What do you look for when hiring a freelancer | Hacker News Reader

What do you look for when hiring a freelancer

20 pointsnewbierails10 comments

Ive built an e-learning website linked to a freelancing website. Users take courses in the e-learning part of the website and complete tasks for companies in the freelancing part of the website. But they can only apply for a task if they have completed its required courses.

So, I would like to know what other companies look for when hiring a freelancer. Are courses enough to validate that a user has the knowledge they say they do?

Also, I would like to know what issues you might have hiring on other freelance platforms so that I can try and solve them with my app.

Ive talked with potential users and they seemed interested but I want to hear a company's perspective on my idea.

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This is a really cool idea -- though to be honest, I would have some reservations depending on what the "courses" entail.

The biggest thing that I would look for in a freelancer is demonstrable experience doing the particular thing I'm hiring for. For example, if I want someone to help me implement a game using the Unity game engine, I'd look at the freelancer's body of work of past Unity projects. I would be very hesitant to work with someone who is learning Unity for the first time using your platform because that would imply they have no prior experience using that technology.

It sounds like your courses are intended as a way to validate a freelancer's knowledge -- almost more like a test or certification than a course. I see in another thread that you intend to have users upload a previously completed project, which could be a great way to check their past work, but then I'm a bit confused as to why they would then need a course.

So I guess I feel a bit confused about what I should expect from the people completing the courses -- will these people be freelancers with experience and the courses are just validating that? Will they be freelancers with no prior experience in a particular technology, and they're learning it for the first time via your site? Will it be a mix of all of the above?

I think a focus on validating freelancer's existing skills would probably give the most useful data for the folks that are trying to hire them.

Anyway if its not asking too much could you check out my site and tell me what to improve: https://enrole.herokuapp.com. For companies: https://enrole.herokuapp.com/companyhome. Im just starting out with this idea so my website isn't as polished. So, any feedback to improve it will be appreciated. You can give feedback here: https://discordapp.com/invite/wcQSPww or email me at enroleorg@gmail.com

Our freelancers would be a mix of both experienced programmers and people learning for the first time.

As for the previously completed projects, it is for people who already have the knowledge taught in the course. The course itself is for people learning for the first time.

Someone who has passion in the field is something I've seen companies prefer, almost more than a specific skill set as as person who has passion has a much greater willingness to learn/adapt. I am not directly associated with the hiring process.

If you have 100 candidates who all can pass the test to get to the point where there are tasks to work on. Let's assume 10 all apply for the same task at a company. If all applicants pass the test, how to you figure which would be a better fit?

What could be used is to allow an individual to showcase past projects they have done to help a company determine which of the applicants would be better suited for what they are trying to accomplish.

I want to clarify to that this would be for personal/pet projects they worked on in their own time, not for another company or where they were paid to do it. This helps show a level of genuine interest if you are doing a project for the love of learning or to self motivate and fix a problem where there is no solution.

In my website, to complete a course a user has to submit a project which can be anything related to the course. Companies use this and tasks they have completed in the past to figure out who to give the task too.

Would this be counted as personal project or would companies think that users are just submitting a project to complete the course rather than because of their passion

If the project that is related to the course was created specifically for that particular course and your site/service then I personally would lump that into paid as the reason for that particular project is the hope to acquire more paid work.

It still would be a good way of seeing how different people's projects may differ and be a good way to narrow down candidate selection choice.

I was thinking more along the lines of a resume page, and being able to showcase a project they had done in the past, independent from this coursework, that relates to the subject/task at hand they are applying for.

So, if there was an option where users could upload personal projects they have completed in the past (not related to courses) to their profile, would that be ok.

Yes, when an employer is looking for a potential candidate/user and they review/pick out 10 potential hires based off the coursework and an obvious candidate doesn't jump out at them, the employer could turn to the personal projects listed in the profile to compare how they work without direction/on their own which may help them decide which user to hire.

Ok thanks a lot for your suggestion. Ill add this feature to my site.

I checked out your site briefly, it seems like a really great concept! A little bit of feedback coming from a non-designer, so this may not be true for everyone.

On the about page, rather than have the top be enroll now, I would reorder things.

Currently you have: -Enrole -Problem -Solution -Vision

I would put: -Vision -Problem -Solution -Enrole

Keep it up!

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