Working With Contractors Made Easy

In the first part of this series, we talked about the sorts of things you’ll need to plan for when you decide to hire contractors. We discussed writing a descriptive job ad, and looked at a few key locations for finding contractors. This week, we tackle the challenge of weeding through applicants to find your dream contractor.

Qualification and Trials

Once you’ve identified one or more potential contractors, it’s time to begin the qualification process. The goal is to work out a standard process that you can use to quickly decide if a candidate is worth trying out. It’s at this point that the real nitty-gritty assessment begins; the tone of the entire business relationship can also be set during this time.

Qualification begins with a few pre-trial checks that basically represent due diligence. These include:

1. Reference check
   
2. Verification of sample work
   
3. Phone interview
   
4. Face to face interview

Reference Checks - Getting the Real Story

Reference checking is a fine art, but is easily accomplished if you can just get the whole thing into perspective. Keep these concepts in mind as you check out new contractors:

Not What, But Who

A reference should be evaluated based on who the reference is rather than what they say. Everyone knows that when a prospective employee or contractor provides references, they’ll provide contact details for people who’ve already agreed to give glowing, flowery references for them.

There’s nothing wrong with that -- we’ve all done it -- but it certainly makes the actual reference call less valuable. What you really want to see is who the candidate provided as a reference. The call itself simply confirms that the reference exists and has completed good work for the referee.

Remember that the references you receive are the most impressive references the contractor could come up with. You can learn a lot by assessing the ‘who’ rather than the ‘what’. For example, consider:

• Is the reference from a recent client, or one from the distant past? If it’s not recent, why not? I find it suspicious when the reference hasn’t actually worked with the person for 4 years, and none of the recent clients are provided as referees.
• What role does the reference hold within the company? Are they in the department that actually worked with the contractor, or are they a lower-level person the contractor simply got along with? I hope to see a reference from the highest-level stakeholder involved in the project.

Though the ‘who’ of their referees can provide great insight into a candidate, asking those referees some of the ‘what’ questions can be very telling, too. Sometimes, the most basic question can reveal a lot about the actual work in question.

For example:

• Was the project successful? Is it still in production?
• How do you know the contractor? Did you know them prior to the project?
• What was your role in the project? Were you responsible for its success?
• Would you hire them again? Did you hire them again? If no, why not? Was someone else hired to do similar work at a later date?

The Trial

Once the qualification process is complete and you’re satisfied with the results, it’s time to move on to the most important step in the process, the trial-project. This should be real, paid project, and not an internal or obviously unimportant task.