"If you are new to the world of Virtual Workers, welcome. This is an exciting new world and there is a lot to learn. I have experience as an employer only, and have had some challenges that I consider wonderful learning experiences. I’m here to share them with you. Please keep in mind that all of my experiences have been from an employer point of view, on a website build. So my feedback will be more technical related.
Start Small
If you are just starting off, my first tip is to start small. Don’t write up a project for a full website build. Start with the homepage or navigation or something small, with a quick turnaround.
Define Prerequisites
If your project requires something, make sure that your worker knows about it and already has it. If you are using a certain language or a certain version of software, I advise that your worker has it installed and knows how to use it. Valuable days can be wasted waiting for software to be installed.
Define a Quick Turnaround
Your first deadline should be within 24 hours. Keep in mind that the worker has the right to back out in the first 24 hours (though I’m not sure how that relates to this). The first deadline should be a deliverable. You should see that the worker is able to connect and make a tiny modification that can only be made by using the information you gave them. For example, a good deadline might be to change something small on your website and make a small data change in the database. This shows database connections, as well as an understanding of code and successful test of FTP software connections.
Don’t Give out the Keys to the Castle
Your passwords are your company. When you start off with a worker, it’s exciting. In my experiences, every worker has been nice. Nice doesn’t always mean honest. I have never had an issue with a worker being malicious, but maybe that’s because I didn’t give out my passwords. I always have a second user account created for everything—one for me and one for my workers. Then if things go bad, I simply change passwords. Problem solved before it ever started.
Enter Arbitration on Monday or Tuesday
According to the rules, the worker has 3 business days to respond to your arbitration. If you don’t want your money tied up for 4-5 days, I suggest you start arbitration on a Monday or a Tuesday.
Be Honest with your Ratings
When you are done with your worker and you are setting a rating, you are not doing that for the worker, you are doing that for yourself. You are telling other employers your experiences. In the end, ratings are a big deciding factor in whether a worker is hired. If you rate everyone a 10, what will you rate someone that is great? If you have a poor experience, but rate the worker a 10, you are saying that you’d love to hire them again. If you take a minute and read the rating scale, a worker that gets a 10 really goes above and beyond in your project; meeting or exceeding deadlines, great communication, good suggestions on how to do it better than you asked for, and in the end you are saying “I plan on hiring this person again and again”."
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