How to choose and where to find a freelancer? How to distinguish an amateur from a professional and find a competent specialist for the project? Read about it in our article!
Let’s start with who a freelancer is:
Freelancersare remote employees or workers who perform projects at home and communicate with the project manager (customer) using the Internet.Freelancer – the word is ancient, back in the Middle Ages in English-speaking countries so called people mercenaries who for a fee were ready to fight for any of the warring parties.
The largest number of freelancers work in programming, web design, packaging and logo design, copywriting, naming, journalism,SEO optimization and translation. Cooperation with freelancers, as a rule, is much more profitable for companies than hiring a permanent employee in the staff of the company. However, cooperation with freelancers has its disadvantages, the main of which are the risk ofpoor quality of work or failure to fulfill the work intime. The first question that arises when choosing a freelancer: how to distinguish an amateur from a professional and find a competent specialist for the project?
How to choose a freelancer?
There are a few, maybe even slightly trite, tips for companies that are on the lookout for a freelancer. So, what makes the difference between an amateur and a professional?
Experience: the experience of a freelancer is a very important factor when choosing an artist. When hiring a freelancer, you cannot look at a future employee and fully assess how suitable he is for you. In this case, you can tell about the freelancer only his portfolio – examples of his work. Therefore, be sure to ask the applicant to show his portfolio or a list of completed works with links to publications!
Name:freelancers usually use a nickname (pseudonym) rather than their full name when communicating. In this case, you can look for his full name and surname in the additional data, but if you can not get such information, you should be wary. Professionals and competent specialists, most often, on the contrary, indicate their full name everywhere, and do not try to hide it!
Speech:If a freelancer in conversation with you uses slang words and uses specific vocabulary, it is better to stop communicating with him, most likely that he has no experience with companies and you will not do business with him. A bad copywriter will give himself away with grammatical errors!
Reading the Terms of Reference (TOR):When a freelancer asks you silly questions or a large number of clarifying questions that are carefully spelled out and dealt with in the TOR, think about it! This is not a professional!
Financial issues: A competent specialist will certainly ask about the financial side of things, but only after all the details of the project have been considered. If your acquaintance starts with “invoicing”, it is better to stop it!
Deadlines:when cooperating with remote workers, be sure to conclude a contract with them, in which you must specify the deadlines and penalties for violations of deadlines. This way you will protect yourself from the risk of project failure.
Knowledgeable questions: an experienced freelancer always asks a lot of questions, but substantive questions. He asks questions, the answers to which will be interesting for you too! It is this criterion that makes it easy to spot an amateur.
Courtesy:A professional will always be extremely polite and tactful with you. He realizes that you are either his potential client or his employer.
Uncertainty:uncertainty is detrimental to your project, so freelancer’s answers should be specific and clear, especially when it comes to deadlines. Such phrases as “you can do anything, if only there was time” should not be in any case! Everything should be very clear.
Recommendations from other people:not superfluous will be recommendations from other people, you can, ask advice from friends who have already used the services of interesting to you freelancers or read about them reviews in blogs.
Where to find a freelancer?
There are three main options for finding freelancers:
- freelance labor exchanges;
- forums;
- use of own web resources for publishing vacancies;
Freelancer exchanges
On exchanges freelancers work a large number of both professionals and amateurs.But, thanks to the exchanges, which post portfolios of freelancers and reviews of work from other customers and ratings, you can make a rational choice.
If you need to find a freelance copywriter, it will be best to turn to specialized exchanges that require freelancers to complete test assignments and post a portfolio. This increases the likelihood of finding a freelancer who is a professional and a master of their craft!
Freelancer exchanges by popularity:
1.https://www.weblancer.net-a major exchange of freelance professionals in all fields.
2.https://www.freelance.ru- is one of the most popular freelance design exchanges. Here you can find an artist for every taste.
3.https://www.free-lance.ru-is the most famous freelancer exchange today, where designers, programmers, journalists, SEO-optimizers and copywriters work. An exchange that is updated hourly with new projects!
4.https://www.freelancejob.ru-to register in the catalog, on this exchange, requires a portfolio!
Here you can find web designers, SEO optimizers, programmers and journalists.
5. https://freelancehunt.com- exchange of freelancers of any categories from programmers to copywriters.
6.https://revolance.ru-is the most user-friendly freelance specialist exchange.
7.https://www.free-lancers.net-is a young, but very promising exchange, with the ability to design a portfolio and get ratings of freelancers.
8.https://webpersonal.ru-is a free service where every freelancer can register an account.
9.https://www.freelancerbay.com-a promising exchange, with wide possibilities for account customization.
10.https://free-lance.su-is a daily updated exchange, quite popular today. The main advantage of the exchange is direct contacts of employers (phone, mail, etc.).
11.https://www.best-lance.гциhttps://dalance.ru- are still young exchanges where you can find designers, technical translators and programmers.
12.https://top-lance.ru-a labor exchange that hosts blacklists of employers and freelancers on its website.
13.https://dribbble.comи https://www.behance.net-freelancer exchanges that have social networking features.
Copywriter Exchanges:
1.https://www.textsale.ru-site gives the opportunity to sell finished articles.
https://www.etxt.ru-labor exchange for copywriting, rewriting and translation. Plus this exchange – you can find a copywriter for every taste: beginner, writing articles at 5 p per 1 thousand characters and professional, writing articles at 200 p. for 1 thousand characters.
2.https://advego.ru-site allows you to buy and sell ready-made articles, as well as find professional copywriters and article writers.
3.https://www.my-publication.ru-a society of professional copywriters, the site has blogging and portfolio posting capabilities.
4.https://www.txt.ru- exchange of experienced copywriters. Disadvantage – untimely payments.
Small exchanges for copywriters:
- https://copylancer.ru.
- https://www.snipercontent.ru.
- https://paytext.ru.
- https://krasnoslov.ru.
- https://contentmonster.ru.
Exchanges for programmers:
Freelancing exchanges for lawyers, HR professionals and accountants:
About Free-lance.ru Freelancers Exchange
We would like to pay special attention to such a multifunctional freelancer exchange as free-lance.ru.Free-lance.ru – one of the most popular and rich in variety of projects freelancer exchanges. It should be canceled that this is one of the very first freelancer exchanges, working since 2005.
The Exchange successfully performs the functions of an intermediary between employers and freelancers. It is a labor exchange that has its own electronic currency, Free-Money (FM), which is used only for payments for the use of internal services. One FM is equal to approximately 30 Russian rubles.
Unlike other freelance exchanges on the free-lance.ru is very simple account billing. There are the ability to use both a free account and a paid (PRO) account. Free accounts are good for beginners until they get used to the exchange, but further on it is advisable to purchase a paid account, which removes many of the limitations of the basic account, including access to more interesting projects for professionals.
Freelancers working with free accounts are allowed to submit only three orders per day. In addition, very often customers mark orders with the “only for PRO” tag. With a free account there is no possibility to upload examples of work in requests and place previews of work in the freelancer’s portfolio. Another most important difference between a basic account and PRO is the ability to choose only one specialization. PRO allows you to choose five.
For those who doubt the expediency of purchasing a paid account, it is possible to purchase a “trial” – a fully functional PRO for a week, costing 5 FM. Temporary account gives only a different color of the PRO icon. Users of the basic account can purchase additional orders (1 order – 1 FM), and unused orders are burned within 1 year, unlike other exchanges, where they are burned within a month.
Each user-freelancer of the exchangefree-lance.ru to attract customers can place on the main page of the site (85 FM per week), mark on the main page of the catalog (25 FM) or in the sections of the catalog (10 FM per week).
All information about prices for free-lance.ruservices:https://www.free-lance.ru/price.pdf.Помимо all other thingsfree-lance.ru gives a unique opportunity to freelancers to sell finished works in the store on the exchange. The exchange takes care of the security of the accounts of its users, for example, you can limit access to the account by static IP.
Onfree-lance, as well as on many other labor exchanges, there is a system of rating of users, respectively, the higher the rating, the higher the probability of receiving orders. The user rating is influenced by many different factors: the number and quality of risk-free transactions on the freelancer’s account, feedback from customers and other users, the content of the profile, the number of works in the portfolio, the amount of money spent on the service (for example, every day you can earn a point just by logging in to the site).
The free-lance risk-free transaction service is a tool that ensures that the interests of the client and the freelancer are aligned. After the customer gives the project to the freelancer, agrees on the deadlines, submits the terms of reference and transfers the payment for the project, the amount is blocked and the customer no longer has the right to dispose of it until the project is completed. If the customer is satisfied with the work, the payment is transferred to the account of the freelancer-executor. The commission for using the service is 10%. Arbitration is provided to resolve disputes.
Design, structure and functionality of this site provide convenience for its users. Another useful feature of the service is the ability to specify a link to your blog or personal website in your profile. Free-lance.ru is an exchange of professional freelancers, updated daily and rich in projects of any direction!
Forums
In addition to exchanges freelancers, there are also many forums where freelancers offer their services, for example, the forum – searchengines.ru.The main advantage of searching for freelancers on forums – is the opportunity to familiarize yourself with a large number of reviews about the work of applicants and the rating of freelancers. These two factors also clearly demonstrate the possible quality of work of future performers.
Own resources
Another way to find freelancers is through your own blog or social media accounts, where with a single post you can attract a large number of freelancers aimed at collaboration.
Before choosing a freelancer, carefully analyze his online activities, if he has his own blog, then evaluate it and the traffic of his blog, good traffic exceeds several hundred visitors.
Choosing a freelancer is a responsible endeavor that will determine the success of your project! Be sure to use these tips. And, still, the most important thing is the already completed work of the remote employee, by which you will be able to assess his professional level!
Just in case, we’d like to remind you thatbranding agency KOLOROwill develop for you more qualitatively than a professional freelancer. packaging design, logo designcorporate identity, website design and icons, as well as sales advertising texts and naming at affordable prices! Get in touch! 😉
