The modern workforce in companies is evolving at an accelerated pace, where several firms have started recruiting freelancers. Freelancers are not committed for the long-term to your company and are self-employed. One of the primary reasons for this shift in trend is due to their cost-effectiveness, flexibility to access top-tier talents, nature of work, and diversity compared to full-time employees.
At the same time, an organization gets the flexibility to hire the right talent for short-term, long-term, and highly skilled projects without unproductive downtime.
Reasons to Hire a Freelancer
Here are a few reasons why companies are approaching freelancers for specific roles instead of full-time employees.
Greater Skillset
Freelancers are highly specialized professionals and spend years on a particular skill set. They do not require intensive training sessions and adjustment periods as opposed to full-time employees.
Quality of work
Freelancers are typically experts in their subjects or technologies. By working with multiple clients and projects they have already undergone several trials and errors, hence delivering standard and desired results.
Freelancer Connections
Experienced freelancers have widespread connections with an entire network of freelancers who work in different niches. They can also refer those who would get the job done at minimum risk or errors in a shorter period of time.
Things to keep in Mind when Hiring Freelancers
Before you begin hiring freelancers for a particular job in your company, be sure to evaluate these metrics to ensure that you are making the appropriate recruitment call.
1. Process of Updating Progress
Freelancers must have certain tools or processes to ensure consistent delivery of updates to various stakeholders. An experienced freelancer will schedule meetings with clients regularly and in fixed time slots to ensure optimum productivity without wasting time.
Professional freelancers also typically use a communication software platform for seamless chatting between team members or stakeholders. These tools are optimal for quick queries, checking in, and help avoid long email threads and futile meetings.
2. Work Assigned
Setting up the right expectations while initiating any conversation with any freelancer gives more clarity. Once the right expectations are set it is also important to measure its success. That can be anything i.e. number of hours completed or completion of any specific portion of the project in a given timeline.
Provide relevant information on the full scope of the project while briefing about the project and have them deduce a time-efficient plan. Based on the success rate further tasks can be assigned.
3. Billing and Affordability
One of the most crucial steps of hiring a freelancer is to be transparent about the billing. Professional freelancers might demand higher pay for their best work. It is imperative to ensure that a proper balance between work quality and affordability is maintained.
It is also advisable to check the payment terms from freelancers before proceeding with any sample work or assigning any new project. If freelancers are specifically using certain platforms then it is required to go through to those platform terms and conditions as well.
You can provide a timesheet for tracking hours spent working on your project and pay them by the hour. One of the fastest ways to lure the best freelancers to your company is to play fast and fair.
4. Pilot Project
Assign a small pilot project to all potential freelancers to assess their performance, delivery time, and affordability. Assign them a time window to complete the task and observe the relation between time constraints and the quality of their work.
It is also advisable to check out their LinkedIn recommendations to evaluate the feedback of a candidate. If you come across a less populated portfolio, it is required to have standard quality checks on a given task.
Pilot projects give an idea that whether the given work matches your desired expectations or not.
5. Review Freelancers
Besides allotting a pilot project, you can also ask for previous work samples to assess the quality of work delivered. Based on the job profile, you can rate the work samples and see if they comply with your benchmark parameters.
Professional freelancers have high ratings on their profiles, which is also a reliable factor during evaluation. If you wish to dig deeper, go for customer testimonials, if any, on their profile.
Testimonials from customers show authenticity and work excellency, so getting testimonials to help you to evaluate their work better.
Final Words
Recruiting freelancers has become a popular approach for several companies owing to its affordability, decent work quality, and less hassle over full-time employees. However, before finalizing recruitment, you must check certain parameters to ensure that you hire the right candidate for the job, as mentioned in this guide.
