Thinking of hiring freelancers? Have individual contributors on your mind? Think again. Hiring freelancers may seem at first, one of the easiest jobs on our planet, but actually, one of the most daunting tasks. Curious to know, here’s why.
Five Problems of Hiring Freelancers
- Not getting the right match: Not finding the right candidate is one of the common problems faced while hiring freelancers. You may be looking for a test lead with more than 7 years of experience, but candidates with a mixed profile (less than 7 years, not having testing as one of their core skills) are all that you are getting. To make sure you’re hiring the right person for the job, reach out to an agency that has a qualified resource pool. They will allow you to take a screening test and also a personality test during or before the interview. This way, you can check if your future freelancer is likely to thrive as a remote worker.
- Lack of Commitment: This is probably the worst challenge of hiring a freelance resource. You can never expect the same level of commitment from a freelancer, as you would normally expect from a full-time employee. It is because of the short-term engagement you have with them, that they tend to look for greener pastures. The only solution to this is to look for dedicated resources from an outsourcing company. You will surely get remote workers committed to long-term projects. Expect better turnaround from them.
- Communication issues: Individual freelancers often take up multiple projects and communication becomes difficult. They work according to their own schedules and at times, as per their time zones. Communication for work is often very difficult, as they respond according to their own convenience. If you hire freelancers from an agency, you can clearly specify your conditions to make sure that the remote resource working for you works in tandem with your schedule.
- Payment Issues: This is actually a two-way issue. While most freelancers complain of being underpaid or not paid, you as a recruiter may find it less profitable to pay a handsome amount for a freelance resource who will contribute only a few hours per day for your project. If your resources are working from abroad, you might have to make international bank transfers. That will burn a hole in your pocket. It is better to avail financial services of companies like Payoneer, Skrill, or PayPal. Also, check if their offer is profitable enough for you as well as for your future freelance worker.
- Deadly Deadlines: Deadline is perhaps the most dreaded word if you are hiring a freelance resource. Unlike a regular full-time employee, a freelancer is almost always trying to balance two or three projects. These projects may again be different from each other, with different payment models. Quite often they happen to lose out time and miss the deadline for one project while trying to deliver the other on time. Chances are high that your project may be put away for when the freelancer has free time, or for when inspiration strikes them.
The result? Missed deadlines. Not a pretty picture, is it? It is a better idea to hire offshore resources from an outsourcing partner that has dedicated resources for projects to work on. Also, if you’re outsourcing your work to unified freelance platforms, look up for reviews and policies they use for handling deadline issues.
Having considered the downsides of hiring freelancers, you need to look for alternatives. You may, therefore, talk to an outsourcing partner like us. Working with Pixel Solutionz, allows you to reap multiple benefits of working with freelancers, such as easy access to a large tech talent pool and lower labor costs, as well as the dedication of full-time resources. We help businesses from all over the world hire skilled software developers/designers/testers/content developers. When you contact us, all you need to do is specify the skills you’re looking for, and our recruiters will get back to you with matching candidate profiles. We also give you the liberty to manage your development team directly while we handle office management, HR, payroll, taxes, team retention. Like what you just read? Let us know.
