There are plenty of reasons why you or your business may want to hire a freelancer. Maybe you want to build a company website or need some assistance in advertising your organization? Whatever the need, there is probably a freelancer out there who is an expert that can help you with your task.
Hiring a freelancer for your organization has plenty of advantages. First, you don’t have to hire a full time employee and pay them benefits which help keep payroll costs low for growing companies. Once a project or task has been completed, you have no additional commitment to the resource. The freelance employee is responsible for their own taxes and expenses.
Secondly, a freelancer who is hired should have the expertise to complete a set of tasks required by your business. That means you shouldn’t have to provide them with any training. Hiring a resource with a desired skill-set will save your company time and money in training.
Finally, there is a lot of competition amongst freelancers which means you can usually hand pick the best resource for your organization. This also means that you can probably save a lot of money paying a freelancer as opposed to doing the work yourself or training a full time employee. Just be careful not to underpay as you can end up hiring someone who doesn’t have the desired skill-set.
There is a good chance that a freelancer exists out there somewhere that has the expertise you are looking for. Here are some of the more common types of tasks that can be outsourced for your business.
The list above is just a few activities that you can hire a freelancer to complete for your business. In reality, if you are willing to pay to have some type of work performed, there is a freelancer willing to do it.
So how does an individual or small business hire a freelancer? Hiring a contractor or freelancer is actually much easier than it sounds. As technology has advanced over the past several years, so has the means to finding freelancers.
There are plenty of legitimate websites available where you can submit a project for work to be done. In return, freelancers who are interested in the job will place a bid for the project. I have used several of these sites for small projects I needed to be completed and have been amazed at the amount of bids that are submitted.
Here are 3 different sites where you can hire a freelancer.
Guru.com is one of the world’s largest online marketplaces to find qualified freelancers. They have over 1 million registered members and pride themselves on providing optimal talent-to-project matching. For those concerned with the quality of work they will get form a freelancer, Guru.com offers their SafePay Escrow which guarantees 100% satisfaction with their results.
According to the company’s website, “Guru.com serves to grow, enhance and support independent entrepreneurialism and the remote, virtual office.”
Another top platform for online employment, Elance provides the tools for businesses to hire staff by the hour or for projects. There online tools allow organizations to hire and manage important projects in the cloud, which can ultimately save money. From finding developers to write code to designing a website, Elance has qualified freelancers ready to work on your project or task.
Constant Content is another online site where you can hire a freelancer. One difference between this site and the other two mentioned, is that Constant Content focuses mainly on providing writers and publishers for content based on SEO business development. While you won’t find any coders here, you will find qualified content providers ready to work on your project.
If you are in need of some quality web content, this company provides access to over 50,000 qualified writers.
There are many different ways to hire a freelancer to help with your business. The sites listed above are just a few of the high quality online marketplaces out there providing the tools needed to outsource tasks and projects. Hiring freelancers for your company can save you time and money and allow your business to grow without staffing full time employees.
What online freelance marketplaces have you used in the past? When you comment let us know if you were hiring or the freelancer being hired.
I was also hiring freelancers and recently I hire a virtual assistant to do some admin tasks and marketing for me. Another great site where you could hire freelancers is Staff.com, where I hire freelancers personally. One thing you must do before hiring a freelancer for the job is to screen them first even you acquire them on legit sites, which allows you to see their potential. You could conduct an interview and ask for sample of work or references. I believe that hiring freelancers are beneficial to business as long as you know how to look for the right one for the job.
Freelancers helped me expand my business, even though I work in freelancing and consulting. In fact, despite 15 years in the consulting/freelance field, I still find it makes more sense to use freelancers than to hire staff. The flexibility is invaluable and I’m able to hire a range of people who hit the ground running. While I’ve hired good people from overseas, I prefer to keep my contacts local, so that I can build a stronger relationship with my freelancers. It’s nice to be able to grab a coffee once in while.