Reviews Of Freelancers

What should companies look for when hiring an independent contractor?

And we must preface by saying that we don’t think AT ALL, that one should look for any different traits when hiring an independent contractor vs. hiring an employee. It’s just semantics about what the worker is called.

Here is our point of view on the complete package we look for when hiring an independent contractor.

Most workers think only their skill is what companies look for & maybe that’s the only thing some companies care about, but not the companies that want to build long lasting relationship & not have problems with the worker down the road.

So here is what we look for:

1. Above average skill.Normally we would say average skill, but because we find that so many workers these days are so unskilled & unintelligent, so in order to get any quality work done, we have to ask for above average skill.It is unfortunate that today most workers either don’t know that they aren’t skilled, or just lie to get the job, but I wonder if we took a poll of who thought they were skilled (but weren’t) & who honestly knew they weren’t that skilled & admitted it, which side would be larger.Also, we would love to assume that people who have a lot of experience are more skilled, but sadly we have learned that is not the case.

   A company can hire someone who is young, very sharp, learns fast & gets the job, vs. hiring someone who’s had 30 years in the workforce & still does a mediocre job.

2. Intelligence – aren’t talking post secondary
   We feel that the intelligence level of the average human has gone down in the past 20 years.

   While we can’t be certain since we weren’t around back in the 30′s-50′s, we just get the feeling that it takes twice as long for us to find someone who is intelligent enough to do even the most basic of tasks.

3. Quality – We look for people who care about quality, not people who just want to get the job done fast to get it out of the way. Since these days very few things are of quality, it can be a challenge to find workers who care about quality.
4. Above average online communication skills – even communication skills via the phoneNow perhaps it has something to do with writing because that’s how we communicate with 95% of our staff, but we find it very hard to communicate with people who want to work online.You can see this in almost every area online. People don’t like to read (reading is a dying art), so they ask questions that were already answered, or ignore what’s right in front of their face.Workers skip answering questions in an e-mail, are hard to understand when they write, or they aren’t able to read & understand our communication.

   Even proper paragraph structure can be a challenge, many people who are looking for work online write walls of text, or don’t use proper punctuation, so we can’t even understand what they are saying & have to guess.

   And editing? How many people actually edit what they write before they send it off?

   Bottom line is, we have learned that online communication is a skill not a lot of people have.

   Included in the above average communication skills includes honesty, & people who don’t ignore your e-mails. Since we find that people will ignore your e-mail if they just don’t want to deal with the e-mail. This is of course not just rude & disrespectful, but a sign of passive aggression.

   And they will lie as well.

5. A great work ethic – people who love to work & give every task their all.They are called A+ workers & they are few & far between.Most workers nowadays (unlike back in the 1940′s, 50′s, etc.) have a poor work ethic.You can see it in almost every store you walk into. The staff is all huddled together socializing, while customers are trying to get their attention. How many times have you gone shopping now & while the cashier is checking your items through, she is talking to her c0-workers. Talk about RUDE!

   Don’t think it’s any different online. It’s even worse because they can hide behind their monitor.

   I’ve even seen workers talk behind the customers backs, & are only there to “take” money from the company, NEVER to give anything back to the company.

   We applaud all A+ workers out there. Kudos to you for being such dedicated people.

6. Does the worker get the job done in a fast & efficient manner?That is very important.Do they sit & yap on the phone all the time or string along the task just so it appears that they are working when really they aren’t?Remember, time is money.
7. And last – is that worker there to help the company, or are they there to cause more stress & work for the company.Do they actually care about the success of the company, or just taking a paycheck for showing up to work?

So there are the attributes we look for when hiring independent contractors to work for our company.

We hope this helped you.

Michelle