lot less frustration).
