Hello to everyone who at least one time thought about hiring freelance developers but maybe was not sure how to do it and does it worth to make such a decision! Such a need regularly arises for any customer who is determined to find a specialist himself in order to directly give him a task and get a result.
In this case, project costs can be reduced several times, because freelancers, unlike companies, as a rule, do not have large organizational costs (office, taxes, accountant, director, advertising, etc.), and the quality of work is the same, after all, quite often the same specialist from the office works as a freelancer.
A freelancer is a remote specialist who is involved mainly for one-time orders, is located anywhere, accepts and performs work on the Internet. And hiring such a specialist so as not to waste time and money is not as easy as it might seem. In the article ‘How to Hire a Freelance Front End Developer’ we will consider main issues in hiring such specialists and how to do it correctly. Let’s begin!
Where And How To Search Top Freelance Front End Developers?
Remote specialists live on stock exchanges, special sites created for these purposes. I recommend creating an account and posting projects on all exchanges at once – let your experience as a customer be as long as possible, because a customer who has been on the exchange for 2 years is also trusted by performers more than someone who registered yesterday.
Registration is banal, it cannot cause difficulties. The only thing that I recommend is to indicate your real data! Otherwise, numerous problems may arise, including with proving one’s case in arbitration. After registration, you will be able to add a project or application – this is your task for freelancers. Of course, you may be surprised – what is so difficult here?
I registered on the stock exchange, wrote an assignment, chose a cheaper performer – and voila, it’s done. If only it were that simple! Therefore, I have compiled a list of basic rules for finding and hiring freelancers. Important! They must be applied simultaneously. Of course, to one degree or another, but simultaneously, and not one by one. Only in this case you are guaranteed to get a normal result.
1. First you need to understand what levers of pressure the customer has on the remote worker, because he is not located where there is no work record book, you cannot pronounce a reprimand – how to influence this? But there are methods of influence, otherwise the freelance market would not be so huge. Unfortunately, many customers ignore these levers when hiring a freelancer, and then find themselves without a project and without money.
And without the ability to influence the situation. To prevent this from happening, you need to realize your possibilities of pressure on the performers and try to use them to the maximum even before the conflict, so that it does not happen at all (a freelancer should not even have a thought to deceive you). Of course, each person has his own set of fears, but in general, the following can be distinguished:
- Freelancer is afraid of bad feedback from the client.
- Freelancer is afraid of the administration of the platform.
- The freelancer is afraid that you will not pay him. Never list huge advances, even to a super duper pro! Pay in stages. Pay three kopecks for a small change, then a little more for a piece of work – then more money, but still within reason!
2. To get the right answer, you need to ask the right question. So here, in order to get a normal result, you need to correctly formulate the problem. So if you are planning a complex project, then be prepared to spend time and effort preparing a worthy technical assignment. But if you rarely hire a freelancer and for typical tasks, and even if you yourself are not strong in this area, then you can try to do without a lot of writing. In this case, it is important to adhere to the basic rules:
- Technical Assignment should be clear to everyone. To do this, write in the simplest language, without frills, technical terms, especially if you yourself “float” in them. That is, you can not understand all the technical nuances, but you need to know what you want and strive to get it. Not to mention the fact that over-complication of the task always increases the cost of work and reduces the number of applications.
- The technical assignment should be as short as possible. Freelancers can view 20-30 projects every day. And for each project, they need to leave their application and at the same time indicate some kind of price tag.
3. The first thing I look at when choosing a freelancer on the exchange, and for some reason, according to my observations, 30-50% of all other customers do NOT look at reviews of previous clients. It would seem that it is easier to not follow other people’s mistakes. Remember, a normal freelancer may have one or two negative reviews. But not more.
We discard unsuitable candidates, and study the rest more carefully – we read these very reviews. Whether they fit your assignment. Isn’t there a hidden negative in the positive reviews, they say, “the freelancer, of course, is good, but he did the project for 2 months instead of 2 days,” this also happens.
4. The ideal option that any customer should strive for is pay-as-you-go. I see, I like it – I pay.
5. If the previous points are important in order not to lose money, then this point is needed in order not to waste time. Imagine giving an order to the best performer in the world who has 100,500 great reviews and a wild experience. And absolutely calmly wait 2 weeks when everything will be ready.
Time has passed, you write, they say, well, where is my creation, and they tell you that some force majeure happened. Therefore, for long, and even more important, projects, even with familiar, proven performers, try to control and pull him with a request to show what has been done at least once every 2-3 days.
Conclusion
It was an article ‘How to Hire Front End Developer’ where I have described the main rules during this not so easy process. With these rules, you will be able to properly find and cooperate with the freelance front end developer, so you are almost guaranteed to get the job done well. So pick up and take action.
Naturally, these rules are written for standard situations, but they do not apply if there is very little response to your project, for example, your prices are too low, or the project is too complex. In this case, you will either have to edit the project or negotiate individually.
And finally. I am convinced that it is better not to hire anyone at all than to contact anyone and do a hack. Not enough applications and no one to choose from? Do not rush to contact the “risk group”. Thanks for reading!
