Hiring Short-term Contractor Work From Craigslist

[blackbrich]

Wanted to ask a question to anybody that may have experience.
Going to be delivering some tech equipment to a place within a month, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to go and install the stuff myself.

I wanted to see if anyone had any experience hiring short gigs from craigslist to do something technical (or not technical) for a customer, and what the results were and some things that I may need to watch out for.

Also are there any other resources to find short term technical workers?
I know of Amazon Business Services (If anyone has any experience with them, please share) but am having trouble finding any others.

P.S. This is all on-site stuff if I wasn't clear.

 

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[QDF]

I've actually been looking into this - going to be doing this pretty extensively in a non-technical area for my next business.

If you go this route, just be sure to have a subcontractor agreement.

You can even have one drafted up pretty easily on legal zoom or rocket lawyer: https://www.rocketlawyer.com/document/subcontractor-agreement.rl

 

[Runum]

I have hired off of CL. Be very specific about job, hours, and pay. I have had guys walk off the job before. Had some shoddy work as well. Also had some good results. Be sure to check references and past work samples. Good luck.

 

[Jon L]

I have experience setting this up on a larger scale for a company I used to work for.

Unless you completely trust and have experience with the person you're sending, you're taking a really big risk. Especially on Craigs List. You probably have a 50/50 chance of things not working out well. Even if you hired a professional services firm, its still a risk because they might not do things exactly to your specification.

Your best bet might be a small IT services company. Check their references first though.

 

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[blackbrich]

All of your thoughts are similar to thoughts that have been going on in my mind.
Thank you all for the tips as well.

Thinking atm is going with a IT firm as a first option after getting some quotes, maybe use craigslist and references as a backup plan.

 

[Jon L]

in my company, I design the U/I and lay out the requirements for software that my dev team then writes. I am very, very detailed in my list of instructions. If I'm not, then assumptions get made, and the wrong software gets built.

I don't know the specifics of your project, but here's how I would lay it out:

I. Introduction - describe the overall project, and your goals. (Why is this project happening? What is the client hoping to get?)
II. Overall instructions, project plan, what constitutes a successful project?
III. Detailed instructions. Provide pictures if possible. Be very specific about each task
IV. What to do if things go wrong (phone number for them to call)..."If you're not sure, ask."

Depending on how complex the project is, you might need to have a meeting or three beforehand with the actual techs that are going to be doing the install. You can review the document you've created on this call and ask for questions.

 

[Ron Dee]

This might not help you right now but whenever I hire a new sub contractor I always start them out doing something relatively basic and see how they do before I send them out to interact directly with my customers. I of course then give them more and more responsibility.

 

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