4 Steps to Finding Great Developers on Upwork

And Any Other Platform, Actually.

1. Write a Meaningful Description

Write a casual brief about what you need to get done. Include target audience, goals, what materials you already have, what you want created and your budget.

Important: NEVER start with “great developer needed for awesome project”?—?you’ll repel the good folks and only attract the desperate people.

I wrote a whole post on how to write a good job description on Upwork so that the great people actually reply.

2. Provide Inspiration

Share your list of other sites you like! You need to be able to explain your vision, and there’s no better way than sharing a list of sites and specifyingwhat you like and dislike about them.

If you’re hesitant to share that much info publicly, make the listing private and only invite people you deliberately select.

And even if you share it publicly, still go hunting and invite people you like from search. They’re more likely to reply when you invite them personally.

3. Pre-Select Three Candidates

Reply to everyone who writes you and start a casual conversation.

I kick out people who:

• I don’t understand because of their bad English
• don’t understand me
• don’t seem to quite get what I need
• don’t make any suggestions during our conversation
• are very short in writing which usually means they’re bad communicators
• say “yes, I can do that” to everything. I usually ask them something ridiculous which I don’t even want, just to check their attitude
• are so far away in timezone that we don’t have two hours of productive overlap during working hours
• don’t have a portfolio

Talent is important, but worthless without the means to express oneself and empathize with others.

From the remaining people, I then shortlist everyone whose work I like.

From those, I then pick 3 who I personally enjoyed talking to.

4. Let Them Do a Test Task

I will then confess to them that there’s a paid test task to do upfront.

Yes?—?paid! Not much, but you have to pay. Otherwise the good people will politely decline and you’re left with the desperate folks again.

You’ll see exactly how they communicate in a project environment, if they stick to deadlines, how they deliver, etc.

This is invaluable!

Keep in mind that while this might cost you some money (since you’re paying all of them), you’re building an asset. You’re paying to find a great developer you’ll be able to work with over and over again, not just for that one project.

Set roughly the same deadlines on all test tasks so that nobody will have to wait for too long for your answer.

And then go with the one you liked working with the most! :)

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