Freelancer Reviews: Pros and Cons of Hiring Virtual Assistants on Freelancing Sites?

When it comes to hiring someone to do a job for you the goal is always to hire the best possible virtual assistant. You want to make sure that you have a team you can count on and people that can get the job done right.

On the one hand you might not want to hire a large team to work in your home office. But on the other hand, you want to make sure you have people that are really getting the work done. So, should you consider hiring virtual assistants on some of the more popular freelancing sites?

1: What are Freelancing Sites?

Freelancing sites are places like Upwork and Freelancer where you can post a job and get bids from individuals who want to work with you. These individuals could be anyone (and that means literally anyone). When you post a job you never know who is actually going to apply. When you hire someone you don’t know if anything that they’ve told you is actually accurate true either.

All you know is what they sound like in their application or what they sound like in the samples that they send to you. These sites pride themselves on allowing just anyone to make a living writing from their own home.

These sites offer a platform for those who want to write and for those who need writing (and other services as well) to work out an agreement. A business owner or website owner can post a job and the writer, illustrator, designer or whatever else is able to apply for that job.

From there, the original poster can review all of the different applications and can then shortlist specific candidates or they can remove certain candidates from the running based on their profiles and such. These sites give everyone the opportunity to try out something new and to see if writing for a living is really going to be working for them.

2: The Downside to Freelancing Sites

a) You could end up wasting your time and money on someone you know nothing about

When it comes to freelancer reviews we have found that there are some serious downsides to the process. Freelancing sites have very few requirements (if any) for people to sign up.

That means they may have very limited understanding of the language that you need them to write in or they may have little to no experience in writing on a specific topic, but they can say anything they want.

Not only that but they can bid on your projects without having any idea of what they’re actually doing. This means you could end up wasting your time and money on someone you know nothing about.

b) It could cost a lot of money

These sites can cost you a lot of money for having no idea who you’re actually hiring. That’s because every time you hire someone you have to pay fees and every time you post a job you have to pay fees.

And after all of those costs, and paying the person to actually complete the project, you never know when you’re going to get the work or what type of quality you’re going to have when it all comes down to it.

So, you could be paying a lot just to have to hire someone else or redo the project later.

c) Little to no contact with the person you hire

Another downside is that you’re going to have little or limited contact with the person that you hire.

Because you’re hiring someone who works entirely on their own, with absolutely no one looking over their shoulder to make sure the job gets done, you also won’t have a way to actually keep track of them.

When you need them you never know how you’re going to be able to contact them either. But you might have an urgent request or something that you really need to talk with them about. Unfortunately, they might not be available by phone.

d) They are not dedicated to your business

They’re not dedicated to your business either. In fact, most of the people on these sites are working for a large number of different clients at the same time.

So, when they’re supposed to be working on your projects you never know what they’re actually working on. They could be working on any number of different assignments and that can take their attention and focus away from what you want them to be doing.

That could mean your work gets pushed to the backburner or it could mean that you get subpar work because they’re being pulled in several different directions.

e) It’s hard to build a team you can count on

Many of these individuals are actually not even interested in long-term work. So, if you’re looking for someone that can be a long-term virtual assistant for you it might be difficult to find through these sites.

They’re looking for jobs that they can turn around quickly so they can make a bit of money and while that’s not always a bad thing, if you’re looking for a team that you can count on for an extended period that’s going to be far more difficult. You might not even be able to find someone at all.

f) There is very little recourse if something goes wrong

Yet another problem is that there is very little recourse if something goes wrong. Because you don’t really know who you’re dealing with and you don’t know anything about them personally you have very little that you can do if the work isn’t completed right.

Sure, you can give them a negative review or try to contact them, but that’s really all you can do. There’s no real option to sue if you find that the work is blatantly wrong or copyrighted because it’s a far more complex process to track that person down if needed.

2: The Upside to Freelancing Sites

Now, if you’ve read through these downsides you may be wondering why anyone would even consider hiring someone from a freelancing site. Well, there are a few different reasons that these types of individuals can seem like a good idea. And for some people, who are just starting out, it can seem like they’re really the only option. In the interest of fairness, we’ll talk about what the benefits are to hiring someone from one of these sites.

a) The service charges are cheap

The biggest benefit is that these individuals are usually inexpensive. If you’re just starting out and you have little to no budget you can usually find someone that will write content, answer phones, send emails or do anything else you want for very little money.

That means you’re going to get the job done and you won’t have to break the budget. For some, that’s the only thing that matters and being able to get something created means more than the quality.

b) You will be swamped by the bidders for the job

Next, you’re going to get a whole lot of people bidding for the job that you want done. So, you’re not going to have to go looking for the  best of the best, people are going to come to you.

There’s no need for you to try and seek out anyone because once you post you can just scan through the different applicants the same way you would for most other job postings. If you’re looking for a lot of options you’re going to get it easily with these types of websites, though you may have to weed through a lot of junk applications to find a few good ones.

c) Maybe good if you are looking for one-time work

If you’re looking for short term work or one-off projects these can be great sites as well, because you can hire someone and they don’t expect to be kept around for very long.

They just do the one project you want and they continue on their way because they work for a number of different people and they have other projects to get done. That’s definitely going to make it easier for you to get a single article or to get extra help during a specific busy moment.

d) You will get some support from the websites

You will generally get some good support through these websites, and you may even have a clause in the contract that you sign with a potential freelancer that outlines mediation and more.

This helps you in case there is a problem with your agreement or with the work that is provided. Of course, any reputable service is going to offer you some form of recourse in case something happens and they should give you the opportunity for mediation or some form of dispute counseling to try and resolve the issue as peacefully as possible.

3: What You Should Do Instead

So, if you’re not going to hire someone from one of these freelancing sites who should you be hiring? Where should you be looking to get the best service and to make sure that you’re going to get the job done?

You should be taking a closer look at professional virtual assistant websites like WoodBows. With WoodBows you’re going to get all of the benefits of a virtual assistant but none of the drawbacks that you get when hiring from the typical freelancing sites. That’s because we have the highest standards around.

WoodBows is actually a company of virtual assistants that are all located in the same physical location. So, our assistants aren’t located in your office, but they are always located in our office.

And that means that they are supervised at all times to make sure they’re doing what you pay them to do.

They’re also going to be accessible 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, so you can always get help or support for yourself and your immediate team or for your clients. That way, there’s never going to be an interruption in service.

Unlike other freelance sites where you never know where your freelancer is when you need them, WoodBows prides ourselves on having a team that’s available when and where you need them to be. Not only that but they are high quality, every single time.

You shouldn’t have to struggle to find someone that can get the job done or someone who actually cares about your business and what you have to offer. We want to make sure that you are getting the services you’re looking for, because we’ve been right where you are right now. We’ve been in a position of looking for the right person and not knowing where to turn.

In fact, not that long ago I was caught in the seemingly endless cycle of hiring someone to complete a project and then waiting for them to finish it. Then, when the project was finished it was never what I had expected or wanted.

I would have to pay someone else to do the whole thing over again or I would have to do it myself. It all cost me way to much time and way more money than I wanted. So, I realized there had to be an easier way. There had to be a way to get the quality I was looking for but not have my own team in my location.

WoodBows was what I came up with after this long struggle. It was a few years process, trying to get the right people and to put together a team that really worked as a virtual assistant. What I found was having a virtual assistant for myself shouldn’t actually mean someone working from home and I created this company to help those who were in the same boat as me.

My team, the virtual assistants at WoodBows, are all about getting the work done, and doing it right, the first time.

Conclusion

If you’re tired of spending all your time and energy trying to find the right virtual assistant and failing then you’re in the right place. These freelancer reviews are going to help you focus on what’s really important and make sure that you don’t get sucked into the trap of hiring a freelancer from one of the more popular websites.

These individuals may seem like a great idea because of the low rate and the short-term nature of it all, but they’re definitely going to end up costing you a whole lot more than they’re worth in the long run, so don’t get lured in.