Choosing a freelancer, or the old professor's hypothesis about the search

Actually hypothesis

I met her many years ago. The father of my friend, then still quite a young professor, once spoke about his research on the topic of strategy and tactics when searching, including when searching for a new one.
And, in particular, about the optimal proportion established by him and his employees for a purposeful, planned search by criteria, and search for free, based on accidents.

I remember how happy I was then. The hypothesis became a balm to my wounds, because it was I who loved accidents very much, and always believed that I could not do without them in my life. And diverse planning was for me something of a necessary procedure imposed by traditions, which is necessary and useful, but in many respects limits freedom, and in general can be useful only at the beginning of the search. Most of the people around considered otherwise, collisions of our views and led to spiritual injuries, mostly I was injured.

Now the authority of the professor reconciles me with the need for planning and control, because the results of his research said that the optimal approach is a combination of about two-thirds of activity aimed at organized, orderly, planned activity, and no more than one-third given to a free, ad hoc search.
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What does freelancers have to do with it?

There are several layers in answering this question.
On the one hand, freelancing is often practiced by specialists engaged in basic office work. I think, for them, the hypothesis is significant, in terms of how much time and effort it makes sense to devote to free creativity.

Also, a “clean” freelancer, engaged in a large project, or choosing only large or specialized orders from reputable employers, may wonder whether to pay attention to projects that are small, non-obvious, simple, not burdensome, a little off specialization, including various “indie” And startups.

Here I will tell you what I think and practice in terms of choosing a freelancer for the role of an employee or a performer for certain projects. In light of the above hypothesis.

I publish this text, in particular, also because I recently finally embarked on a serious multi-level project with remote employees, decided to limit myself to personal contacts, social activity, and even some pleasures — all for more effective project activities. For a month and a half I have been communicating with people almost exclusively with text and business, I don’t go and do not call, but I keep in correspondence with dozens of freelancers.

And against the background of such selective social isolation and intensive work and communication exclusively with freelancers, two different approaches to the selection of specialists became particularly clear. Because I drew several remote performers to the development of some simple elements of the project, based not on their experience, level of professionalism or reputation, and got enough experience for a little systematization.

A couple of words about the experience

The first episode of cooperation with a freelance artist was in my 90s. The word "freelancer" was not yet used.
Since the beginning of the 2000s, I constantly appeal to freelancers both as a direct customer and as a contractor. I mainly work with designers, artists, programmers.
Experience in most cases successful, single failures were only recently, about them, as about examples, a bit later.

Two approaches to choosing a freelancer

It's simple.
If I have an important project, to which I attract a remote employee, or an urgent, complex, or some other “special” order - the main criterion for me when choosing a freelancer is his experience (portfolio), reputation, sometimes - having a team, physical accessibility , the possibility of meeting and concluding a contract.

And in cases where there is a reserve in time, especially if the project is simple, small and inexpensive - I often choose among beginners or young people who do not have a large portfolio or experience in this particular area, living in a small town, in one of the republics, on the end of the world ...
The main criterion for this choice - he (she) is clearly capable, or unusual, interesting person. And, on the one hand, I hope to find a promising specialist for the project. But another motive for me is to give an opportunity to prove oneself and make money to a person who doesn’t have so many opportunities for this at this time.

For many years I have been doing just that, and, despite the obvious risks in the second approach, I plan to continue this practice .

Little about the second approach

However, there are a few points.
No matter how talented at first glance the freelancer chosen in this way is, if he is impolite, optional, inaccurate during the initial correspondence, there will be no order.

If in correspondence it turns out that we have difficulty in finding a common language, understand each other poorly, we are marking time and cannot agree in any way - then it’s better not to start cooperation, the chances of success are clearly not enough.

It happens different. For example, having taken an order, a person may suddenly become inaccessible - get sick, leave suddenly, but what little is the reason. But if, having got access to the Internet, he immediately wrote to me, apologized, suggested solutions to the situation, or constructively participates in the dialogue proposed by me - I will continue to work with him until the result.
And the result will be the criterion for evaluation.

Exclude bad motives when choosing

If most of the examples of graphics in the portfolio are not suitable for the style and mood - most likely the result of the work of such an artist will not suit the customer. No matter how interesting and unusual this freelancer was. Need a fun cheerful picture? Then choose someone who draws that way.

When, instead of answering my questions in a published project, applicants do not answer, but stubbornly write, “We are good, we can do everything, but we’re sitting without work, so give us an order”, while being called a studio, and in the portfolio at least - I will not give them an order . Once a studio, even if from a small town, there must be a manager who can work with the customer. I do not see that they can work.

When the portfolio is completely empty, and in words a lot of experience, there is a good mastery of terminology and the text of the messages shows that the person is interesting and not simple - perhaps there is only that difficult person.

So pity, sympathy for the complexities of life, the charm of the writing style, or the user's freelancer (emoticon) is not the motive for choosing a specialist in the second approach.

Cons of this approach

On the one hand, there are greater risks and uncertainty, the possibility of losing time, money, the likelihood of disappointment and grief.
And just now, attracting to some stages a large project of performers without experience, a portfolio, or succumbing to a bad motive, I slightly overdid it with the hope of chance. He exceeded the recommended level, gave chance when selecting a performer more than half of his attention, and immediately received a negative result, a couple of small but unpleasant episodes when I was let down.

On the other hand, it has already happened more than once - a freelancer found in this way soon leaves for a permanent job in an office, leaves for another city, country. Or he quickly begins to play the pot, he values ​​his new experience and level of professionalism too highly, small orders no longer interest him. However, this is just natural and explainable, a talented person is able to actively grow, and now he can be trusted with more serious projects.

pros

A lot of them. It is very nice when, it would seem, a novice sends a great job done.
When you see fresh and unusual solutions.
When they understand the idea from a half-word and do it well in a day what experienced professionals require a week.

And the main plus is the sensations of novelty and development, unpredictability and progress.

Doubts

I doubt for a long time already - what if a professor who knows me from childhood didn’t conduct any research, but told a bike then - in order to accustom me to planning my activities?
But in this case, he achieved his goal. Planning came into my life, without it anywhere. And I didn’t refuse to experiment in search.

And sometimes doubts come - maybe, well, his second approach? Maybe it's better to always give experienced and proven, to know what they will do on time, and everything will be professional, beautiful and stable?