Now, hold up! Before you get to that part, does it ever cross your mind, “Is Upwork the right platform for me?”
Of course, you don’t want to find yourself -and your business, might I say- to go awry because you hired the wrong person for the job, right?
If that’s the case, read on and be the judge whether Upwork is for you or not.
Upwork is the world’s largest online workplace that connects millions of freelancers and clients around the globe. It is a global freelancing platform wherein startups and established companies can easily and securely outsource talented freelancers.
On December 18, 2013, two freelance marketplaces – Elance, founded by Beerud Sheth and Srini Anumolui in 1999, and oDesk, founded by Odysseas Tsatalos and Stratis Karamalankis in 2003 – announced their merger, creating Elance-oDesk. Eighteen months after, they decided to rebrand and is now called Upwork Global Incorporated. Its headquarters is in San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA, and is currently headed by its very first female CEO, Hayden Brown.
Hayden Brown, First Female Chief Executive Officer at Upwork Global Inc.
Short answer, yes. You can find top talents on Upwork to help you run your business, from daily tasks to complex ones.
Below are some of the benefits you get to enjoy from choosing Upwork as your online freelancing platform.
As an e-commerce entrepreneur looking to scale your business and maximize your sales volume, it seems like twenty-four hours isn’t enough to get essential things done. Even worse, you might find yourself doing complicated stuff that just doesn’t fit your expertise, then causing you a headache.
But, with Upwork, you don’t need to go through the hassle of doing all the heavy lifting every single day. From data entry, copywriting, and order fulfillment to CRM development, web designing, and digital marketing, Upwork provides you access to meet independent professionals all around the globe and hire a freelancer or two to help you out with some tasks.
Unlike other freelancing platforms, Upwork’s payment protection gives both the freelancer and client peace of mind.
When the two parties enter a contract, say a fixed-price project, the client’s budget for such project is deposited to an escrow account where the funds are put on hold until the project is successfully done. It helps set the freelancer’s mind at ease and shake off the worries of not getting paid after doing all the work. Also, it reassures the client that the freelancer is getting things done and is not running away with the budget.
Outsourcing talents from Upwork will help you save both money and time while receiving a quality output. By choosing the right candidate for the job, you can move forward with your business, expect the task to be done in no time, and skip the cost of hiring an in-house employee.
Awesome right? That is why it is no wonder many businesses are hiring professionals from this platform.
However, as a coin always has two sides, there are also pitfalls of using Upwork, including communication issues, hefty payments, and scammers.
As millions of people use this global freelancing platform, communication is commonly an issue between the client and freelancer.
Lucky you if you found a freelancer who can communicate well, but most of the time, users complain that they cannot understand each other very clearly. Considering that communication is the key to doing business successfully, work performance is often affected by such issues.
Reading the breakdown of fees that Upwork charges its users, you must have realized by now how much it will cost you to use the platform.
With the fees in mind, Upwork is not too ideal for freelancers who do not have enough budget to buy connects, especially if you are a newbie in the freelancing industry. Moreover, landing your very first online job is quite tricky since you will be competing with thousands of rising and top talents.
As a client with only a low budget, this freelancing platform may not also be the right one for you. Spare yourself from wasting your budgeted funds to hiring the cheapest service in the market, for it will cost you more in the long run. Before you start hiring professionals in Upwork, calculate all the costs, including your project budget, membership fee, and payment processing fee.
Yes, scammers are everywhere, even in Upwork, and you have to be very careful who you hire and who you’re working with.
To avoid being scammed, beware of these red flags:
Whether you are a startup company or an established one, you might find the need to outsource independent professionals to help you out on some tasks and take some load off your plate. And as the world’s largest online workplace, I bet you are considering Upwork as your platform. Well, if that’s the case, then let’s get you ready with your mission.
Before you start looking for expert freelancers, make sure that you have successfully created your Upwork account. In your quest to hire only the best, it is imperative to note these essential items: your budget, the scope of work, the freelancer’s skill set, and a contract.
I get it that you want the work done professionally in quick turnarounds. Yes, you can have what you want, but how much are you willing to pay to have the best service?
As an entrepreneur, you should know by now that being cheap may come as expensive in the end. Consider the amount you will be spending for revisions, plus the time it will cost you to communicate back and forth without getting the results you have expected when you choose the cheapest service there is.
Now, compare this to the freelancer who will charge you a few bucks more but will get the work done in the best quality within the deadline with minimal edits. However, this is not always the case, so it is wise to set a fair budget and take your time in vetting each applicant thoroughly.
In looking for the best, Upwork has two options for you: you can either check the Project Catalog where the list of services is predefined by the freelancers who will do the work, or create a job post yourself if you want to be more specific. If you opt to do the latter, you will have to go through these seven steps:
The key in creating a job post is to be as straightforward as possible about the deliverable, the type of project, the expertise you’re looking for, and the payment structure. Having a well-defined and customized job post will save you time going through all applications and help the freelancers have a clearer picture of what you expect the outcome will be.
Prepare yourself to receive several applications after your job posting. It’s the best time to be very careful and meticulous in choosing the right candidate to guarantee you a high-quality output within the deadline.
That being said, you can find the most suitable freelancer to do the job for you by creating a shortlist of applicants and conducting an interview. Filter out the applicants who do not meet the requirements, and if you have the list of top applicants ready, you can start conducting a video interview to get to know more about the freelancer. Once you’ve done these, you can then decide who is the best one to hire.
If you have found the most suitable independent professional, it is time to make your agreement official with a contract. Your contract must be as detailed, clear, and concise as possible to avoid future legal issues. It is a wise move to hire a legal professional to help you draft the contract or go over the drafted one to prevent loopholes and vague clauses.
A good contract must have well-defined service and deliverables, payment terms, intellectual property rights, deliverable ownership, non-disclosure, terms of termination, and indemnity clause.
With the knowledge that drafting a contract will take you some time and that every minute is precious in growing your business, Upwork came up with an initiative to prepare the contract for you based on the details you have included in your job post. With this feature, you can now automatically generate a contract once you click “Hire.”
Considering all things, it is worth a try.
At the end of the day, you have the final say. The key here is to weigh the pros and cons you will get from using the platform carefully.
As a client, Upwork may come in handy in helping you out with your daily tasks so you can direct your focus to grow your business.
As a freelancer, this platform is worth signing into if you’re looking to know more about the world of freelancing. However, landing your very first job in no time is not guaranteed. It may take quite some time but don’t be easily discouraged and keep trying.
]]>You might be seeking answers about how good this platform is. And we will give you the answers you need.
So, read on.
Is this a good platform to outsource talents? Well, yes.
To give you more idea of how your e-commerce business can benefit from Freelancer.com, read on.
As a business owner looking to outsource talents, Freelancer.com is an excellent place to start searching for writers, web developers, designers, graphic artists, digital marketers, and more. The platform is easy to navigate, too so, there’s no need to worry about getting lost from using it the first time. All you need to do is create an account and set up your profile as an employer. Once done with the initial steps, you can start posting your projects, and the next thing you know, multiple independent professionals worldwide are bidding on your project. How awesome is that?
Photo: Dispatches Europe
There’s no need to worry about a freelancer running away with your money, as Freelancer.com ensures your funds are safe with its Milestone Payment System. There are two ways to use this payment system: you can set aside your funds and send the payment once the project has been completed, or you can also release the amount every after the freelancer has met a task. Either way, your funds are secured whenever something goes wrong with the project. Even better, Milestone Payment comes with an invoice that you can use for tax purposes.
With 50 million users worldwide, you can be confident of finding the right expertise for your project and receiving the output you want while not exceeding your set funds. As an employer, Freelancer.com gives you the freedom to decide the budget for a particular project and attract the talent who agrees with your terms. It’s a win-win situation for both parties as you get things done within your budget and the freelancer gets paid once done. And this here, ladies and gentlemen, is the beauty of freelancing and outsourcing.
Photo: in.teh Blogspot
One of the common complaints of clients outsourcing talents online is settling disputes when the project goes south. What’s worse than feeling robbed by someone you barely know and that there’s no way to get your money back? That’s why Freelancer.com works around the clock to ensure that every customer’s concern is heard and addressed as quickly as possible. And with such commendable dispute resolution service, many clients feel confident and safe doing business on the platform.
Photo: in.teh Blogspot
Freelancer.com guarantees to not leave you in the dark from the beginning until the end of the project with its time tracking software. No need to second guess whether the freelancer is getting things done or just passing the time by with the platform’s time tracking feature -it will periodically capture the freelancer’s screen, which you can view on your end. This feature comes in handy, especially if you’re hiring a web developer or designer to easily track the progress and input your comment while the project is in the process.
Although the benefits are great, as you can read above, let’s try to consider the other side of the coin.
Some drawbacks of using this Freelancer.com include the possibility of vetting the wrong freelancer who cannot hold the end of the bargain. This may be due to the lack of background check before hiring, or perhaps, that freelancer specializes more in conning clients than hastening skills. So, it would help if you did your due diligence before accepting a proposal. Moreover, there are several complaints about its mobile application being laggy and glitchy. If you are on a business trip trying to check the project’s progress, this may be a problem. Anyway, if you have your laptop with you, you can use the website instead.
Of course, it is.
Looking for readily available talents to help you with complex tasks you need immediate help with can take you hours. But with Freelancer.com, you have access to not only local experts but to independent professionals worldwide. And what’s better than that?
The key here is to be very meticulous in choosing the right freelancer to hire. Do not be overwhelmed with the number of proposals bidding on your posted project –this is the perfect time for you to be picky for your business is at stake.
In the end, the choice is yours.
For me, it seems worth trying.
How about you, what do you think?
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Amazon Mechanical Turk is basically owned by Amazon. It is a crowdsourcing online platform that was created for businesses to select and look for best results or information for a large group of people through internet.
Mturk hires a number of people often called as “crowdworkers” or “turkers”, they are asked to perform a certain tasks which is called Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs), for instance, answering questions, providing feedback, and all simple tasks that only a human being can do.
Mturk users are consist of both turkers-- the one who perform tasks, and the employer or also called as requester. Turkers have their freedom to not be obliged to perform a certain task, they don’t ask for payroll taxes.
Amazon Mechanical Turk provides businesses the following:
The best part of having MTurk is that it is very cheap compared on hiring a professional employee. Aside from that, it can save a lot of time for businesses.
The truth is, turkers are basically unrelated with the company who hired them and they don’t have responsibilities to protect their name. Turkers will provide true feedback and suggestions since they are the consumers. Besides, their feedback can help the company to improve and build up on their services or products.
In that large group of people that you will ask to perform a certain tasks, most of them are skilled talent. You can learn a lot and can acquire a lot of different perspectives that you can use to improve your company.
With the help of turkers, company’s productivity increases.
Here’s how Mturk works: Thousands of people can now make money online by just doing simple tasks whenever and anywhere they want. MTurk allows companies to hire a large number of people to do Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs) then turkers can easily pick what small-tasks they want to perform and must submit a request for their payment.
Human Intelligence Tasks are created by the requesters or businesses only to be answered by turkers or also known as workers. It is a task where only human being can answer, give ideas and feedbacks. The list below is the top 3 most wanted micro-jobs of turkers:
One of the most top rated HITs on Amazon Mechanical Turks where turkers will answer and fill up question about a certain topic provided by the requesters. Surveys has a big contribution from small to large corporations, it gives a large number of people’s suggestions and opinions that can be used to improve companies and implement a better decisions.
In this process, turkers are asked to write down or convert into a written document of an audio or video. This micro-job requires an excellent listening and writing skills.
This is a macro-job where turkers will tag keyword or label images.
Micro-jobs are low paying jobs but it is very flexible in terms of time. Most jobs requires to work on a certain time and date, but with MTurk, it really doesn’t give restrictions on its workers—you can work all you want anytime and anywhere.
Regarding with the pay, one task for instance, short transcription would cost $0.05. if you will be able to transcribe 40+ in an hour then you would be able to have an hourly rate of almost $3.
Mturk also give bonuses. It maybe pay low, but their tasks are very fun to do!