The Pros And Cons Of Hiring From ‘People For Hire’ Sites

In recent years a number of dedicated intermediary sites have sprung up around the Web seeking to connect people who are looking for ad hoc work with outsourcers keen to provide such a service. These sites take advantage of the Internet as a perfect environment for bringing together people in this way and a number of the sites have become well-established and successful. But are they a good choice for a small business owner who is looking to outsource in the name of efficiency? While these sites can certainly be advantageous when it comes to finding individuals for those one-off jobs, there are many reasons why it is a lot more sensible to generate an ongoing relationship with a multi-talented virtual assistant instead.

People Per Hour, Odesk, Elance – there are many sites that all tend to achieve the same objective. Here, people from around the world are touting their services, looking for people who will hire them on a temporary basis, to do work that is beyond their ability, or may be too time-consuming. Here you will find individuals who can write articles, create websites, write complicated code, specialise in graphic design and so on. The website itself acts as the intermediary, only paying the individual concerned when the client is happy with the work received. Generally speaking this type of arrangement can work well.

On a long-term basis and looking at this from a purely efficient point of view this is not the way to handle outsourcing from a client perspective. While it is possible to find good quality outsourcers here and to generate an ongoing relationship, this is the exception rather than the rule. You can also come up against communication issues as well and the potential difficulty in communication should not be underestimated as it can certainly throw a “spanner in the works” when an urgent project is approaching a deadline.

The advantage of cementing a good relationship with a virtual assistant is manifold. You will, after all, have ironed out many of those kinks in the early days as you are working out whether this relationship is good for both of you in any case. Once that initial honeymoon period has passed communication should not be too much of an issue. In addition, a clear element of trust will build up in both directions and this can be crucial when the pressure is on, down the road.

A good virtual assistant will often be able to offer a number of the services provided by different outsourcers you may find on Odesk. Usually, however, they will also be able to offer a number of additional services using a team from either within their particular organisation or outside. You, as the client, will not need to worry about finding those “specialist” outsourcers however, as your key virtual assistant will already have gone through this process to ensure that their quality is up to par too.

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