Last Updated on May 30, 2019 by Numinix Developer
If you outsource any of your website tasks, you understand some of the difficulties associated with the hiring process. How you screen, interact and treat your contractors can either turn into a disaster or help your website flourish.
Below are some hiring tips I learned from personal experience. Though I made a few mistakes, thankfully I learned from them. Hopefully, you can take this advice and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Remain Professional – During the hiring process, it’s easy for some people to get caught up in the emotion of the process especially when you feel a connection to a candidate. Regardless of whether you feel the person would be a good fit, review his/her credentials, recommendations, portfolio, resume, etc. and let those details constitute the bulk of your decision-making. Though it is important that you are able to communicate with the contractor, his/her skills should not be put aside as a result.
Know your Objectives – Before you start hiring, write down exactly what you expect. Are you interested in short term or long term work? Is there room for growth? Are you looking for local or remote candidates? Gather the details before you publish your job advertisement. The quality of the leads will be directly related to the quality of your job ad.
Your job description must be detailed and concise. Some of the elements you may want to include:
- Your website and information about your business
- The general nature of the project or job description
- What is required (Objectives, final result, etc.)
- Deadlines if job is project specific
- Request previous work examples and recommendations
- List traits you desire
- Give applicant explicit instructions that are out of the ordinary to ensure they can follow directions such as answering a random question or titling email correspondence a certain way.
Test Project – You can request a paid test project if you are trying to make a decision between several applicants. Give detailed instructions and deadlines so you can assess how well they communicate with you and respond to deadlines.
Contract – If you will be sharing client information or private data with your contractors, make sure to have them sign a non-disclosure agreement. This contract will protect you from a contractor stealing one of your clients or sensitive company information. It’s also helpful to sign a contract displaying the details of your payment and agreed upon rates. Additionally, if you want to ensure your contractors are not hiring their own workers to perform your projects, specify your sub-contracting rules in the beginning of the process and also in the contracts.
It’s especially important to follow these tips if you are hiring remote workers or contractors from other countries. With the time differences, your methods of communication may be limited to email or instant message so you want to be sure to hire a strong communicator who adheres to strict deadlines.
Do you have any other tips for hiring outsourced workers?