photo courtesy of flikr user, bpsusf
When you are a freelancer, trying to hire new people can be scary. For the longest time I thought I could tackle everything myself, only to realize that meant working almost 24/7 to complete all my tasks. In the end I turned to outsourcing work I didn’t love or wasn’t great at, so I could keep my business running and focus on what I do best.
There is definitely a conundrum when it comes to hiring, especially if you’re in the same position as I am. While I’m not able to hire someone full time, there are certain tasks I can pass on to freelancers with other areas of expertise.
Now that I have worked with a few different people for various things, I have realized hiring people is a definite skill. Here are some tips I have learned to help you hone in and develop that skill.
- Personality does matter.
While skills are important, you want to work with people that you jive with. I find that even if someone has all the skill in the world, but they don’t understand you or your vision, you probably won’t get very far. We spend a lot of time working, so we might as well surround ourselves with people we like. When you connect on a personal level, you can get a lot more done.
- Sometimes things don’t work
One of the biggest career mistakes I have made, was not cutting ties when it was apparent that things weren’t working. It isn’t necessarily a bad reflection on you or the person you hired, but sometimes you’re just not on the same page. Rather than trying to make it work, it might just be better to go your separate ways. There have been times that I have hired someone to do something, and it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. We had to keep going back to the drawing board, but things never turned out right. I should have cut the ties from the beginning. I ended up wasting a lot more time and money doing it this way.
- Find people that specialize in certain skills
Since I can’t hire someone full time to help me with everything, I have found that the best strategy is to hire freelancers that specialize in different things. It is a win-win combo because they aren’t looking to work for someone full time, and they are really good at what they do. For the most part, I can just send the projects when I need something done, and if I don’t have extra work it is no big deal.
Leave a Reply