How I Find the Right Outsources for Writing & Design

For the writers and designers, I was just in the creative hiring process. I called up the visible companies I knew by reputation, asked for recommendations on ChicWIT (a listserv), and then hit up my professional network for names. My next step was on-line. If they didn’t have a polished web site, they weren’t even considered. If their portfolios were skimpy, I assumed they didn’t have the depth of experience required. If there were typos, I assumed a lack of attention to detail.

When I emailed the seven possible candidates, two never replied and another was a bounceback. Down to four. Of the four, two turned down the job because it was too small for them. Down to two: a recommendation from ChicWIT and someone in my professional network. We had them both come in, interviewed them and will be giving the job to the person in my network this Friday. Needless to say, the web sites were critical in my decision-making.

For marketing people, I’ve always maintained that if you can’t market yourself, you shouldn’t be in the marketing business! :-) Seriously, a decent web site will help you as well, but a proactive approach – selecting the companies in your industry, finding the stakeholders, marketing yourself to them directly with a personalized set of features and benefits you can bring to them, that can be quite compelling.

Finding a need they have and suggestions on how you could address it could work as well. I actually went out on an interview for a PR job at a school district, and I didn’t get the job. However, they created a job for me focusing only on web site PR/communications because of the ideas I brought to the table during my interview. I won a Webby from that job…