7 Reasons Why We Will Never Hire Freelancers Again
Have you ever worked with unreliable freelancers who failed projects at the very last moment? Have you hired freelancers whose portfolio was a total fake? I have. And I wish you never have a similar experience.
My name is Hannah and I am working as a Project Manager at Qubit Labs, a software development company. I had more than enough negative experience with hiring freelance developers, designers, frontenders and other specialists, before I started working here with a dedicated team of experts. And I am here to name you at least 7 reasons why I will never deal with IT freelance again.
Failed deadlines
No matter how hard you count on a freelancer, he can simply keep silent, or even tell you something like “I left the country and cannot work anymore” at the most responsible moment. You say, what about pre-payment? Forget about that. Throughout my experience, I also had several freelance app developers who posted party photos on their Facebook pages while the project was on fire and they swore they had no time to finish it.
No quality guarantee
Don’t be fooled by high ratings and positive feedbacks on freelance websites like Upwork, or Freelancer.com. 5 stars don’t mean a thing. Moreover, none of the high-rated freelancers is willing to complete a test task for you, believing they’re superstars and being even offended by your plea. All in all, you are working up a sweat trying to find someone to improve low-quality delivery by a dishonest freelancer. Some freelancers even provide services like positive feedbacks on freelance websites, which is totally insane!
Wanna one more insane story? Almost a thriller btw. I ordered some SEO services from a freelancer with pretty high ratings and got a total crap. As the deal was finished, I rated that service provider with the lowest mark and described all my experience in a feedback. Do you think he felt sorry and agreed to do a revision? Nope, he threatened me! He promised to spam and D-Dos my website if I didn’t delete my negative review.
Constant chatting
Did you ever count how many hours a day you spend on chatting with your freelancer? How many screenshots does your freelance web designer send you? In the end, you both happen to chat more than work. I mean, if you are working with a team under one roof, the process is tangibly faster.Or in case of working remotely simply minimize your chatting to one Skype call per day: it should be enough for asking and answering questions. Remember REWORK by Jason Fried and his idea of silent days? If you chat all day you just have no time left for work.
Fake portfolio
Ok, where is the guarantee that your freelance developer coded this particular website? So many freelancers falsify information to improve their chances of being hired. Some of them are easy to spot, but others are professional scammers who even fake their documents. Will you trust your business to anonymous guys on the web?
No control at all
You do not know exactly how freelancer works. No matter how much you convince yourself, you have no power over freelancers. They can deliver the project on time, or not. They can comply with initial requirements, or not give a damn about them. Come on, they can drop your project and go on a binge. If you work via most freelance platforms, you will unlikely have a freelance contract that can save you, unlike official agreements with company employees.
Piling on the agony
Do not expect that you will hire freelancers and they will work solely on your project. No one knows their overload, except for them. So yes, you hire a freelance web developer, and it then appears that he works on a couple more projects and pleads for more time, because he doesn’t sleep at night. Projects and clients always suffer because freelancers have literally no time management.
Unreliability
Freelancers feel no connection to the company and no responsibility. They don’t care about success of your project, face it. For them, it will come and go. There is no other motivation for them, except for additional money, sorry, guys.
And one more example from my own experience — this time on Fiverr. Before ordering my content I thoroughly checked the feedbacks about the writer, but it didn’t help. He failed to deliver my order in time, and didn’t follow my requirements at all! I asked him for a revision which took him even longer than writing itself. Finally, I got my texts which appeared to be a low-quality rewrite of my own website with clumsy language constructions. Never again!
Choose Outsource Over Freelance
You’d probably ask: Hannah, why are you speaking so negatively about freelance if you are working for an outsource company? The point is, outsourcing and freelance are totally different things. Thus, if you hire developers with Qubit Labs, you will get an official contract with legal value, a dedicated team with a PM who is responsible for the result. Our pool consists of the top developers only and we can guarantee quality.
Try out working with real experts, and you will never hire freelancers again.
