What do you do when you have run your job ad for aspiring freelance workers and found your top three applicants? How do you go about the final selection, so you know you are selecting the very best person for the job?
A tried and trusted method is to use the 3 lancer technique. Once you have found your top three contenders, give each of them the same ten percent of the job that you need doing as a trial. Perhaps you need fifty articles written for your small business. Get these three people to write the same five articles for you and see how they perform. It is important that the task you give each one is exactly the same, so that you can fairly compare the results. You also need to pay them for their time.
Once the tasks have been completed, there are various criteria you will use to judge the success of each.
Firstly, each freelance worker may have quoted you a different hourly rate. If this is the case and the quality of the work is consistent across all three, you can safely go with the one who has quoted the lowest rate, being sure that you are not compromising on quality.
Secondly, you need to consider how they each communicated with you. Was one quicker off the mark with his emails to you? Did one reply in more depth, with greater detail and clarity than the other? This is going to be important when he does ongoing work with you and may be the factor which swings things in his favour.
Perhaps the work was time sensitive and one of the three workers was able to complete the task in a much smaller time frame than the others, still doing the work to a high standard. Then it is clear that he will be the person you will choose to do the rest of the work.
When you use the 3 lancer technique, if for some reasons the first person you choose does not work out and either you or he pulls out of the relationship, you do not have to go through the whole selection process for freelance workers once again. You have immediately to hand a satisfactory alternative, and you simply contact one of the other freelancers.
It is true that you will initially have to pay three times the amount of money to get the first ten percent of the job completed. However, this is a drop in the ocean compared to the advantages of getting just the right person for the job. You will have found a person who does the work to a high standard, communicates well, and meets your requirements in regard to turnaround time and price.
You may like to mention that you are going to use the 3 lancer technique in your job ad. Say that you are going to ask the top three people to submit five articles for you and you may be surprised to learn that many people are prepared to do this initial task without any payment at all. If they are really keen to get the job, they may even be fast enough off the mark to submit five articles for your perusal with their application form.
Try out this 3 lancer technique and see the benefits of finding just the right freelance workers to suit your requirements.
The team at Melbourne Video Production has a wealth of experience in hiring skilled freelance workers. Are you looking to do the same for your small business soon? Visit Facebook.com/SEOMastermind to keep updated on the latest in outsourcing tips and strategies.
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