A Sourcing Scavenger Hunt for Freelance and Contract Workers

As Jimmy Buffet once said, “Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of like a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.” Scavenger hunts can be fun especially when your search has paid off, and you have found that perfect lead.

Many companies use freelancers or independent contractors as a means to save money, increase flexibility and reduce training expenses. Examples of occupations for freelancers/independent contractors include:

Accountants
Court reporter
IT professional
Medical doctor
Nurse
Technical writer
Telephone and live chat psychic
Tradesman
Truck driver/operator
User experience consultant
User interface designer

Grab your map and compass to start the journey in locating individuals who may be the perfect lead for your search. Below are some clues (sites) that will lead you the winning lead.

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is an online community for members to discuss their programming knowledge and more.

X-raying into the site using – site:stackoverflow.com/user –login – yielded me too many results (41,600) but when I look for those who are a “designer” with a “Gmail account,” using “site:stackoverflow.com “I am a * designer” gmail.com,” and it became more manageable at 2,900 results.

Codeable

Codeable.io is an on-demand service for WordPress tasks and also a great place to find WordPress developers. Initially, I tried “site:codeable.io wordpress developer gmail.com,” and came upon the following results:

I could see a clue in the format of developers on the site and using “site:codeable.io/developers/*,” led me to 525 results, and categories of developers on the side, which will allow me to do a more targeted search.

Using the directory and choosing to find a MailChimp developer, “site:codeable.io/developers/* Mailchimp .”

Results, which included a directory of MailChimp developers, were a bonus. Clicking on individuals “show full profile” includes beneficial information, such as a location, LinkedIn URL (click to go to their profile), a brief bio, how they can help you and project ratings from those that have used the developer for past projects.

Crew.co

Crew.co is a site for freelance developers, programmers, and designers. Going to the site, I was able to see what they specialize in and get clues into the titles of individuals.

In many locations too!

I have a fabulous opportunity in the Montreal area for Ruby developers so I used “crew.co/developers “ruby” Montréal.” Opening one of the results led me to some individuals with first name, and their locations.

Choosing Ehsan as an example, I built a Boolean string to run in Google using what information was on Crew, including “Ehsan ruby Montréal,” which led me to his GitHub, his LinkedIn account and his last name.

Freelancer

Employers can hire freelancers to do work in areas such as software development, writing, data entry and design, right through to engineering, the sciences, sales and marketing, accounting and legal services through Freelancer. But you can do a simple Boolean to find freelancers for your industry. Looking for legal consultants, one might try “site:freelancer.com legal consultant –job.”

The returned results can tell you their location and oftentimes, their full name, a brief summary, reviews, rater per hour ($) and profile. I pulled one of my results and, as you can see, it does not give me his full name but enough for me to try and figure it out. I am going to use “Beckom, attorney and California” to try and find this individual.

And results gave me back his name, location of office, website and more.

Gigster 2.0

Have you heard of Gigster? This site is an invite-only network of world-class developers, designers, and product managers, and touts over 1,000 on their waitlist to join the site. Using simple Boolean: “gigster.com “web designer,” I came up with over 2,000 results. Maybe you need a JavaScript web designer in Austin?

Guru

How about that search for freelancers who specialize in programming, design, writing or sales? Using https://www.guru.com/d/freelancers/, I found a full web stack developer in Bulgaria and decided to dive further into the individual’s profile.

This particular developer’s profile gave me his location, information about his skillset and his hourly rate.

I found a LinkedIn profile, which I can now get more information and send a LinkedIn InMail message, if he is the perfect candidate for me to contact.

Peopleperhour

PeoplePerHour gives access to freelance experts located throughout the entire continent. Noting the “Browse” tab, there are severa; options you can choose: browse jobs, browse hourlies and browse freelancers.

I chose the “browse freelancers” option and over 75,000 results were returned. I can narrow it down based on location, language, per hour rate, CERT ranking and projects completed. There is also an option for choosing someone available now and who has a portfolio.

I am looking for someone who has experience with Python, lives in the United States and has a portfolio. My search led to 24 results returned.

Choosing one of the individuals in my results, a web developer, I can see:

If I click the “more” option, I get a pop-up, which gives me a mini bio on Daniel.

I bet you’re wondering what is Daniel’s last name, since he only gave “Daniel L.” as his name on the profile. Never fear, I have a solution for that! If you look under the seller stats on the freelancers profile page, you will notice an option you can click, such as in my example “View Daniel.”

Voila! My results are very fruitful! Notice in the returned results that you can see his name, Daniel Lyons. I can now use various other methods I have to find Daniel and his information.

By 2020, a study by Intuit estimated over 40% of the American workforce will be independent workers, freelancers, contractors and temporary employees. Businesses will need to find more qualified candidates in the future to address their business needs, using freelance websites to find leads will give you a winning advantage.