Common Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Freelancers

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring Freelancers

When hiring freelancers, you’ll want to ensure that you’re vetting talent to get the best options for your needs and budget.

If you’re trying to make progress with your business, one of the best things you can do is hire freelancers. With this sort of agreement, you’re getting professional quality work without the obligations that come with the employer and employee relationship.

Experts expect the workforce to have more than 90 million freelancers by 2028.

Knowing this, you should get comfortable hiring freelancers for different aspects of your business. In order to do this, you need to know what not to do.

The points in this guide will help you when you need to learn more about hiring freelancers for your line of work.

Don’t Skip the Interview

We’re all accustomed to digital, text-based communication. We don’t speak face to face as often due to life conveniences, and remote work is becoming the norm. However, you shouldn’t skip the interview process. The interview gives you a feel for who they are as a person, and gives you the chance to hear them express themselves.

Set up an interview with your prospective freelancer on a video or audio chat. Have a few questions handy, and go over their background before hiring a freelancer.

Avoid the Urge to Cheap Out

Professionals love freelancers because they don’t need to pay full-time salaries. With that said, you should still prioritize providing competitive rates on par with professional earnings. If you want to get access to quality work, you have to resist the urge to pay low-ball rates.

When you pay people well, they will produce better work and be enjoyable to work with. Hire a freelancer at a competitive wage and you’ll always have people lining up to work with you.

Make Sure to Keep Records

Another mistake that people make is keeping subpar records. If you don’t keep clean records, you’ll be ill-equipped to deal with a pay dispute, negotiate contracts, or otherwise conduct thorough business.

When hiring freelancers, e-signing is the easiest way to move contracts along and get a new hire started. If you’re hiring freelance writers, make sure that you get the rate in contract form with contingencies related to edits and other information.

Use a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that will track your business transactions, plan work flows, and store documents. This is part of treating yourself like a business and not cutting corners any step of the way.

Keep thorough records starting with the onboarding process, and keep it going after the hire.

Not Starting on a Trial Basis

Many companies rush into hiring, to the point that they end up in a relationship isn’t as easy to get out of. Always administer a trial period so that both parties can feel out the situation to see if it’s a good fit.

Institute a period of about 30 days, and make sure that your new hire has an open channel of communication with you. Perhaps schedule a regular video chat appointment to check in and make sure they are getting up to speed with everything.

What Not to Do When Hiring Freelancers

Hiring freelancers can revolutionize your business. Hiring the wrong freelancers can cost you precious time and money. With the tips above, you’ll optimize your hiring process and move your business’ goals and objectives ahead.

FreeUp can help you when you’re looking to find some of the best professionals in your industry that you can contract with. Send us a message on our contact form or give us a call at (727)977-8700.