what to ask freelancers before you hire them

Small businesses rely on freelancers for many projects and tasks. A great freelancer is excellent and delivers solid content for a fraction of the cost of hiring an employee. But many pocket-size-business owners have at to the lowest degree one freelancer horror story.

The trick to fugitive a horror story yourself is to carefully vet freelancers before you hire them. Beyond the usual questions about qualifications and references, here are 8 interview questions to ask a potential freelancer!

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What Is Your Ideal Client Relationship?

The answer to this question should tell y'all three things about a potential freelancer.

Starting time, it will give y'all an idea of how much real experience they've had. A newly minted freelancer won't be able to answer this question because they oasis't had enough client relationships to class an stance. By contrast, freelancers with wide and varied experiences will have formed not only a wish list of human relationship attributes, but also a gear up of operating procedures that help make them a reality.

Second, information technology can help you make up one's mind how good of a match this freelancer's work fashion is for your company civilisation and your team procedures. Some work styles will be a meliorate fit for your company than others.

Finally, this question helps spot freelancers who might exist hard to work with. Listen during the answer for whether they are willing to accommodate their expectations to work with a client, or whether they're likely to be demanding and inflexible.

How Many Projects Are You Working On Right Now?

Unless you're offering a temporary full-time assignment to a freelancer, it'due south unfair to wait that yous'll have their undivided attending. However, many freelancers autumn into the trap of accepting all work that comes in for fear of missing out on income and opportunities. This question helps yous judge whether or non they have enough bandwidth to have on the work.

Unfortunately, there isn't a universal formula to tell whether or non a freelancer has besides many tasks to treat your projection with the attention needed. Withal, you tin ask several follow-up questions to get an thought of whether or not the freelancer feels overwhelmed and how they balance multiple projects at once.

What Experience Do You Have With (Insert Tool Hither)?

Whichever app, platform, or software you lot used to communicate and rails workflow, you should enquire a potential freelancer how much experience they have with it. If they have no experience with that particular tool, find out how many different tools they accept worked with.

For example, if you lot are hiring a freelancer to help you lot with your Ecwid store or help manage your business. They should have a background ineast-commerce terms, programs, and tools.

Ideally, a candidate will take extensive experience with the tools your team uses on aday-to-24-hour interval footing. Alternatively, a candidate who has feel with enough platforms should accept no problem learning an additional 1.

That said, most freelancers are good at picking up new systems and tasks. Information technology'due south one of the core competencies of successful freelancing. Information technology'south best to consider this question atie-breaker between two candidates with similar qualifications, rather than abargain-breaker.

How Would You Prefer We Measure out Your Results?

This is aweeding-out question. If the candidate is confused by the question or appears to be making up an answer off the top of their head, they're probably not the best option for the task. Not understanding that results should be measured, or being unfamiliar with the concept, indicates they're not professionally ready for your project.

If a candidate gives a knowledgeable, detail-oriented answer, they're most likely worth considering. It doesn't really thing what the reply is, as long as they're willing to alter how they measure results to match the metrics and analytical tools you use. What'south of import here is that they understand the importance and the best practices of considerately measuring functioning.

As a bonus, the reply to this question gives yous a head offset on finalizing project details with whichever candidate you ultimately determine to go with.

What Happened the Concluding Fourth dimension You lot Missed a Deadline?

Everybody misses deadlines once in a while. You exercise. Your team does. Your company does. Information technology'due south not fair to disqualify every potential freelancer who admits to having missed a deadline. Instead, this question is nigh how well the candidate solves issues and how honest they are.

If a freelance candidate with more than three years of experience tells you they've never, ever missed a deadline, they may have an honesty result. At the very least, you demand to check with their references to confirm this track record.

When a candidate admits to missing a deadline, heed for how they handled the situation. Do they acknowledge their part in missing the deadline, or do they arraign everybody else? Do they have a personal plan in place for finishing piece of work quickly if they miss a deadline? Are they cavalier about deadlines in general? Listen to the substance of the answer, as well as to how they talk about deadlines and timelines in general.

What Else Do You lot Do for Work?

Most questions you want to ask candidates, whether for regular employment or a freelance organisation, should beopen up-concluded, with no clear right or wrong answer, as a way to assemble information. This is not one of those questions.

There are 2 kinds of freelancers: professionals who rely on freelance work for their full-time living, and those who do a bit of freelance piece of work on the side for actress money. If the candidate has afull-time task, their piece of work for you will be a 2d, third, or even fourth priority.

That'south not to say role-time freelancers with talent and potential don't exist. Only most will be more problematic than those who treat their freelancing as afull-fourth dimension profession. If you find apart-timer who otherwise checks all of your boxes, give them a shot, but prepare workflow and a contract that makes sure you stay meridian of their priority queue.

Why Do You Freelance?

The best professionals in any field are those who got at that place on purpose and who value their position. They are passionate and motivated because they do what they do forwell-understood reasons.

If y'all asked multiple freelancers why they freelance, you would get an array of answers. Some of these answers suggest a particular candidate will be excellent, while others are bright red flags.

The answers you're looking for will center around how much the person cares near freelancing. They volition tell you if the candidate is knowledgeable about the type of work you lot demand. Suppose you demand actress help managing your concern, whether it be marketing ore-commerce. Make sure the freelancer shares the same passion for your business!

If you get answers most how easy freelancing is, or how the candidate only "sort of cruel into" the job, consider other applicants. If the candidate doesn't care very much about their own freelancing business overall, it's unlikely they will care most your particular place in it.

How Do Y'all Manage Your Freelancing Business?

Much like the question virtually measuring performance, this question reveals the professionals in your candidate pool. A professional freelancer spends time on managing their freelance business. They recollect and care near the business aspects of their career. Such a freelancer volition exist able to reply this question briefly and intelligently.

If a candidate doesn't take an reply to this question or seems unprepared to answer it, information technology's an indication of a lack of professionalism. If they don't manage their business well, they're unlikely to manage yours whatever better.

Amid the applicants who do have a strong answer to this question, wait for those with direction practices that best friction match your visitor's. In that location are many right ways to manage a freelancing business organisation, but some of those ways are ameliorate suited to working with how you run your company.

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Bonus Question

This last question isn't for the freelancer themself, simply for the references they give you. Ask each reference if they know anybody else who has worked with that freelancer. Most candidates volition give you the references who are happiest with their work (or are related to them or friends). This is what scientists telephone call a "selection bias," and it may or may non reverberate the most mutual feel with that freelancer.

But if you enquire for other people who've worked with them, and then inquire those people for more names, eventually you'll get a sense of the average experience. That's the information you lot desire to base your concluding decision on.

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Source: https://www.ecwid.com/blog/8-questions-to-ask-any-freelancer-before-you-hire-them.html

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