Tags to Richness

Recently I was given a small budget to hire some freelancers to help with the large backlog of design tasks we have.  Below are some of the steps I used to find the right people.

1. Posted on a design specific job board

I ignored the general job boards like workforce services, craigslist, hotjobs or monster.  I went straight to authenticjobs.com, a very well known job board in the design community.  My second and third choices would have been jobs.37signals.com and krop.com.

2. 30 seconds and three folders: Yes, No, Maybe

I didn’t read the emails I received.  Instead I scanned them for a link to a portfolio.  Obviously if there wasn’t a link to a portfolio I threw the email in the No folder.  If there was a portfolio link I clicked through and could tell within 30 seconds of looking at their work samples if this was a Yes, No or Maybe.

3. First paid task is a test

You really don’t know what someone is going to be like and what their skill is until they actually do a job for you.  So I would hand the freelancer I was considering their first task, paid of course, and the result would tell me what I was getting into.  If the result was so-so I might ask for a second task and decide from there whether to keep them or move on.