The 10 Commandments of Hiring a Freelancer
Considering hiring a freelancer? Here are ten rules to follow to make sure your experience goes smoothly
It’s officially the year of the freelancer. More and more, companies are reaching out to their core teams of employees to contract experts in various fields based on need and skill.
Naturally, with the growth comes challenges as well.
The following 10 commandments will lay down the everlasting foundation for your relationship with a freelancer. Knowing and staying true to these ideals will ensure that you’re getting everything you need from your freelancer.
1. Know What (and Why) Work You Need to Have Done
Have an idea of what sort of project or task it is that you’re hiring someone for. It’s not a good idea to hire a freelancer without first defining the project. Too often, people will hire someone for an undefined task and are unhappy with what they were given when the work is finished.
If you aren’t sure what you need done, spend some time researching and brainstorming. You may find through this process that what you thought needed to be done can actually be achieved in a different way that saves money or time without sacrificing quality.
2. What Kind of Freelancer Are You Looking For?
Part-time, full-time, or hourly. Understand whether the work you need to be completed is something that someone could do while having another full-time job or if you’re looking for someone who will commit to a regular schedule.
3. How Much Will You Pay?
If the freelancer is going to get paid hourly, then be sure to understand their hourly rate and what sort of minimum hours they commit to working per week.
Make sure you understand what tax forms will need to be filled out, and if there are any expenses involved — such as the cost of a computer or software they may need for their work — are these costs included in their hourly rate?
4. Define the Work
Are you looking for someone who can do one type of task, or is the freelancer someone to handle a wide variety of tasks?
In other words, if you require an illustrator to create illustrations for children’s book covers, what about e-book interiors? Or do you need them to only work on e-books?
5. Are You Delegating or Hiring?
Be clear on whether you’re hiring a freelancer to create something for you or if you’re hiring them to run the whole project.
In some cases, it may be that you are looking for someone to handle an entire project and take the lead in creating whatever it is you want; however, likely more common will be that you hire a freelancer to create something and then have you take over once it is done.
6. Understand the Timeline
If you are hiring someone to do work for you, understand how long that process will take — when should they complete it by? Establishing this at the beginning will save problems later on when one or both parties are unhappy with the timeline.
7. Understand Your Relationship
Will this be a freelancer-client relationship? How often will you interact with them? Are they someone you are hiring to handle a job on their own, or does that mean you will need to work together in some way throughout that project/task’s creation? If so, how should you work together?
8. Know Your Needs
Do you need something done a certain way — is color of high importance, for example? Are there parts of the project that are less important than others? If so, make sure this is clear from the beginning — if not, it might be a problem down the road.
9. Have a Plan B
You may have the best intentions, you may very well hire someone who can do what you need done — but you never know. It is always best to have a backup plan as situations change and things don’t go as expected. It’s not fun to have to fire freelancers, but it happens more frequently than you’d think.
10. Have Fun!
Working with freelancers can be super fun if you enjoy working with different people and seeing collaboration come to life! But make sure that you focus on building relationships, not just making money. When it comes to working with freelancers, remember that you are working with real, living, breathing individuals who are ready to help you reach your goals — while you help them as well!
Follow these 10 Freelance Commandments, and you will be a happy client and find the right freelancer for your needs. You may be shocked to discover the quality of work you can create together as a team.
