How to Hire Freelancers for Your Startup: Tips for Building a Successful Team

Written by Marko Zitko, Communications Manager at Freelancer.com

There has never been an easier time to start a business. An abundance of online tools, training courses and resources means anyone with an idea and access to the internet can launch their startup within a matter of hours.

But building your own startup requires you to take on a variety of different roles and tasks which you’re probably unfamiliar with. At some stage, you will need to hire someone to support you or assemble a team to help turn your vision into a reality. However, if you’re like most startups, you probably don’t have a lot of money to spend on full-time employees.

This is where freelancers come in. Freelancers are more affordable than a full-time employee, are available on-demand and offer a level of flexibility that can be very helpful in the early stages of a business.

Of course, hiring freelancers comes with its own set of challenges. Here are a few tips to help you build a successful team of freelancers:

Identify the Skills You Need to Hire

Before you start looking for freelancers, take some time to think about what you actually need. What skills are essential for your startup? What can you afford to pay? What are the main tasks you need to get done? Once you have a good idea of what you’re looking for, you’ll be able to find the right freelancers much more easily.

Finding the Right People

Once you know the skill set you need and tasks you need support with, you can start searching for freelancers. Freelancer.com allows users to advertise projects easily and for free, with up to 1,800 different skills available on the site.

For larger projects, you can hire a team of recruiters to help you find the best freelancers for the job, or even hire Technical Co-Pilots to manage the project for you.

Create a Detailed Job Ad

When you’re ready to start looking for freelancers, create a detailed job posting that includes all of the information potential candidates will need to know. Be sure to include your budget, the timeline for the project, and any other relevant details. The more information you provide, the easier it will be to find the right freelancers.

Bids for projects usually come in quickly, so at this stage it’s important to give it about an hour or two to make sure you get a good list of potential candidates. If you’d like to hire people in specific regions of the world, then you can keep the posting up for a few days.

Evaluating Candidates

After posting your project and gathering a list of proposals, it’s time to start evaluating them. The first step is to look through their profile to see if their skills match the project you’ve posted. Checking out their portfolio is a great way to gauge whether they have the right experience and style you’re after.

The next step is to read through their reviews and job completion rate. A good indicator is a freelancer who regularly completes projects on time and on budget. Their repeat hire rate is also a great indicator of a reliable freelancer.

Be Clear About your Expectations & Deliverables

Once you’ve found the perfect candidate, you can begin negotiating the price and the deliverables. It’s important to be clear about your expectations from the start. Make sure you communicate your vision for the project and be specific about what you need from the freelancers you hire.

A great way to outline and set deliverables is through Freelancer Tasklists – which is a productivity tool which allows you to create a personalised list of tasks you want to assign. This helps keep the freelancers on track by outlining each deliverable and managing the project deadlines.

For bigger projects, this can be achieved through milestone payment – where you pay in stages throughout the course of the project when a specific deliverable is complete. Milestone payments protect you by only paying for what has been completed and allows you to evaluate throughout the project.

Give Feedback & Communicate

Once you’ve hired a freelancer, give them regular feedback so they know what they’re doing well and what they can improve. Freelancers rely on feedback to understand how they’re doing and what you expect from them, so make sure you provide it on a regular basis. It’s also important to keep regular communication with the freelancer to ensure that their questions are being answered.

Freelancers can be a great resource for any company, no matter how big or small. These tips will help you find the best candidates out there, evaluate their suitability and set them up for success. Once you’ve found the perfect freelancer for your startup, you can get back to what really matters: growing your business.

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