11 Critical Questions To Ask When Hiring a Freelancer

August 30, 2016 by Suraj Kashyap

Big or small, both types of companies are hiring Freelancers to help with growth and other businesses. And freelancers can be an effective way to reduce the amount of chaos in your life and business. Now the question is how to select a right Freelancer, who is already having experience in the area they’re hired for. Freelancers are typically used to working with clients and managing their own time and workload. They need very little management to get the job done.

The interview is the best way you can distinguish between each Freelancer and can evaluate their strengths and weakness as well as the ability to communicate. Now for hiring a right Freelancer here are some interview questions to ask.

1) Why do you Freelance?

The first thing you want to see is that they are not Freelancing because they hate 9 to 5 job, or they don’t want work pressure. This states that they are not easy to work.

So, you have to look for the Freelancers who are passionate about the work they are doing or love their profession and enjoy working with. Most of them start Freelancing because they are elderly or can stay home with their child, in this case, it’s fine and make sure that they explain why they stayed with it. If they love their work, freedom, and flexibility, they are in it for a long haul.

2) How long have you been Freelancing?

Most of the hiring managers skip this question because this will be a little discouragement for the new Freelancers as they can have or sometimes more equipped for the job and even managing their work. But still, this question finds out the experience a Freelancer has and working with clients.

If the experience of the Freelancer is more than they are used to have varied forms and levels of feedback. So, If someone is new to freelancing try to put the feedback in more efficient and constructive manner. The more experienced the freelancers are likely to possess their processes in the place for how they operate, which is beneficial to work with them.

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3) How do you hone your craft?

Every good Freelancer is always striving to be even better Freelancer. You rarely hear a great writer say they have no room for improvement. I’ve listened to countless interviews with Pulitzer Prize winning or best-selling authors, and they all say they strive to improve with every piece they write. Not only Freelance writers everyone is trying to improve themselves. An excellent Freelancer will tell you that they Hone Their Craft by working every day and showing dedication. They try to improve themselves every day by working on what they are interested in.

4) What else are you passionate about outside of work?

Working with a Freelancer for a certain amount of time will be easier for you if you have common or complementary interests with them. Getting to know your Freelancer and what makes them happy, what they enjoy doing and how they spend their time outside work.

It’s better if you hire a Freelancer who has a healthy sense of work-life balance so that they don’t burn out and have to quit.

5) How do you deal with deadlines?

This is so important. You may or may not be concerned about the work delay for one or two days you should not show it. Everyone says that they completed the work in the given deadline, but you should ask for the contact information of the previous employee where they can tell you about meeting the deadlines.

If they are starting then, give them a piece of work and provide them with an absolute deadline. Now sit back and relax. You can now know that they can meet the deadline or not. An excellent Freelancer will try to deliver the work in time. Most of the good freelancers take more time to find the right thing for the work given. But the quality of work also matters when it is before or after the deadline.

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6)What would you do if you missed a deadline?

This question is made to find how efficient the Freelancer is at communicating. If the answer over-communicates around deadlines, then the Freelancer is right. Sometimes it happens, they miss the deadlines. Make sure they explain it why and when they missed the deadlines so that you can notice them.

This is also an important question for anyone working remotely, as communication is crucial to remote work success. You need someone who’s comfortable speaking up through some Slack, who will ask for a call when they need answers quick. You’ll be able to glean how confident and comfortable someone is working remotely from this simple question.

7) Do you have a contract?

There are two reasons you want to ask this question. The first is to determine if they treat their craft seriously. The last thing you want is to engage with a flighty writer. Any good business person will want to work under a contract. If the freelance writer you are talking to is vague about terms, they are likely going to be vague about deadlines and expectations as well.And the second is you should ask this question is that you want to establish expectations.

8) Has a client ever ended a relationship abruptly, if so why?

Before you ask this question, try not to judge the Freelancer. This is just to sense the relationships that haven’t worked out for a Freelancer. Try to look for the reason the Freelancer is giving for it and any lesson learnt from the situation.

Look for someone who is always learning from the experiences and the things happened for the Freelancer and look how they explain the situation.

9) How do you typically measure your result?

You’re not looking for specific tools here, but rather how the freelancer sets (Key Performance Indicator) KPIs — how they determine what’s most important to measure when working on a project.

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The best answer is going to say something like “it depends on your goals, but in the past I have…” and then they break into specific examples of KPIs determined, how they set benchmarks and how they measured against them.

10) How do you communicate your results?

Reporting the result and being able to communicate one’s value as a Freelancer is so Important. You need a Freelancer who can explain the results of their work, like how it worked or why it doesn’t and what do they plan on doing next. This is why you hire a Freelancer so you don’t want to make time to sort things.

Ask them to do it by themselves so that they will get an idea how to communicate with the client and explain their work.

11) What type of projects have you worked on?

You’ve likely already reviewed their portfolio and are familiar with what a freelancer has worked on — it’s still important to have them walk you their history.

Pay attention to how they’re describing them. What are they focusing on — results achieved? The team they worked with? The tasks at hand? Listen intently and notice what they get excited about when talking. You’ll get a good sense of whether or not they’ll be happy working in your industry or with your team, or with you!

Not only these you can also find some more interesting questions like: