How to hire freelancer or a team for webdeveloping 6 RULES

I own an outsourcing company in Manila Philippines, I opened it after having outsourced employees for 10 years based in the Philippines.

One thing we have found is having North American Managers on site has increased our productivity and quality 10 fold. My office currently has 50 employees in it and its growing a few every week lately. We have about 90% return customers.

Our clients like that there is someone to make sure the employee comes to work or if they are doing work with us by the project they are happy that there is competent eyes on their projects throughout its process. I cant tell you how much frustration I had before I moved to manila making sure employees came to work.

If you need help with your outsourcing issues PM me I am always happy to help out.

James

 

I don't know about your customers, but product from Asia is shi*t. Worst then ever. Design and code is crap. You can easily recognize what is done in america europe, australia and what is done by asians. Greedy incompetent workers who wants with basic knowledge pile fortune there. You will never heard from them that they don't know to do something.

Once when they smell money you wont get them to work for less then 5 usd per h. Today websites are fool of indian, philipino.. "freelancers" who ask more then 8 usd . Their real rate pal should be not more then 2 usd , thats max.

 

I think the problem you have is you only want to pay $2 per hour. All you can find at that point is shit That I can agree on. If your just trying to go for the lowest price possible then your in the wrong business. If your looking for Balance (cost versus quality) then you need to raise your expected fees a little.

I work on site in my Manila office so that I can pick and choose whom we hire directly. We properly screen our employees, they all take a competency test for the position they are applying for.

I could not put an employee in my office for $2 per hour it wouldn't be possible (The cost of space,employee taxes, internet, water, HR, Accounting is more then that). Unless you wanted me to hire the guy sweeping the streets. I can see a few below my office from here. But I don't think you would want them doing your graphics or coding.


If your looking for absolute lowest cost go for it and find a single employee that works from home and lives somewhere in the province where $2 an hour will get them by. Good luck with what you get.

My company eAvenue.ca specializes in bringing quality work to our clients at a price that is considerably lower then hiring in your local area ( North America and Europe ) We cut most of our clients costs by 30% to 50%. All projects are managed by an onsite North American project manager. Most of our clients have teams in our office. Anywhere from 3 to 30 employees currently.

There is a reason we have 90% return customer rate.

For those looking to use outsourcing avoid going after bottom of the barrel pricing you will get what you pay for. I used outsourced employees for many years before packing up and moving to Manila. I have seen it all. You want to find skilled persons, with good credentials and lots of common sense.


James

 

The thing which I suggest you is to check his reviews or have a look of his proved work sample.

 

Allen

your absolutely right! Before hiring any off site employee you should look at his work and have him do a working interview. So you assign him a small task that relates to his job and make sure that he can complete it.

I have hired employees into our office just based on interview and portfolio only to find out a few days later that they couldnt complete the tasks due to the fact that their portfolio was not entirely theirs.

We require all of our applicants that work in our office to do a test. Graphic designers are given a layout to create. webmasters are asked to set something up. Programmers are asked to create or debug something. Writers are given several articles and asked to rewrite or combine a few in their own words.

You should always do this when hiring an outsourced employee.

In our case we do the hiring and project managing for our clients and we do this long before an employee is assigned to a client.

James

 

Take a look photos from india , third world country. You will find out how your web designer and programmer go to work, how they work , what laptops they use, how everything is punctual ... I think rate for them 0.5 $ is more the enough. You see with them less then 2 $ per hour is more then possible.

What do they think about people when they pay them 5 or more USD per hour ?? When they are asking 5 or more dollars they are kidding and fools pay.

 

I think thread has started with Personal Experience. You always have an option to choose what you want and should do your homework first in terms of what you expect and what you want achieve.

hence i don`t blame freelancers from any part of the world...In my case , i have bitter experience with outsources outside ASIA

 

Some scientific researchs are based on personal experience, and my experience it huge( +10 y.) so i feel responsible share it with people who are going to hire asians.

Warring how people have to be caution when they are dealing with asians can't be sufficient ,and can save many newcomers from frauds.

Why pay asians IT workers 10 $ per hour when they are happy with 2 or max 3 $.


And folks, carefully they always lie. Never trust anybody.

 

Because of such posts http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=2585176 i ran this theme.

You can figure there out who is greedy Asiatic , and who is humble American or European.
American is asking 10usd per h ( see post) and greedy asiatic more. WTF pays the asiatic more then the americans.
Always the indians and rest of the east are cheap labor 0.5 USD avarage skilled worker - 3 USD experts , as top for 3rd world countries.Paying them more is non sense .

 

Indeed getting people to work for you depends on the ability on how you can manage your team and your funds. Basically, during the interview, the client could sense if these applicants are just working for money and not with quality. To prevent being fooled, the client may ask for a formal quote and timeline schedule from the service provider. These documents may guide him to keep track the performance of the provider and the client must only pay the provider upon complete verification of their accomplished task for the week / month. I've been a client for quite sometime and these technique is effective.

Cheers!

 

Getting people to work is not problem today because there are more people ( Just in India 1 BILLION and half are hungry ) who are desperate and looking for jobs then you have available jobs . So EMPLOYER , who have money is a BOSS. What he say workers do. 0.3USD or 1 USD per hour .Depends how merciful he is . Labor force is cheap and paying more for php , photoshop mysql etc. makes you a fool.

 

Cardinal mistake is to tell them what business you have and where are you from. According that, they form opinion how much money you have. If you tell them that you can forget affordable work from them. They are greedy and want be paid as others in your country. They hate you and like your money. Keeping them paid under 2 or 3 usd max makes you boss who knows who they are.

 

If you pay them more, you will attract middlemen, and then you will have problems. Then you don't have just one greedy Indian, but two. Middleman lie to his countryman, and worker knows that, then he doesn't work properly , and your job suffers. Keep them in their frame, up to 2-3 USD, they are happy, don't worry.

 

I think we should not put one tag to all asians. It is not about who he or she is. it is about what saves YOU money and provides better quality.

 

When hiring freelancers it's important to assess the ROI (return on investment) and risk involved. For example if you hire a freelance copywriter for $0.05/word to create a 500 word sales article and it's likely to generate 30 sales $10 each then that $25 investment is certainly worth it.

 

Who ever you are going to hire make sure that you give them a small project to start with before you entrust them with a large project. If they can do the work well and present it on time, then you will be more comfortable that they can do what you want. I don't think any country is off limits when you are hiring. I hired a guy in the US and he is creating a product for me and I believe his rate is very reasonable.

If you are going to get anyone as a writer, look at their spelling and grammar. Interview them on skype and see how they write there.

 

Interesting point of view, but I think you've got it wrong. Hiring a developer from Asia or India is no different to an other country, there are skilled developers on every continent. You say that if you're paying a foreign developer more than $5 per hour then you're getting ripped off? Outsourcing is an open market, the price is driven by supply and demand and not necessarily the location of the developer.

Saying that freelancing websites delete lower bids in order to force users into picking more expensive bids is something I've never heard before. It sounds like you're very paranoid and jaded from bad experiences. Outsourcing websites are there to help connect businesses and developers, their main concern is making sure you have a successful transaction so that you come back and use the website again, if that was not the case, the business model would be unsustainable. Using the built-in Escrow and milestone features that most websites have is there for your protection, and if you decide against using those features you have nobody to blame but yourself if you get scammed.

 

Before launching my new ad network I had some programming to do (which I can't, since I don't know the syntax, even if I can 'read' the database and can guide a programmer to get to where I want to), so I went to oDesk to hire someone. My budget was limited, so I couldn't pay too much, this is why Indian and Pakistani developers were a good pick for me. Here is my experience:

1. opened the job as paid hourly
I immediately had people bid, asked 2 developers to discuss privately on Skype. I needed to list the categories for my ads in the sidebar (something I knew how much would take, couldn't do it via Smarty, since the platform is using it). for a programmer, a 5 minute job. I asked my future to be programmer how many hours he thought this would take: 30 hours. Thank you, let's move on.

2. found a guy with a better grasp of reality
The guy told me it would take around 10-15 hours (the changes I needed - categories, tags and something in the admin section). Most of it is just 'calling' on the data from the database and making it run nicely on Smarty, again, something I could probably do if I took few weeks to learn the syntax properly).

We discussed about the project, let him know I wanted us to work together (I am doing the design while he's coding the features and I can also see what he's doing and then guide him). All fine.

We started work, we put the clock on.

One hour into the project, instead of having the categories listed already, as I would expect from an experienced programmer, he was messing up with the code, not knowing how to put it in Smarty. He was using 'echo's in the template which, of course, didn't work. I asked him if he really knows what he's doing, I am not paying hourly so that he's learning on the job. He was also doing work for others (multitasking) and it got me angry. He decided to stop the clock and asked me to allow him few hours to re-learn the syntax, since he's been doing a lot of work on Zend, so he kinda forgot Smarty

I appreciated his honesty and we stopped for the day.

The second day my categories were in place and he seemed more prepared, even if he kept on working on multiple projects. Anyway, another hour in he wasn't able to put the tags, as I have asked, so I decided to stop the job. He got paid for all this work, even if he didn't do it all and I closed the job.

3. Re-opened as flat-fee job.
Instead of paying for hours I can't properly track (and have them waste my time), I decided to put a clear budget and have them bid accordingly.

Got a first bidder, he was OK with all the conditions. We agreed to work together. It was night in India, so we decided to start work the next day. Morning comes, we meet on skype and are ready to start the job. He's complaining about the budget being too low (he bid on it and also agreed with the terms), trying to force me to pay more. I closed the job and reported him as unprofessional to oDesk.

4. The final programmer
While I was discussing with the 'haggler', I had another programmer contact me about the job. He was OK with the budget and wanted us to work together. We did.

I guided him all the way: 'we need to get the data from this table, try this column etc.' I knew exactly what I wanted done and I have some experience myself with various platform tweaks. I am not a programmer, but know what needs to be done and can even help one find the appropriate data faster.

We worked for few days on the site, together, chatting via Skype. He was polite (not killing me with 'yes, madam', but nice and friendly), determined to do a great job and very serious. I promised him that for each day we finish earlier he'd get 10% bonus, but we didn't finish as we planned, so he didn't get the bonus. He did get more money since I asked for a new feature that wasn't in the platform and, since it was an extra-request, I wanted to pay correctly.

Was VERY pleased with him. The guy is Indian and, even if I had my share of bad programmers from there (and Pakistan) I don't really want to put a bad name on that country. There are many talented and professional people, you just need to find them.

Let's say the guy is going to be re-hired pretty soon, since I have more work for him. We were both pleased with our arrangement and I hope we'll work together a long time from now.

 

Learn Bidding first and ten try to find job:
www(dot)tnmtraining(dot)weebly(dot)com/bidding

 

I suggest read this topic for all who intend use odesk or such similar crap freelance webites. https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/odesk-scam-dont-use-odesk-com-odesk-scam-warning.1512145/

Freelance websites are full of people who want easy money and dont like work . Their skills are poor . Usually they are students or busy indians who works 12 hours a day for 12 $ AVOID SCAMMMERS , TAKE A SERIOUS COMPANY OR LOCAL WORKER. Thats not just my opinion , read above link. One thing has to be clear they have to work for 1-2 dolars maximal otherwise it is not cheap labor. That is not what your are looking for and what will be profitable for you. Be carefull they are very good negotiators and word "impossible" is very common ih their speach when you tell them work for 1 -2 bucks, but later they will agree with even less 0.5$ or something. Enjoy they are very special workers if they work , always ask more more and more. Sometimes is chepaer take worker from Norway or UK then India ,Pakistan Bangladesh or Philipine