HOW TO HIRE THE BEST FREELANCERS ON UPWORK

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Freelancer hiring is not an easy task. It usually comes with hours spent reading countless bios and portfolios and taking a lot of time to decide on the right person who will help you reach your business goals.

I have seen many of my clients struggle to find top-quality freelancers for their projects. That’s why I decided to develop a proven strategy for hiring the best freelancers while forming long-lasting relationships between both parties.

Let’s jump right into how to hire the very best freelancers for your remote business! 

In this blog I am going to teach you how to hire on Upwork, it's by far my favorite freelancer platform, I have hired many excellent freelancers on this platform. The quality of freelancers' work beats the rest of the platforms out there in my opinion and if you follow the strategy I am about to teach you, you won’t go wrong. 

Before creating your job post on Upwork

• You will create a job description on a word document highlighting all the requirements you need for the job.
• I recommend writing it out on a word document first so you can just copy and paste it into Upwork when you create the job listing on Upwork. 
• You can also save this template for all future listings you may need to create on Upwork and just change the skills area of the job description.
• It will save you so much time working this way. If you have been following my blogs for a while now, you know that I am a heavy believer in the processes and systemization of everything in our business.
• Anyways this blog is not about processes and systems so let's get into what should be written in your job description. 

The job description should have the following information in this exact order: 

Step 1

• Create excitement about your company by mentioning what it is like to work for your company. An example could be a fun, young, dynamic, travel-friendly company that believes in forming long-lasting relationships with their freelancers, you could mention that we as a company believe in only hiring once! 
• The reason we start our listing with this information is that we are looking to attract people who fit into this description and are excited to work for our company by reading the opening description.
• This is essentially how you will form a long last relationship with your freelancers because you get along well. 

Step 2 

• List a company goal so that the freelancers will be excited by the direction your company is heading and be excited to be part of achieving that goal.
• This demonstrates enthusiasm and drive. 

Step 3

• Get technical, and list the skills and requirements you will require for the completion of the job.
• Always save the boring stuff for last, think of a job description as a marketing funnel for hiring freelancers, you need to create excitement. 

The 3rd and final step of the job description creation 

• Put a call to action at the end of the job description.
• Instructing that applicants must apply to the job with a heading of your choice such as “excited to work on your project”.
• Ask them to provide proof of work in their application and to write a short description explaining why they want to work in your company or on this project. 

Now you may be wondering why you need to put a call to action.

• The call to action is the most critical part of the entire process.
• The reason being is that you will only read the applicants that have followed the heading instruction.
• This demonstrates that the applicant has 1: Read the entire job listing. 2: Already showing dedication to your company by following your job application instructions, they are already going the extra mile. 3: It proves that they follow instructions well. 4: The most important reason why we have a call to action is that it saves you so much time reading every application because we are only reading the applications that have followed our instructions. 

Now once you have created your awesome job description, head over to your desktop and post your job and wait for the amazing freelancers to start applying to your job listing.  

After posting your awesome job description: 

• The first and most obvious thing we do is read the applications of the freelancers that have followed your application guidelines.
• Filter the applicants even further by only accepting freelancers who have over an 85% success rate on Upwork and rejecting the rest.
• When rejecting applicants on Upwork they will ask if you want to send a message explaining why you are rejecting them.
• Thank them for their time and for following your application guidelines.
• Explain that it is your company policy to only accept applicants that have over an 85% success rate. 
• This is just an extra level of security for your business.
• There will be a few that are new to Upwork, so they won’t have a success rate.
• We need proof of their work in the platform so that we know for a fact that they are good at what they do, and deliver as promised. This will ensure that no issues arise at a later stage.
• We need empathy in business but we need to always put the success of our business first. 

Once you have filtered the applicants invite the remainder for a video interview.

• Use the interview to get personal and ask them questions to understand their personality better to see if you get along well.
• Understand whether there are any communication barriers.
• Ask them a few questions related to previous projects that they completed related to yours. 

Make sure to read previous reviews on their portfolio on Upwork and if all aligns offer the position to the freelancer that fits in best with your company and project. 

An extra added step for security that you are hiring only the very best: 

• It is also a great idea to select a few freelancers and ask them to complete a task related to the project.
• Then select a freelancer whose skills and character suit your project best.
• This can either be a paid task or free, depending on how big the task is that you are asking them to complete, and how much of their time it will require. 
• You could also make it a requirement that they complete a task as a part of the application.
• For example, if it is a proofreading project, purposely make mistakes in the job listing and ask them to correct the mistakes.
• This would be classified as a small task and I wouldn’t pay them for this work.
• However, if you are asking them to complete a task that will take them a couple of hours, I advise you to pay them for their time even if you won’t be using their work at a later stage.
• By doing so you are creating a good reputation for your company, a reputation that your company values people's time. 

Now you have the secret key to hiring the best freelancers for your business, you're welcome:)  

If you're turning business away because you don't have the team and time to cope and are struggling at hiring. I created a FREE course, The Basics Of Remote Hiring - to help teach you how to hire more efficiently and easily, so you can get back to working on the things that matter most.

Read the course curriculum and join here

Until next time I am wishing you peace, happiness, freedom, and success. 

Shannon Teague, 

CEO Of Scaling Up Simplified.