How to hire a freelancer on Upwork, Fiverr and Anomadic

Although the year 2020 definitely changed our perspective in many ways and led to the increase in remote work, truth be told, remote work has been here for a while. But it somehow seems that all eyes were on it last year. 

You pretty much can’t talk about remote work without mentioning the word ‘ freelancer.’ They kind of go hand in hand.

Although there has been a lot said about how to become a freelancer, it appears that it is harder to figure out what steps you need to take to hire one. And while at it, why not provide you with some information about three popular hiring platforms.

So let’s start,shall we?

How to hire a freelancer in a few steps

Regardless of which platform you are using or you will use, there are certain steps that are crucial to take if you want to find a suitable freelancer. Following these steps will not only save your time, it would save your money as well.

The reasons for hiring a freelancer could be multifold. Perhaps you just need somebody for one-off projects, or perhaps you aren’t sure if you need a full-time employee at this stage of your business. Whatever the reason, the following steps are quite universal for any industry.

The task of finding a proper freelancer is honestly quite daunting. There are so many factors to take into account, so many possible candidates. That is also one of the reasons why these steps are important.

So without further ado we present you a few steps that might come in handy.

Determining what exactly needs to be done

Don’t write vague job descriptions, be clear and specific about it. State explicitly what needs to be done and what is required from a candidate. The more you are crystal clear and specific, the higher the chance that you would find a proper candidate in much shorter time. Moreover, much shorter time means more money saving.

Determining the price

Sadly for you, there is really not a universal formula for this. It depends on so many factors: location of your freelancer, experience and taxes. Most freelancers have to pay their own taxes. That is the reason that hiring them would probably cost more than hiring an in-house employee. 

Experience is quite self-explanatory: the more experienced a person is, the more money they will ask for their services.

 Although you might wonder how location is relevant to an online hiring, it is rather logical; Hiring prices differ from region to region. A freelance web designer from Pakistan most likely charges less than a freelancer web designer from the UK.

A general rule of thumb is to make some inquiries first and take all these factors into account.

Finding the right freelancer

This is probably the most difficult, yet crucial part.

If you have a large network, it is a good tip to start from there. Personal recommendations are generally a good thing because there is the element of trust already.

If you want to try out some other options, then hiring platforms might just work perfectly for you. If you stick with us for the next few lines, you’re in for a treat because we are going to dissect three popular hiring platforms. 

Making an assessment of a potential freelancer

Depending on a type of job you are searching for, the assessment would probably differ. If you are looking for a web graphic designer for example, you would check their previous work, you don’t need to be a designer yourself. However if you are looking for a developer, you do need to have some IT skills in order to see if the app is developed properly or not. If you aren’t expert in that field, get some expert advice. 

Another practical thing depending on your niche is to do the skill testing.

And last, but not the least, any decent freelancer should have a portfolio of their projects and previous work.

Hiring a freelancer

If you’ve already reached this step and found your perfect match, congrats! And although it may seem you can take a break now, sorry to burst your bubble, but you can’t. You should pay attention to one more important thing: access to your company’s confidential information. Provide your new freelancer only with the information and data needed for their job. 

We would also highly recommend using NDA’s ( non-disclosure agreements) to prevent your confidential info ‘conveniently’ ending up at your competitor’s end. Furthermore, there are also agreements you can use to guarantee that the job would be done and that you would do the payment. These agreements protect both parties.

Now that we’ve covered the basic steps, let’s continue with what we promised a few lines ago.

Let’s share some light on the topic of hiring a freelancer and compare three major hiring platforms: Upwork, Fiverr and Anomadic respectively.

How to hire on Upwork

Whether you are into a digital world or not, it is highly unlikely you haven’t heard of Upwork yet. As we’ve already mentioned, there has been so much information on the Internet about how to join Upwork, but there has been much less info on how to hire on Upwork. 

Process

It isn’t set in stone, but Upwork is generally a platform focused on a long-term hiring. Once you sign up, you can browse for freelancers profiles. There is the whole filtering system: 

• Experience level
• Price range
• Freelancer’s native language(s)
• Freelancer’s rating
• Freelancer’s job completion rate
• Delivery time, etc.

When you get the search results, you will end up at profile pages. It is similar to going through numerous CV’s and resumes in terms of information you get. The focus is on statistics, how much a freelancer has earned via Upwork, how many Upwork jobs they’ve done, the amount of hours they’ve worked, etc. 

If you are posting a job you can include various details:

• Defining the scope of work( remember how important it is?)
• Freelancers with specific expertise and experience
• Asking screening questions
• Requesting cover letters or some type of reference

Once you think you found a proper fit, you can directly contact them. You can also schedule an interview with them.

Since many more people spend time on their mobile phones rather than on computers, Upwork developed two mobile apps. One is for freelancers and the other one is for clients. Tha layout is simpler than on the website but most of the info is there. A disadvantage is that you can’t see the Reports section nor timesheets.

Verification

One of the things that Upwork is a bit infamous for is  being very demanding when it comes to accepting people on its platform. One of the reasons is a demand in certain fields of work ( the more popular your job is, the harder it is to ‘join the club’). Furthermore, there is a category Top Rated Freelancers. In order to find yourself in this category your job success rate must be 90% or higher. This category might be a good option if you want to hire. Yet another category worth mentioning is Rising Talents: created for freelancers who aren’t in the Top category but (slowly) getting there.

The verification isn’t a problem only for Upwork. There are many fake profiles on all platforms. What most people mind about Upwork is the vetting process which isn’t hassle-free. The whole process doesn’t seem to follow some fixed criteria so you have a lot of quality freelancers not actually being on the platform and many more who don’t want to jump through hoops to sign up.

Pricing

On Upwork, most of the fees are paid by the freelancers. You, as a client, only pay a 3% payment processing fee. This is one of the reasons why Upwork freelancers often increase their price; they need to cover their fees. Some freelancers offer hourly rates, whereas some offer fixed prices per project. It is generally better to try to find freelancers with fixed prices, because you never know if some task or project might take longer than anticipated. In other words, the initial few hours that you were about to pay a freelancer could turn into many more hours.

It is useful to mention that Upwork has a tracking system so you can check the time a freelancer spends on a project.

What happens in a case of a dispute

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of legal terms, the simplest way to put it is that both you and your freelancer should try to resolve it between the two of you. What we mean is that usually all the disputes are settled between the two parties. At the end of the day, a freelancer doesn’t want to ‘walk away’ with a bad review.

If things escalate, so to say, there are specific guidelines and resolutions in the Terms of Use section. If you take it one step further you would get help from Upwork’s dispute specialist. But by the time all the fees are paid and depending on the size of your project, it might not be worth the hassle. The bottom line: whatever the dispute, try to solve it internally ( your freelancer and you).

Let’s move on to Fiverr.

How to hire a freelancer on Fiverr

Fiverr is definitely becoming more and more popular thanks to its reputation of being an extremely affordable platform for hiring freelancers. It is usually thought that you can’t get good quality if you don’t pay much, but apparently Fiverr is giving some food for thought in that department.

Process

Fiverr is more aimed at hiring freelancers for one-off projects. Obviously that doesn’t mean that you can’t use this platform for long-term projects, but Fiverr really focuses on individual tasks. They are called gigs on their platform. So, when you browse through Fiverr, you can see various gig categories. This is of course useful if you are hiring freelancers for one-off tasks. You can also search by typing a keyword in case you can’t find a gig in one of the already existing categories. 

Every freelancer has a gig page for every service they provide. In other words, there is a separate page for each service. As a hiring person you can see information about:

• Freelancer’s experience
• Field of expertise
• Pricing ( per project)
• Freelancer’s native language(s)
• Freelancer’s rating
• Freelancer’s job completion rate
• Delivery time, etc.

Fiverr also has a more advanced search option where you can specify even more the type of service. For example, if you are searching for a graphic designer, you can  specify your search by choosing design styles, format, etc. 

 Additional perk is that you can directly communicate with a potential freelancer. 

When it comes to UI, Fiverr is a bit different because it directs you to individual gigs and not so much to the profiles. Regardless of your field of work you would be tempted to make a visually appealing portfolio.

Fiverr is a playful platform in the sense that you can do a lot of exploration on your own and just see all the features the platform has to offer. You can also post a job post, of course, but the option is hidden in the menu. It seems like the platform really wants you to engage and be more proactive in searching for a freelancer. It also has its mobile phone version that doesn’t differ much from their website. All the relevant info is there.

Verification

We’ve already seen that Upwork tends to over-verify.  With Fiverr, tables are turned. The only freelancers that are verified are so-called Pro sellers. In order to be in this group you ‘just’ need to have a rich work history and a proper portfolio. Then you’ll go through a series of reviews. Regardless if you are new to Fiverr platform or not, you can get into the Pro team. It goes without saying that pro freelancers, i.e. their services are the most expensive on the platform.

If you are a mere mortal and in a non-Pro group, you depend on reviews and rates you get after each gig.

Same as with any other platform, you do run a risk of fake profiles, so make sure  you  do research on potential freelancers. Despite not having such a thorough verification system, it seems that Fiverr’s community-based rating system does a proper job.

Pricing

As it’s already been mentioned, a huge popularity of Fiverr lies in its extremely affordable fees. You can get really decent gigs for $5. What also comes in handy is that you pay per project/gig and not per hour because Fiverr is primarily used for one-off projects. Unlike Upwork, freelancers don’t pay fees. It is you. The fee is $2 for buying services up to $40. 

What happens in a case of a dispute

Same as with Upwork we aren’t going to get too much into complex legal matters. Common sense dictates that it would be the best if you could internally settle a dispute between you and a freelancer. At the end nobody would benefit from long and expensive legal  trials. If things get out of control, there is a person in charge at Fiverr who would look at your case and make an informed decision whether you should get a partial or a full refund.

How to hire a freelancer on Anomadic

Although it shares some similarities with other hiring platforms, Anomadic is still different enough in many respects. What immediately catches the eye is that Anomadic is the first  remote job board for the Balkans. That on itself is already interesting.

Process

Same as on Fiverr and Upwork, you can register on Anomadic as a recruiter or a freelancer.

This is where things get interesting and different compared to Upwork and Fiverr. 

As a recruiter, i.e. a company, you need to create a very detailed profile. You can provide a company name, logo, email,website, time zone, employee range, revenue range, background image. Moreover, you can add a company description, team members, company culture and relevant projects. 

A really great option is uploading a presentation video via vimeo or youtube explaining your company’s mission and vision.  Another great feature is the interview section. If you thought it refers to an interview between a freelancer and a recruiter, think again. It is a company’s video where they talk about what candidates can expect on an interview, how many phases there are in an interview and a salary range. This is really helpful for freelancers because it saves a lot of their time.

When it comes to searching for a freelancer, the process is definitely different compared to Upwork and Fiverr. You, as a recruiter can’t actually see the freelancers’ profiles. At this point you have two options: 

• You can either just post a job and wait for possible freelancers to apply or
• You can use a Talent Research feature.

This feature also lets you post a job but then the ball is back at Anomadic. They are now involved in the process of finding a proper freelancer for you. Quite cool and time saving for you. In the next phase, both you and Anomadic monitor the process together with the help of Hiring workflow application. The process has 5 steps that are pretty logical:

• Application
• Establishing the first contact
• Interview with a freelancer ( there is a calendar on Anomadic)
• Offer ( sent by Anomadic)
• Acceptance/decline of the offer

If you are a freelancer the type of information that you provide is the same as on the other two platforms ( type of job, your education, work experience, price range, etc.)

It is worth mentioning that both recruiters and freelancers can link their social network like Facebook, Linkedin to Anomadic.

Verification

In terms of verification, we could say the process is quite detailed and rigorous, but unlike Upwork the rules are much clearer and less arbitrary. Only profiles that are completed at least 80 % are taken into account. They are contrasted with other public profiles of a freelancer for background checking.

Moreover, there is an ID verification and a video interview. This might sound like a hassle but it is extremely practical. Each freelancer posts a 2-minute video. Why is this so interesting? Well, it enables a recruiter to check a freelancer, check their language skills and get some estimation.

Companies can also be verified and if they pass the test they get a badge.

Pricing

Similar to Fiverr, there is a fee paid if you use the Talent Research feature, but when it comes to job posts there are 4 packages ( 3 subscription packages and one for a single job post).

It is important to mention that freelancers aren’t paid via the platform, but the arrangement is done internally, between a freelancer and a recruiter.

Dispute

We’ve been here before. By now it should be clear that the best way to deal with a dispute is internally. Since the payment isn’t done via Anomadic, any kind of dispute in that department is set between a freelancer and recruiter. When it comes to job posts, for example, you aren’t satisfied with the number of candidates, there is online chat support.

Conclusion

Truth be told, there really isn’t a universal answer which platform is the best for you. Like everything else in life it will depend on so many factors: what you can afford, what you expect, just to name a few. If you are strapped on budget, Fiverr might be your best choice. If you are looking for a platform tailored more for long-term projects, Upwork seems a logical choice. If you want to save a lot of time and let somebody else do the detailed search for you and verify a freelancer, Anomadic should be your choice. 

 Check the steps we mentioned in the beginning, be clear and concise, be respectful. Don’t forget it is a two-way street- in order to receive you need to provide something yourself. Good luck recruiting everybody.