As you know, I’ve been looking for a VA the past few days and it’s become a very hectic process for me. Never did I dream it would mean so much work, just to hire someone to help me with my workload. I’ve set aside 4 hrs today just to go through all the applications I’ve received, so I don’t leave everyone hanging, wondering if they got the position or not. For those of you who did apply, thanks for your patience and understanding while I get things sorted out. BTW, originally I was only going to hire one person, but I’ve decided to go with 2 people.

Back to the title of this post. Tips to follow if you hire freelancers. I’ve been actively hiring people for most of my programming work from sites such as Elance.com, Rentacoder.com and more recently, Guru.com. I basically post the work I want done and members of these sites get the opportunity to bid on them. Not only are they good places to hire freelancers, you can also register if you do freelance work and bid on the thousands of projects they have listed. You can find someone on these sites to do just about anything you need help with.

Though the steps involved are very simple, one should not just jump at the lowest bidder on the project you post and hire that person. Cheap is good if you have a limited budget, but if this freelancer or freelancing company does not have the basic understanding of what you want to accomplish or the necessary skills to complete the job. You’ll find that you’ll run into hot water very fast. Basically, your patience will be tested to the extreme.

Here’s a great article I got from Elance.com this morning that I thought I’d share with you… Outsourcing Tips!

Try this link if the one above does not work. Outsourcing Tips.

Do you outsource work or are you a freelancer? Leave me your comments and suggestions by clicking on the comments link below.