Time to Consider Freelancers
It’s not just the big companies, top 100, and Government sectors that are in need of consultants. Every business – small, large, start-ups, non-profits can benefit. So, what's holding companies back from hiring experts to help grow their business? Maybe the time isn’t right, maybe the budget is not there. Nevertheless, the most productive way to grow your business is to acknowledge the need for consultants/freelancers and hiring the right skillset to help you grow and thrive.
Timing is everything!
Knowing the right time is important. When your company is growing you will realize there will be unexpected problems or tasks that require skills and experience of a consultant. If managing your company correctly, you can see the benefits of consultants as a smart, cost-effective and time friendly way of developing your business.
But why hire consultants?
There comes a time when every business calls for an additional help regarding IT support, new software implementation, web design, project management business analysts or marketing expertise. So, instead of hiring an expensive company to handle these tasks for you, why not hire a well-prepared freelancer?
Now that you hired a consultant for a specific task, you can spend more time doing things for the business that you’ve been “meaning to get to” or focusing on responsibilities you enjoy rather than tasks that are not your field of knowledge.
Hiring a freelance professional might be a great decision because you will spend your time doing the things you like and do best instead of focusing on tasks that are not really in your field of knowledge.
Is it really an investment hiring a consultant?
Hiring the right person will definitely change the way your company grows and develops. First of all, you’ll get the extra time to work on your “niche”, and second of all, your business will expand and grow to be more efficient and profitable. So, taking the time to learn how to choose the right consultant for your business might turn out to be one of the best investments you’ve done for a long time.
Interested in learning more?
Here are four tips to help select your ideal freelance professional.
Use the right hiring platform
Finding the right hiring platform is a great resource to help evaluate and narrow down your search to only find the perfect consultant (and will save you a lot of headaches).
Oomple is a hiring marketplace that really focuses on connecting companies with the on-demand skills they need to be successful. We leverage our Oomple platform- digitalizing our approach to find and retain highly skilled professionals. The platform allows you to narrow your search by requirements, qualifications, target pay rate, availability and much more.
Finding services that are innovative and trust-worthy with your search is important.
Do Your Due Diligence.
It’s important to know what you are looking for and create screening requirements or job mandatories. It’s also important to test your top consultants.
Consultants and freelancers’ jobs are to market themselves. Therefore, background checks and other screening is important to really know if they are a fit for the job. Once they respond to your requests, you’ll get a clearer picture of who they really are. The tests should cover your top requirements that will get the job done.
What does that platform do?
Oomple leverages questionnaires and requirement tables to do our due diligence. Our questionnaire provides a scoring system that can screen and sort through who meets the requirements and who does not.
Interview and Lock Them In.
Now, after your screening, you have all the data needed in order to make the next call. Interview stages. This stage helps to see if you meet the company’s soft skills – communication skills, punctuality, problem-solving, work ethic, etc.
Just as important, interviews a great way to see if the consultant understands the companies values. Do they share the same motivation? Can they get along with other team members? All very important aspects to consider.
Establish Expectations and Follow-ups.
From the beginning of the contract, you should establish expectations of the project. This is a key part of communication and developing a professional relationship with the consultant – building them up for success from the start.
Ongoing, you should provide feedback and reviews. This will help move the project forward and help the consultant learn and continue to grow. The consultant will appreciate the feedback and develop a positive relationship with you and the business.
As you can see, choosing the right candidate it’s not such a hard task after all.
Seek professional help, understand your requirements, test your consultants and provide a relationship.
If you're still not sure on which skills you require or have more questions, please feel free to contact us - we'd love to help!