OutsourceSurvival.com

There are literally hundreds of websites now where you can hire individual freelancers or contract to full service outsourcing companies. Your choice could make or break your project. So how do you find a good one?

This article is part of the series “How to Find a Great Freelancer Online”.

In this article we will discuss the best websites to find a high quality freelance or outsource service providers. These are the sites that I’ve used, or had personally recommended to me by other entrepreneurs. I consider these to be the market leaders for services, and I really don’t think there’s much need to look further. Just like I don’t really need more then 1 or 2 eBays… the same idea applies.

Without further ado, here are my top 4, in order of preference:

• www.rentacoder.com
• www.guru.com
• www.elance.com
• www.odesk.com

If you think I’ve missed an important one let me know and I’ll add it!

Want to blaze your own trail?

Suppose you don’t like the above four, what should you look for generally? These are the features you want as a minimum:

Conducts an open marketplace: You want to use a service where you are free to browse the work histories of providers, can see jobs on offer, and where anyone can post a job or bid for work in an auction style format. Think eBay. This will help you get the best information and the best price. Stay away from places that pretend to operate a market place, but that actually just offer services, ‘post your job and we’ll find someone for you’ arrangements- these are just rebranded service providers. There is no transparency and little real accountability if something goes wrong.

Post new jobs free, and without obligation: Just about all sites offer this now, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Make sure that you can request obligation free quotes on your project.

Fast, auditable, project message boards: How do you plan to talk to your freelancer? By email? Hellllll no! You want an easy to use message board to post 90% of your communications. This is essential, because if the project breaks down you want proof that someone didn’t do what they said they would do. Some sites offer an email service that carbon copies the email to an auditable source, that’s fine too

Does not offer its’ own services: Similar to the above point, you want the guy running the show to be impartial. If they’re doing anything more than providing the marketplace and the referees, stay away.

Offers integrated escrow service free: Escrow is essential. It should be free (to you as the buyer) and its use encouraged. You should also be in control of the release of funds, and be entitled to recover your money if the project fails. Check the terms and conditions.

Uses weighted ratings: I’ve talked about it before, ratings can be fudged. Having an intelligent weighted averages system makes this harder. Check out how your site calculates its averages.

Has both buyer and seller feedback ratings and history: Accountability improves the marketplace, meaning better prices and better sellers. Make sure everyone can be reviewed, and that you can see everyone’s feedback.

Has a reasonable depth of sellers (freelancers): I’d suggest you want a site with at least 30K members, preferably 100K or more. Any less and you’re dabbling in a small, insignificant marketplace where there are likely to be more shonks (proportionately speaking). Also, too few providers means fewer bids on your work, and less flexibility for you in choosing the right guy.

Has diversity of sellers: I’d personally stay away from ‘graphic only’ or ‘web only’ types of sites. Specialisation is nice in theory… but if you consider your longer term needs you’re likely to use other services, which will mean having to join and learn a new site. Also, the more reputation you build as a buyer, the more bids and the better prices you receive.

Self Managed and independently arbitrated dispute resolution: Projects do fail- fact of life. If yours does, you want a fair process that you can understand, and that looks after your rights. The process should be described in clear and simple language that you can understand, and be readily available on the site.

Optional but really good to have:

Controlled workflow for project creation: Not all sites offer this, which in my view is a bit weak. A controlled workflow is really just a series of questions that you need to answer to create and post your project. The more detailed the better. It forces you to consider your planning and requirements and results in a more detailed job being posted. This is good for you, and good for freelancer’s bidding on your work. It is most useful for people new to the game, but even if you’ve done a few projects its still handy to jog your memory.

Other resources:

Most sites have extensive FAQs that will help you understand their system and how it all works. If you read the FAQs of the combined four sites above, you’ll be pretty well armed for you first project Other then that, Wikipedia has some useful stuff on project management, and on processes associated with software development. This is very handy background knowledge for any project, even if its not software based.

That’s if for web resources, in future I’ll be posting detailed reviews of these four outsourcing sites so that you can get a detailed look under the hood.

Thanks for reading, your feedback is always welcome.

To return to the index for this article series click here “How to Find a Great Freelancer Online”.