As an internet marketing company, we normally find ourselves doing projects that don’t require hiring employees. Instead, we look for good contractors and outsource our work. If they do well for us, we reward them by giving them more work.
Most of the jobs we post are web related. Web development, programming, and javascript are the things we normally look for. Everytime we post, we get a lot of, what I call, SPAM; people who don’t bother to read instructions and reply with a canned response.
If your company has never contracted to someone outside USA, beware of the under qualified people saying they can do the job. I have a friend who paid over $3000 to a company in India to work on an install Magento (an ecommerce software) with a custom design. There was nothing complex about it and no customization besides the design. Well, they got burnt.
The best advice I can give is to find a qualified American to spec out a plan THEN shop that plan on one of these sites: oDesk, eLance, Freelance. If you have enough of a budget, then get someone in your hometown or within USA to do the work.
When you are writing your job post, make sure to find a person who has passed exams for the field you are looking to hire for. For instance, if you are looking for a content writer (which I recommend having an American), you better make sure they passed the English Efficiency test and that they passed with a very high score. If you are looking for a web designer, make sure he has passed the Photoshop exam.
To reduce canned responses from potential contractors, put in your ad something like, “Only people who respond with ‘Serious Inquiry’ in the subject will be considered.” I always appreciate when people took the time to read my posts and follow the instructions.
While I don’t recommend outsourcing everything abroad, especially SEO, it’s good if you can meet someone you can trust and build a long term relationship. For a few of the contractors I have, I feel they have become friends although I have never met them in person nor talked over the phone.
If you need help with something or need some advice building a plan with anything web related, reply in the comments below and we can probably guide you in the right direction.
BTW, we even outsource to soccer moms!
