It Boils Down to…

Consistently, Elance top clients agree the key to effective job descriptions boils down to one word: Clarity. The more clear and precise they make their postings, the better the quality of proposals in their inbox. Attention paid to this single aspect of their project reaps huge rewards in both the hiring process and in the end result because they’ve attracted the best to choose from.

If you are not clear in your description you will end up with a more scattered selection of contractors bidding. This isn’t to say you’ll end up with subpar freelancers, but you may end up with those that don’t understand your needs well enough. They will either not give you targeted job proposals (how can they if they don’t have a clear idea of your goals?), or they will specialize in the wrong areas. Or both.

Often, the single biggest mistake you can make when hiring on Elance is posting unclear job descriptions. This can simply lead to hiring the wrong people. It’s no one’s fault, it just points right back to communicating clearly.

If you post laserlike job descriptions, you will automatically increase the efficiency of the freelancers who respond. Let’s look at how you can do this. (You will find more examples of job postings in Appendix B.)