How do you process these things? I can’t work with seventy freelancers. The applications vary wildly — in the quality of writing, in the relevance of information, in the presence or not of a CV. This post is an attempt to work out a strategy for filtering through all this and making sense of everyone’s information.

After thinking a bit, I’ve settled on a three-stage process:

1. Be ruthless: pare down the applications to those that are completely relevant
2. Go into detail: read the applications and pick those which stand out
3. Finally, call people: speak to the best applicants by phone

Be Ruthless

So, to begin with, I’ll throw out any application which:

• Isn’t directly relevant — I asked for freelancers: many people have replied as if I was advertising a permanent employment contract. Points off for not reading the advert.
• Uses txt speak, or is unusually abrupt — several people sent one-line replies that didn’t include their name (the worst: “plz send me more information about this job.thnks”). They’re out.
• Is too long. With respect to people who are desperate for a job, I don’t want to read a two-page email about your work history — that should go in your CV.

I should say that some applications came from people whose first language is other than English: for them, my language criteria won’t be so strict :-)

The basic idea here is to filter out the people who don’t meet the basic criteria of good communication skills and attention to detail. It’s amazing how many people aren’t up to scratch at this point — just by having read the advert properly, and replied politely, 25% of applicants are already ahead of the field.

Go Into Detail

After getting rid of the chaff, I hope to look through the remaining applications and work out who has the skills I’m looking for: good communication, attention to detail, professionalism, and of course the ability to provide IT support.

At this stage, I’ll also be keeping an eye open for stuff like exaggeration and irrelevant or missing information. If people have missed an important piece of information that I clearly asked for, that’s points off. If the information is blatantly off-topic, that’s also bad. In short, I’m after clear and concise application forms that answer my questions.

Call People

This comes last: only when I’ve got a good shortlist will I call people and speak to them about their experience in IT support. Everything I’ve mentioned above is as important as experience: you might be great with computers, but if you can’t answer questions or read a job application properly, you’re not what I’m looking for.

The second aim of calling people will be to find out what they’re like — friendly, gruff, impatient, calm? Because I want these people to work with my clients, I need them to be approachable and relaxed.

Conclusions

What’s struck me most about this process is the number of bad applications I got. I’d say 50% of the replies I sent involved me correcting someone about a misapprehension: usually the idea that I’m looking for contract employees. Maybe the quality of job hunters on Gumtree is lower than normal (sorry Gumtree users!), or maybe it’s the fault of the ad I wrote.

I hope it’s not the second but just to make sure, the full text of the advert follows at the end of this post. And if you take anything away from my ramblings, make it this: get the basics right on a job application, and you’ll already be ahead of the pack.

Website design firm looking for friendly, reliable Windows support professionals to work with us on a freelance basis.

We’re looking for people to help our clients set up their new email accounts. If you can guide people through a tangled web of POP, IMAP, and Outlook Express, we’d like to hear from you!

== How To Apply

Please email James Wilding (through Gumtree) and we’ll send you more details.

== About Us

We’re a website design and development firm based in Wiltshire. We build websites for small and medium-sized businesses.