Saturday, April 12, 2008

Freelance Outsourcing: How To Identify Reliable Sources

As a business owner, outsourcing is an important component that you may want to add to your business so that it may continue to grow and not become stagnate. To develop a good outsourcing process, you need to determine who you will use as a resource to fulfill your outsourcing needs. There are different resource pools that you can use to find your outsourcing personnel. Examples of the resource pools are online business resources or local vendors. Whichever way you choose, keep in mind that you want to outsource to someone who is like-minded and have the same business ethics as you.

A case study in a bad outsourcing experience
As a business owner, it is important to trust and know who you are outsourcing your business projects to. If you do not manage the outsource process correctly, you could end up with a bad outsourcing experience. Case in point, you win a bid for a large project that has sections that you want to outsource. You choose to outsource to someone you find online. However, you did not take the time to check their reference and you end up with someone who does not meet with your expectations. Unfortunately, before the project was completed, you realized that the person's words in writing about their expertise does not equal with the skill set shown on the project. Now you are stuck with a project that has gone bad and a situation where you may have to fire someone from the project.

How to find good outsourcing personnel
To find good outsourcing personnel, you much start with the basics. Make a list of what you need this person to do and then make sure the to do list lines up with the overall project goals. Once you have the list, determine the experience that your outsourcing candidate must have in order for you to consider them for the project. Use a reputable service as a middle-man for your outsourcing personnel search. When the list of outsourcing candidates have been narrowed down to your final list, interview them and check their references.

Sources for finding outsourcing personnel
When searching for outsource personnel, keep in mind that you can use temporary agencies (you want to use one that has a well documented track record of success matching of businesses to candidate). Some local vendors which are temporary agencies may have an online presence and would also be considered online resources for your outsourcing needs. Online sources that you might want to review for your outsourcing resources is http://www.elance.com/, GetAFreelancer.com, http://www.online-writing-jobs.com/, or http://www.freelanceportfolios.com/.