10 Ways to Find Freelancers for Your Business

There had never been a better time to be a freelancer than now. As long as they have a laptop and Internet access, they can work from whatever corner of the world they want.

Of course, this type of business arrangement also has its drawbacks. One of them being the way brands can find reliable freelance talent in a saturated market. In order to help you out, we created a simple guide on finding and hiring freelancers.

We'll cover all the different specifics you need to factor in when you hire freelancers, as well as provide you with a list of websites with freelance job postings.

The specifics of hiring freelancers

Firstly, you need to start with a plan. Before you start looking for freelancers, you need to figure out:

• the job description
• your budget/hourly rate
• the results you want to accomplish
• how you'll track progress
• how long will you work with the freelance talent

It's important to have the answers to these questions before you hire freelancers so that all parties know exactly what is expected from them.

Make sure you're working with your team during this stage. They will have great input and you need to find freelancers that aren't just skilful and experienced, but also a great cultural fit.

Once you ironed everything out, it's time to create your job postings.

How to write great job postings

Writing a job description shouldn't be a hard task. In order to make it engaging, you need to put all of the most important information on the top. Our advice is to follow it up with the benefits of working for your company. For those considering expanding their team internationally, understanding the nuances of offshore development is crucial for leveraging global talent effectively.

If you start off by simply listing all the responsibilities and skills, you'll quickly lose the attention of your readers. Instead, start by explaining the position, salary, and the specific benefits freelance talent can expect when working with you.

Make sure you explain the needed skills in a short way. Don't be one of those companies that have 20+ bullet points explaining every needed skill. You can only get away with it if you offer a similar number of benefits.

You should also include the type of experience you expect them to have and ask for a CV as well as samples of their work and letters of recommendation.

Having a great job listing will be essential for hiring freelance workers, however, you also need to know where to post the listing.

How to find freelancers

In order to find high-quality freelance workers you need to post on industry-specific sites. Whether you're looking for graphic designers, software developers or creative professionals, you need to find the right job sites for your needs.

Let's look into how to find freelancers for your brand.

SimplyHired

SimplyHired is a great site for posting job listings, discovering local and national salary information and finding freelance work.

You can post jobs for free, which is great, but most importantly, the listings are categorized by different categories like - remote work, part-time work, full time and more. These categories will help you stick out and make sure that your listing doesn't get lost in the numerous listings made by other companies.

Upwork

Upwork is one of the most popular freelance job sites. That is because they have a transparent process and truly focus on the quality of the candidates.

The platform lets you filter through candidates based on reviews, success rates and other criteria, making the whole process easy and quick.

Toptal

Toptal promises an exclusive network of the top 3% of freelance software developers, designers, finance experts, product managers, and project managers in the world.

This exclusivity is what draws hiring managers since all freelance workers are considered top talent. This is the platform you turn to when you're looking for quality work and have a bigger budget.

Hired

Hired is a freelance work platform focusing on the tech industry. They vet every candidate beforehand, which makes your hiring process easy.

Their job board is the place where you'll find your next graphic designer, data entry specialist and more.

LinkedIn

We're sure you already know that LinkedIn is a great platform for finding new workers. However, did you know that they have a specific section dedicated to freelance work?

LinkedIn ProFinder is a separate job portal that helps you find freelancers that would be a great fit for your company. It's easy to see their previous work and what type of work they enjoy.

Indeed

Indeed is a great platform that guides you through the hiring process. With their intuitive all-in-one dashboard, you can rest assured knowing this process will be quick while providing great results.

Scripted

Scripted is a freelancing platform strictly focused on content creators. They have a vast database of content creators who are ready to work in enterprises, agencies and small businesses.

We truly believe that the more specialized the site is the better. That's why we recommend Scripted for all your content marketing needs.

Contently

Another great platform that helps you find freelance content creators is Contently. The company promises to drive an average of $13.1M in value for their enterprise customers.

Freelancers that use this platform to find work know to look at the bigger picture, since they don't just write content, they can also help you create the content strategy. Contently's users experience a 40% increase in the average audience growth in the first 6 months.

If you've burned yourself on AI-generated content, take some time to scroll through Contently.

99designs

If you're looking to hire freelancers for some design work, 99designs is a great platform for you. You can find the right people to design your logo, website, product packaging and more.

Their focus is on creativity and pushing the boundaries of graphic design. The platform lets you look at a freelancer's portfolio before you even contact them, which saves you so much time.

Arc

Arc is an AI-powered marketplace that specializes in remote developer recruitment. Through Arc, you can gain access to pre-vetted developers around the world. Our vetting process involves:

• Screening candidates’ profiles, resumes, and employment history
• Assessing their communication skills through video interviews
• Evaluating their technical skills with tech interviews and pair programming sessions
• Hosting internal final candidate reviews
  In addition to a strict vetting process, what sets Arc apart is its AI recruiter, HireAI. Powered by GPT-4, HireAI can help you not only skip your outreach, job ads, and resume screening but also empower you to focus on building relationships only with the candidates you like.

Social media

If you're active on social media and have a loyal group of followers, you might successfully find freelancers by making a post on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or even TikTok.

Your followers already know your brand so you don't have to introduce yourself and if you're providing glimpses into your company culture, the potential hires already know whether they would be a good fit.

You can even do a bit of social media promotion and reach more people. Make sure to have a dedicated landing page for the application process so that people don't have to spam your social media profiles.

How to network

Sometimes in order to find talent, you need to understand how they work and network. Networking events are great places to find great freelancers for future projects.

This type of process is way more organic and lets you connect with potential hires before you present your needs. While portfolio sites are great, sometimes you need to see people face-to-face and ask questions in a relaxed environment.

Learn more about freelance communities in our blog.

It will give you great insight into how freelancers operate which is valuable information you should have before you outline your hiring needs.

Bonus tips

Best freelancers are in a situation where they're rejecting work. Don't forget that they are hiring you as well. That means that they will have questions about your brand values, how you support remote workers and more.

If you don't have ready answers to these questions, you might look like a bad option for potential hires. You need to be transparent about the ways you're managing freelancers and independent contractors from the first step.

Make sure to spend some time and effort learning how to become a great remote leader. We have a great guide on that, which you can check out on our blog.

Think about reviews

Seeing how freelancers won't be able to gain benefits in the shape of health insurance or even free hardware or software, it's important that you pay them fairly. If you're looking for high-quality freelancers, their hourly rate needs to reflect their level of education, expertise and years of experience, not just the end results they're providing you.

Remember, freelancers have a lot of communities where they share positive and negative experiences they had with brands. If people had a great time working with you, they will happily share and other freelancers will be more inclined to reach out to you when you share job postings.

Just like you're looking at client reviews, freelancers will look for reviews of your company.

Lastly, make sure you're asking people in your networking circle for recommendations. That's a great way to build rapport with your peers while also looking for great freelancers that have already proven themselves on larger projects.

Share project details so that the people in your industry can suggest the right freelancer.

Key takeaways

In this era of the gig economy, having a process set in place for how you find freelancers for your business is a must. You need to know how what to focus on while creating the job posting in order to present your company as an attractive option.

Moreover, you need to know where to post it and how to find high-quality freelancers. Most freelancers will have portfolios you can look at, but if you don't want to be buried in a sea of resumes and samples of previous work, you need to only look at the top freelance work sites.