Buyer 101: oDesk Essentials

Every company has a profile on oDesk (Profile > My Company Profile). Fill out your company name, tagline, description and web site URL (no email addresses, phone numbers or chat IDs, please), then upload your company logo. Showing your company profile on your jobs is optional, but recommended. Companies who make this information available have an easier time attracting great candidates (more information = better applications).

Verifying your payment method (Payments > Payment Methods) can take several hours to several days, depending on your bank. So the sooner you begin, the better. Calling the number on the back of your card is usually the fastest way to confirm the verification charges — most users can do this within a few hours. Currently, oDesk accepts Visa, MasterCard and American Express.
US buyers with significant payment volumes can apply to pay by check.

Providers can see whether your payment method is verified or not — and they know you cannot pay them for work until verification is complete. Simply put, you will receive more and better candidates if you complete (or at the very least begin) verification before you post a job.

If you haven't already done so, please familiarize yourself with the complete job posting and application policy.

When you post a job (My Jobs > Post a Job), be as descriptive and detailed as possible. List every relevant skill and preference. Some specific skill sets have groups on oDesk — when your job involves these skills, it's best to post the job directly to the group (Find Providers & Jobs > Groups). Consider adding a challenge question or keyword the applicants should answer or include. It's a quick and easy way to test their ability to follow instructions.

You must decide whether to post the job as hourly or fixed-price. oDesk pioneered the hourly work system, therefore most of our management tools and software are geared towards that option.

Carefully consider your job's visibility — do you want it to be public or private? A public job appears in search results and RSS feeds for our users to find you (search engine indexing is optional). A private job remains hidden — meaning finding candidates is totally up to you. Once your job is posted, use the provided links to share it on Facebook or Twitter (leveraging the power of your social network to find great candidates).

You had the opportunity to specify a number of preferred qualifications when you posted your job. This automatically presents you with a pre-filled search for matching providers (My Jobs > Openings). Use this search to proactively invite providers to interview for your job. You can also run your own custom searches (Find Providers & Jobs > Find Providers) and save promising providers to a list of favorites (they may not be right for this job, but maybe the next one...).

Set a time to evaluate the applications you receive or check them as they come in (My Jobs > Openings). Each application includes the provider's rate (including oDesk's fee), cover letter and profile (including portfolio). Either way, try to reject those you know you don't want as fast as possible (like a candidate who clearly didn't read the job description or one who sent a templated cover letter). Choose the most relevant rejection reason and mark them as spam when appropriate. If you have time, you can even write a more detailed reason. As you weed out the bad applications, you should notice others that stand out from the crowd for good reasons. Invite these candidates to interview. There's no obligation — interview as many as you necessary until you find the best candidates.

Please don't summarily reject those with rates that seem too high. Many providers are willing to negotiate. More importantly, you may find someone who can do the job much better or faster. Keep in mind the old adage "Good, fast or cheap: Pick two." Quality, speed and cost are all important — it's up to you to find the right balance for your job.

Interviewing is the most important part of the entire process. Finding the right person for the job is the key to a successful assignment. Spending a little extra time getting this right will save you time and money down the road. But if you've got several very promising candidates (My Jobs > Openings), sometimes an interview isn't enough to make the final decision. Consider taking them all for a 'test drive' (a small, paid, trial assignment) to help you make the final decision.

So how exactly does one interview a candidate on oDesk?

First, you must invite the provider to interview. Then you'll communicate through the message center (Messages > Inbox). Keep the interview entirely inside oDesk (to protect your privacy) or exchange contact info and move the interview to email, chat or telephone (it's OK to exchange contact information in the interview stage, just not before). Try to schedule any 'live' interviews (chat or voice) at least a day ahead of time — especially when dealing with providers in other time zones.

Since we know you may not have any experience with interviewing remote workers, here's some suggested interview questions to get you started:

Your interviews should help you select the best candidate(s) for your job. Once you decide who you want to work with, it's time to hire them (My Jobs > Openings). This creates an assignment (My Jobs > Assignments). You can hire more than one of the candidate, if you wish — but when you're done hiring, please close the job post (this will automatically reject any remaining candidates). The provider should not be expected to begin working until they are hired. If you haven't done so already, it is now vital to verify your payment method. The provider can't be paid for working until you verify. Therefore many providers will not even consider beginning to work until you complete the verification process.

On hourly assignments, you set a weekly limit during the hiring process. This is very important as the weekly limit means 'I authorize my provider to bill up to __ hours per work week.' It's generally best to start with a low limit at least the first week while you get to know each other better. As trust develops, the limit can increase.

Every time you hire a new provider, take some time to introduce yourself and the rest of your local and online oDesk workteam. It's very important for the provider to know who to contact about what. In a small company, this is quick and easy; in a larger company it could take significant time to assimilate the new provider into the workteam. In this introduction phase, make sure the provider has all necessary contact information. It is common to exchange personal cell phone numbers and alternate email addresses with providers whose work may involve critical issues.

New provider 'orientation' goes beyond just learning the organizational structure. Talk about your expectations regarding communication, availability, logging time, submitting deliverables, reviewing progress and anything else you can think of. You'll probably want to develop a standard 'new provider welcome email' that contains all this (and perhaps the introduction information from above). Ideally, you'll schedule a meeting for the first day of work to go over all these logistics as well as passing on any specific assignment tasks.

Communication is vital to successful assignments. At first, you may want the provider to check in with daily progress reports via email or through oDesk. As time goes on, a weekly one-on-one work review and coordination meeting may become the preferred option. The important thing is to come up with a system that suits your workflow — and stick to it. Communication issues are often the first sign of an assignment that isn't working out. Don't ignore the issue — it will cost you time and money. Do attempt to work things out with the provider, but if you for any reason feel uncomfortable with continuing the assignment, end it right away. You can always rehire the person if things get sorted out.

Every hourly assignment has a work diary (Manage & Work > Work Diary) where you can view the provider's work in progress. When your provider logs time using the oDesk Team app it is automatically uploaded to the work diary. This in combination with deliverables and progress reports should give you an excellent idea of what exactly you're paying the provider to do. It is essential that you review all your providers' work diaries each week, especially when you start working together — after all, you'll get billed on hourly assignments based on the content of those work diaries.

The work diary (Manage & Work > Work Diary) is oDesk's primary management tool, but it's not the only one. Be sure to check out your team room (Manage & Work > Team Room) and reports (Manage & Work > Reports) as well. oDesk gives you many tools to help track your provider's work. But it's up to you to use them. Quality of work is the buyer's responsibility. You are in charge of managing all your assignments. oDesk's tools can help you make sure that they don't get out of control.

One special tool for hourly assignments is the dispute system. If you find your provider is logging hours, but not working, you must file a dispute during the review period. This is why it's so important to review the work diaries every week.

You'll leave feedback (My Jobs > Assignments) for the provider at the end of every assignment. The provider also has the opportunity to leave feedback for you. But the system is double-blind — the other user can't see the feedback you've left until after they leave feedback for you. Only assignments with at least $1 in net earnings will appear in your (and the provider's) work and feedback history, but you'll leave feedback regardless of the assignment's Dollar amount. On oDesk, feedback is your reputation. It's not only a great way to show your appreciation for a job well done, but also your opportunity to tell future buyers about a provider's shortcomings. Please be fair and honest in your ratings and comments.

Your hourly assignments are automatically billed weekly based on the time in the providers' work diaries. Please review the weekly schedule so you understand when you should review the work diaries and when you will be charged for the work.

But sometimes you want to make a non-time-based payment. You do this with the 'give bonus' payment option (My Jobs > Assignments). A bonus can be used in the traditional sense, to reimburse expenses or to make any other manual payment.

If, when and how much to pay is always up to you on fixed-price assignments. Payments (My Jobs > Assignments) can be made at the beginning (upfront), in the middle (milestone) or at the end of the assignment (completion). In most cases you'll want to pay a little upfront, the bulk of the amount divided into milestone payments submitted as you receive/review deliverables and the remainder at the very end upon receipt of final deliverables or to show your appreciation for a job well done. 10-80-10 and 25-50-25 are common ways to split the money across the three types of payments.